AKUTR's columnist and QPR blogger Dave Barton reflects on a dramatic final day of the season at Loftus Road.
The day started like any other Saturday, my two year old son Freddie woke up stupidly early wanting his breakfast and I tried to pretend I didn’t hear him until several punches in the ribs from my wife indicated to me that I should get up and feed him.
I entertained him during his bowl of cheerio’s by singing QPR songs to him which he dances along to and he now understands that Kevin Gallen is magic and that Paddy Kenny is going to have a party with a friend named Charlie.
The morning all felt a little odd thanks to a mixture of lots of things. The Leeds match was the first time my wife Carly and I had gone to a game together since Newcastle away last season. We used to go to every game together home and away until our son was born and since then the poor woman has had to sit at home all season hearing about every victory through text messages and drunken full time phone calls from me which usually just involve me shouting “You R's” at her followed by various other songs.
She knew when we had lost as the phone call would be half an hour after the final whistle and be slightly less euphoric but luckily she didn't have to put up with too many of those.
My emotions were all over the place as I spent the morning checking my phone every 40 seconds for news from the FA, logging onto my laptop to check Loft for Words and Paul Smith's Twitter page and going over the million different scenarios I had imagined during a week without sleeping. The whole sorry episode made me quite ill - my asthma played up badly and I struggled with my breathing all week. It is embarrassing to admit this FA hearing got me in such a state it affected my health but that’s what happened.
On the way to my mums to drop Freddie off I read a great article by Stan Bowles in The Tmes talking about his career and the current side. I’ve never read comments from him talking so passionately about the club, he'd always came across as a bit aloof about Rangers but his love for us really shone through in that article.
The weather was pretty gloomy at this stage as we dropped him off in his QPR shirt and my mum took him for the day and my dad was strangely organised enough to be ready when we arrived so came to the pub with us. I say strangely as my Dad, who will probably kill me when he reads this, is well known for leaving things late and peaked at Cardiff a few weeks back when he rang me five minutes before the train was leaving to say he was at Lancaster Gate. He made the train to Wales with a handful of seconds to go and calmly walked through the carriage as if nothing had happened to a big cheer from all of us before cracking open the first beer of the day.
We had a few beers in The Conningham - meeting up with the usual friends who are more like a family. We tried to enjoy ourselves but all we could talk about was the hearing and the worry about it, we said we were going to enjoy the day regardless but we all knew deep down we couldn't.
An open top bus with a QPR flag on drove past full of Rangers fans drinking and singing which cheered me up and my mates Phil and Simon bought me a QPR shirt as thanks for getting the away tickets all season which was brilliant of them but then came the 'JFK moment' as Neil Warnock puts it. At around noon I was watching the big queue at the bar thinking 'shall I just go and have a beer in the ground' when we heard a cheer from outside where a few hundred fans were standing near the Conningham and British Queen.
We all looked a bit confused and then a bloke ran in and shouted "It's a fine, It's a fine", it was a bit like in Blazing Saddles when the message gets shouted across the town and ends up being “the sheriff is near” when I expected the original message was quite different so despite the cheers in the pub I was straight on my phone as were many others checking to see if it was true.
Nothing on the offish but it was on the BBC site according to Dan Rohan so I was still 50/50. Due to the euphoria around me I spotted an opening at the bar so queued for a drink instead then it came through, my mate got a text alert from the club and I turned to see my mates and their dad jumping up and down hugging and cheering.
I just breathed a huge sigh of relief and hugged the nearest person I could find who thankfully didn't punch me but hugged back. It was quite a moment. Relief is the best way to describe it, relief and a bit of confusion as to why they couldn't have announced that a day earlier.
The mood everywhere changed, you could not wipe the smiles of peoples face and the sun seemed to come out instantly and shine down on us.
As we walked down Ellerslie Road a few Leeds fans were trying to pick a fight with some QPR fans who just looked too happy to care and laughed at them. I got my AKUTRS from Julie and several people were hugging her.
Inside the ground it was a sea of blue and white, fair play to the club those flags were a bloody great idea and Loftus Road was a very special place. I’ve never seen it looking quite so beautiful - it was a mixture of the colour, the flags and the sheer joy in everyone’s faces and it all culminated in Helguson scoring after 30 seconds and I thought I was going to burst with joy. This was turning into one of the best days of my life.
The rest of the game was a bit dull and even the atmosphere dropped a bit as it all started to sink in and I think the players were looking like they just wanted the game to end. We almost had the perfect ending to the season with Dan Shittu’s shot, if that had gone I think I’d have probably died on the spot with a joy attack.
The inevitable pitch invasion followed which was all a bit unnecessary with most running to the away end to have a go at the Leeds fans but it was cleared pretty quickly by a group of stewards all holding hands them slowly moving back, it was an impressive sight and I half expected them to start singing 'We are the World' as they did it. As the pitch was cleared the stage was set up for us to lift a trophy, the same stage I’ve seen set up two years ago when West Brom won it at QPR.
That was the moment I started to reflect on it all and what we had been through for the last fifteen years. I was twenty years old when we were relegated, a few months away from going to University. Since we last played a Premier league game I have graduated from uni, worked for three British television channels, been married and had a son, Paul Furlong went from being a comedy ex-Chelsea signing to one of my all time favourite players and I had the misfortune to watch QPR at Port Vale on more than one occasion - all this in what I expected to be just one season out of the top flight.
My wife Carly pointed out something I never realised at the end of the game, we were sat in the seats we were in the night we lost to Vauxhall Motors,. I can’t believe I’d not noticed this before but we sat with my dad that night as it was empty and now have a season ticket in those same seats next to him due to being priced out of the P Block. Memories of that night came back of Carly sobbing uncontrollably as a works team celebrated beating us, without doubt the lowest of the low.
My mind went back to Huddersfield when they relegated us in the last minute and when I collapsed on the floor crying my eyes out like I hadn’t done since I was child at Wembley in 1986. I thought of the QPR 1st town hall meeting which had come a week or so before and another one a year later when the club really was in danger of being no more.
Those of us lucky to be in the town hall on those nights won’t forget the passionate and highly emotional speeches made by the likes of Joe Hylton, Dave Thomas, Tracy Stent and Justin Pieris among others about what QPR means to them and to us, it was a very emotional evening that one and finished off by an inspirational talk from Ian Holloway which had several people in tears at the end of it.
I hate the phrase it’s been a journey, it’s all very X Factor, but that is kind of how I feel about the last ten years. I’ve seen so many highs and lows in that time from administration and not knowing if we’d have a club to support, to winning a playoff semi final to winning promotion then several relegation battles, false hope, crap players and now this, I was abut to see QPR win the league and lift the trophy we should have got in 1976 two months after I was born.
I had always wanted us to win that beautiful piece of silverware, the one I had always seen such teams as Everton, Liverpool and Arsenal win as a kid. It is an iconic trophy. I remember coming home from QPR after an opening day win over Palace in 1989, I said to my Dad as we walked home, “I think this could be our year, we could win the league”. My dad laughed then quickly corrected himself to say of course we have a chance but he had let it slip and I kind of accepted I would never see us win that trophy - or so we thought. On Saturday May 7, 2011 we saw QPR lift that trophy and be crowned the English football league champions. Ok it’s just Division Two winners in old money but my way sounds better.
As the players came out two by two to huge roars it dawned on me that this was it, I was going to see QPR lift a trophy. I felt kind of numb like it wasn’t real. I was seeing a QPR player lift up that trophy as we were announced champions, I felt like I was hit by a thunderbolt and a few tears of joy rolled down my cheek.
The players went on a lap of honour with their families stopping for interviews and photos whilst we sang along to we are the champions and various other song. My mate Phil refused to join in with Three Lions as it was, in his words “an FA song, they can shove that.”
A few players spoke over the public address system but I couldn’t really make out what they were saying. Someone thought it would be a good idea to interview Gianni Paladini on the pitch, the booing from the stands when his face appeared on the big screen showed that wasn’t the best idea.
We took photos; we cheered and waited for the players and the trophy to reach us. As the players had a team photo we saw just a few feet in front of us on the pitch was Lakshmi Mittal. We sang “There’s only one Mittal” at him and he looked a bit shocked as he turned to us with at look that said “are you singing about me” and gave us a big smile and wave. I had just serenaded the richest person I am ever likely to see up close, I am sure he was thrilled.
One sad sight was seeing Martin Rowlands on the pitch kind of standing back from it all, he didn’t want to be in the team photo but just stood and watched letting the rest of the squad take the plaudits. He gave a shy wave to The Loft then walked away. Although the credit on the day was all going to the manager players like Rowlands and others like Bircham, Cook, Ainsworth, Gallen, Padula and Furlong shouldn’t be forgotten in playing a huge role in getting this club back to this division and keeping us here to allow the money men to arrive at Rangers and take us to the next level. That was probably the last time I’ll see Martin Rowlands as a QPR player and it was a sad way to see him leave.
The trophy was just coming into sight when a few hundred idiots decided they had seen enough and ran on the pitch again so off went the players and trophy and our chance to see QPR players up close with a trophy was gone. It was pretty selfish of those who went on a second time and I didn’t really see the point of that pitch invasion.
That looked the end of it all as the stewards tried to do the We are the World hand holding move again but it failed this time and an announcement was read out saying Warnock was going to speak from the directors' box so we all just gave in and went on the pitch as well. I’ve no idea what Warnock said but we got a few photos and commented about how nice the grass was. My wife said the pitch smelt of sweaty men but then it would do with several thousand men jumping up and down on the pitch.
After a wander on the pitch and the realisation that Loftus Road is tiny when you look at it from the pitch we made our way back to the Conningham for a promotion party. The drinks sort of flowed as the queue for the bar got ridiculous and like most other people we just ended up buying beer in the co-op and drinking outside. Many fans had champagne, the songs kept coming and my mate Dean waved his flag like an enthusiastic two year old.
It was a great time to be alive. We had mixed news with the results coming through from elsewhere, great that Barnet stayed up but I felt for our mate Jen who also supports Shrewsbury and missed out on promotion on the last day.
My son arrived at around six and was quite happy playing football with a balloon and waving his flag in the air. He quickly learnt the words to the 'up the Football League we go' song and now screams "EE-I-EE-I-O" at me every morning wanting to hear that song again.
The police decided too many people were having a good time so shut down the three pubs in that area so we headed to the Crown & Sceptre which had also been shut by the police, the fella in the off licence welcomed us with open arms though so the drinking continued.
My wife laughed saying "that bloke looks like Kevin Gallen" as we stood on the street outside the Crown & Sceptre. I told her she was stupid until seeing the pictures on Facebook a day later and realising that Gallen was in fact leading the singing out on the streets of Shepherds Bush.
As the night drew in my wife and son went home and myself, my dad plus Phil and Simon carried on drinking in Askew Road where I was refused service for wearing a QPR shirt and we all sang the Match of the Day theme tune. My vague final memories of the day are Simon running off the bus near Hammersmith shouting “The party is not over” and running into the darkness of Hammersmith.
Later that night I got home where my wife informed me the next day I staggered in wearing my flag as a cape shouting that I was not going to be moved until we won the Championship, turns out I was moved as I spent the night asleep on the sofa as the recording of the Leeds game played to itself on my TV.
It was an incredible day, one of the best of my life and seeing QPR lift that trophy was everything I had hoped for and more. It’s been a great season one that I didn’t expect when it started last August.
For what it’s worth my favourite away day was Cardiff, great stadium, atmosphere and result although the last three minutes at Derby were special, best goal has to be Taarabt’s second v Swansea, player of the year has to be Taarabt and best side I saw us play all season was probably Watford at home.
The next time I see QPR play we will be a Premier League team and we’ll have some exciting games to look forward to but I very much doubt we’ll ever top the feeling we had on May 7, 2011 when QPR finally won the league.
Visit Dave's website by clicking on the banner above for comprehensive history, stats and player profiles from the world of QPR. Read his regular column in A Kick Up The R's.