| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. 08:34 - Apr 11 with 4224 views | Deatho |
I don't post often but decided to write this as a sort of therapy the day after the Wigan game.
QPR: A Lesson in Life
It’s the day after QPR loaded up the final bullet in the gun and placed it under their chin and blew away any chance of Premier League survival.
I feel numb...once again we blew it. A great chance to keep the slim survival hopes alive and a catalogue of stupid mistakes robs us of a precious 3 points, 3 points we fully deserved.
A man down for a full 70 minutes, we fought like lions but 20 seconds of that, the huge all conquering lion turned into a pussy cat, a brainless one at that. You see QPR do not do things normally, never have, never will.
The reason I have decided to put this down into words is I want my unborn son, who will inevitably end up supporting QPR, to know that having QPR in your life is ok, in fact it’s more than ok. It’s great.
The purpose they give you, the lows, the highs, the unpredictability rarely matched at other clubs, the disappointment, the hope, the faith but more importantly, the life skills you inherit for loving a great club like QPR.
If my Dad influenced me to support Man Utd what would I have learnt?
Winning comes easy and losing rarely happens.
In life, winning doesn’t come easy. It takes a mixture of ingredients with the main one being hard work.
I firmly believe if you work hard in life, you will get your rewards.
QPR have taught me how to lose and given me plenty of practice in the 30 years I have supported them. Just like in life, you need to lose before you can win, that’s the only way to really feel the jubilation winning brings.
I look back at my time supporting QPR and it mirrors a rollercoaster. My earliest memory was watching the Milk Cup Final against Oxford on tV (my Dad wouldn’t let me go as he said I was too short for the terraces) at 7 years old, I was gutted. I watched the build up and the goals they showed of my then hero, Gary Bannister.
I was sat about 3 feet away from the TV that day and QPR were favourites to win!
The unpredictability I mentioned earlier struck, we lost 3-0.
How could this happen I thought? Everyone said we would win?!
QPR didn’t turn up that day, my two older brothers who I thought were the luckiest kids in the world to be going to Wembley, came home deflated.
I made a vow that day never to go to Wembley unless it’s to watch QPR play. No gig in the world involving the best bands would get me there, I was saving my first experience of the home of football for a QPR performance...I’m still waiting and an updated Wembley still awaits my visit.
10 years ago, QPR got to a play off final, with Wembley being ripped down and brought in line with the modern era, I had to settle for the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff (damn Wembley, one day) we had to play, you guessed it, Cardiff that day.
A rejuvenated QPR, fighting their way back up the leagues more than matched the welsh side. It went into extra time and the last kick of the game ended up in our net. We lost 1-0 and had to endure a 4 hour coach journey home and the prospect of another season in the old third tier.
That loss hurt and you don’t always get what you deserve in football.
Before my time, QPR got to another League Cup final in 1967. We were again in the third tier of the English leagues and were up against current League Cup holders, West Brom who were in the first division. 2-0 down at half time, the lower league side would be put away by 4 or 5 goals....so they thought.
This is QPR remember, we came back that day to win 3-2 and it just reinforces what I have learnt since I followed them You just never know what’s going to happen with QPR.
Since I have supported them we have been relegated 2 times, won promotion twice and won zero cups.
The year after the Cardiff loss, Ian Holloway and a crop of QPR supporting players finally got back into the 2nd tier by finishing 2nd with a great 3-1 away win to Sheffield Wednesday. What a day that was. So proud of my team that day, I felt like we had won the Champions League and the special feeling of supporting QPR was never more evident. It also was a huge step in coming back after losing Premier League status in 1996 and free falling from that point onwards. We fell into administration and into the 3rd division. We had zero money, 8 players at the club, two of them on crutches and out for a year and one goalkeeper. Ian Holloway, a former player and then manager, somehow managed to build a team to compete that year.
The QPR fans sensed they were needed more than ever. We all came together like a huge family and attendances even went up despite playing in the lower leagues.
The togetherness we all felt as buckets were out and money was raised to buy a new player was unreal. Through all my school life, QPR were a Premier League side, a team who finished 5th in the early nineties and shocked the big clubs on a regular basis. Les Ferdinand, Trevor Sinclair, Ray Wilkins, Alan McDonald, David Bardsley, Clive Wilson, David Seaman, Andy Sinton.....all great players who made me proud to support QPR and my school life a lot easier than it could have been with the London raised Man Utd and Liverpool fans boasting league titles despite never watching their team.
Despite all this, I was loving going to watch QPR more than ever. Away trips to Luton, Swindon & Coventry were no match for Man Utd’s ground or Man City’s but the pride we all felt as we were squashed in the tiny away ends made us feel a part of something special and QPR were fighting back after years of struggling. Once we gained that promotion, QPR parted ways with Ian Holloway which hurt me. A man who had saved us and forced to leave under a new regime which didn’t feel like the QPR I knew and loved. We then turned into a joke, no other word for it. Rich Formula 1 owners came in and tried picking the team. We had money but our soul was being sucked from Loftus Road. We went through a shocking amount of permanent and caretaker managers before finally giving Neil Warnock the job and left him alone to manage the team.
The next season, we were champions and back in the Premier League after 15 long, hard years of trying.
After what we had been through, we were back and with Tony Fernandes coming in to purchase us with Amit Bhatia, surely we could make a great go of the Premier League just like the early 90’s.
We had got our Rangers back and in typical QPR fashion, went straight into the bottom half and eventually the bottom 3 and stayed there until the last day of the season where we faced the soon to be champions of England, Man City. Man City was the richest team in the world and would steamroller us right? Wrong. QPR, down to 10 men again, got in front at 2-1 and held on until the very last minute when City snatched a winner to take the title and win 3-2. Just before that winner went in, QPR were made safe by a draw between Stoke and Bolton and half our team switched off. I still believe if QPR needed a point that day we would have got it.
From 10 years ago to this season, we now had more money than sense and the QPR board trusted Mark Hughes with the money to bring success to us. This was the most exciting time ever to support QPR. Survive the first year and build on the second season.
First game up and we lost 5-0 at home to Swansea, did I say we were unpredictable?? The same Swansea we battered 4-0 only months before in our title winning season.
The new signings we made didn’t care and we didn’t win until Hughes got the sack and Harry Redknapp was brought in to save our club who were rock bottom and winless. The soul of the club had been sucked away again by mercenaries who only saw us as a pay day. Our fans kept going, packing out away grounds only to see us lose and lose again. Our championship winning team, ripped to shred by Hughes, only had a few survivors left and they remained our best players despite earning 10% of what these other so called stars.
The damage had been done, Redknapp can’t save us and we are currently 7 points adrift of safety with 6 games to play.
We will go down and fight on, that’s what we do and years of hurt will be smashed to pieces but a glorious day again.
Bankrupty, tragic early deaths of two promising players, Meningitis scare, a gun pulled on a director before a game, an owner picking the team.....it sounds like a soap opera but this is QPR, a club to be proud of and who boasts some of the best fans in the world.
Without our fans, we don’t have a club. We already proved that when we came back from the brink. Our fans have been through every emotion, you can’t predict what’s going to happen down Loftus Road or wherever we end up playing but what I can say is, I wouldn’t swap them for any other team. They are my team and always will be. Players come and go, some leave as legends, some are kicked out the door for lack of effort. I am hoping in 6 games time, the latter happens to quite a few of them.
Tony Fernandes is a good man and I hope he is here for a long time. He has done everything asked of him to try and make QPR a force. Maybe he tried to do it too quickly but by the time you read this son, you will know whether he succeeded or not.
Life will kick you where it hurts whenever it feels like it, when you get up and give them a rub, QPR will still be there for you, no matter what.
Either way, taking you to watch the finest football team in the land, Queens Park Rangers, will be one of the best feelings in life. As you climb the stairs and see the pitch for the first time, you will be hooked for life, just like I am. |  | | |  |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 08:55 - Apr 11 with 4186 views | superhooper83 |
Very Good :) He'll already be hooked before he gets to read it! Hopefully we'll be back in the prem then too!! |  | | |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:03 - Apr 11 with 4171 views | Toast_R |
Great peice. 
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| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:03 - Apr 11 with 4170 views | Deatho |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 08:55 - Apr 11 by superhooper83 |
Very Good :) He'll already be hooked before he gets to read it! Hopefully we'll be back in the prem then too!! |
Thank you.
Yes I'm sure he will be hooked early on just like us all. Our club is special and the innocence of youth spots that early. | | | |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:04 - Apr 11 with 4168 views | Deatho |
Thank you Toast_R | | | |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:06 - Apr 11 with 4166 views | hoopstilidie |
I saw this on your blog.
Love it. |  |
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| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:13 - Apr 11 with 4149 views | Esgaroth |
Lump in the throat stuff there and it does make you realise how farkin good it is to be a QPR fan
Been hooked since 1984 |  |
| Been here since 1984. Now THAT is what you call punishment |
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| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:21 - Apr 11 with 4134 views | Deatho |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:13 - Apr 11 by Esgaroth |
Lump in the throat stuff there and it does make you realise how farkin good it is to be a QPR fan
Been hooked since 1984 |
Thank you. The great times, however few and far between, will always outweigh the bad times at our wonderful club. | | | |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:29 - Apr 11 with 4125 views | FFE |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:21 - Apr 11 by Deatho |
Thank you. The great times, however few and far between, will always outweigh the bad times at our wonderful club. |
What a fantastic read, top work fella. |  |
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| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:33 - Apr 11 with 4119 views | Deatho |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:29 - Apr 11 by FFE |
What a fantastic read, top work fella. |
Thanks very much, really kind of you. | | | |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:42 - Apr 11 with 4109 views | toboboly |
Hope he gets to a new generation of Ainsworth's, Gallen's, Cook's and Rowland's and the proper QPR of old. |  |
| Sexy Asian dwarves wanted. |
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| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:45 - Apr 11 with 4106 views | Deatho |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:42 - Apr 11 by toboboly |
Hope he gets to a new generation of Ainsworth's, Gallen's, Cook's and Rowland's and the proper QPR of old. |
It would be great, they are still my favourite days of supporting QPR.
Great avatar by the way, is that Sebastian Haff or Elvis ;) | | | |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:51 - Apr 11 with 4092 views | Phildo |
A letter to my 12 year old ad 10 year old season ticket holding sons re QPR:
Dear Lads,
Sorry
Love Dad |  | | |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:54 - Apr 11 with 4085 views | PeterHucker |
Great stuff, so where's this blog then?? |  | | |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:59 - Apr 11 with 4072 views | toboboly |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:45 - Apr 11 by Deatho |
It would be great, they are still my favourite days of supporting QPR.
Great avatar by the way, is that Sebastian Haff or Elvis ;) |
No-one quite knows....  | |
| Sexy Asian dwarves wanted. |
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| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:59 - Apr 11 with 4068 views | TheBlob |
Tell him to stay in the womb. |  |
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| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 10:02 - Apr 11 with 4053 views | Deatho |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 09:54 - Apr 11 by PeterHucker |
Great stuff, so where's this blog then?? |
It's the only blog entry so far but hoping to add to it. | | | |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 11:07 - Apr 11 with 4001 views | johnswiltsqpr |
Actually brought a tear, I have twin boys who are 16 months, I have done something similar in their keep sake books. To take them for the first time will be the best feeling ever. I remember my first game and it got me from then so I hope it will get them too. |  | | |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 11:17 - Apr 11 with 3983 views | Deatho |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 11:07 - Apr 11 by johnswiltsqpr |
Actually brought a tear, I have twin boys who are 16 months, I have done something similar in their keep sake books. To take them for the first time will be the best feeling ever. I remember my first game and it got me from then so I hope it will get them too. |
Thanks for reading it. I'm sure they will all be hooked, that's what QPR does to us. | | | |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 11:45 - Apr 11 with 3958 views | MrNITK |
Love it.
My two brothers are QPR fans, my uncles a QPR fan, my Grandad's a QPR fan and my two nephews are QPR fans.
Football creates so many bonds with family and friends. I know it's hard at the moment with all the disappointment and expense but any R's fan must encourage their family to become a QPR fan.
My sister who was never into football her boys a Gooner, needless to say he's my least favourite nephew.
I couldn't make the away game at Southampton because I had to work at the last minute. My brother said his boys were gutted that I wasn't there with them. From the moment I couldn't go I knew we'd win. I missed that joy, that rare win, that rare celebration and joyous moment with your family and fellow R's fans. There will be plenty of others for me to enjoy.
I also look forward to taking my boy (when he's old enough) to his first game knowing he like my family and so many other R's fans will be a proper football supporter! |  | | |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 12:04 - Apr 11 with 3946 views | Deatho |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 11:45 - Apr 11 by MrNITK |
Love it.
My two brothers are QPR fans, my uncles a QPR fan, my Grandad's a QPR fan and my two nephews are QPR fans.
Football creates so many bonds with family and friends. I know it's hard at the moment with all the disappointment and expense but any R's fan must encourage their family to become a QPR fan.
My sister who was never into football her boys a Gooner, needless to say he's my least favourite nephew.
I couldn't make the away game at Southampton because I had to work at the last minute. My brother said his boys were gutted that I wasn't there with them. From the moment I couldn't go I knew we'd win. I missed that joy, that rare win, that rare celebration and joyous moment with your family and fellow R's fans. There will be plenty of others for me to enjoy.
I also look forward to taking my boy (when he's old enough) to his first game knowing he like my family and so many other R's fans will be a proper football supporter! |
Brilliant post. Just sums up how we all feel supporting QPR. Whatever happens we are all in it together. | | | |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 13:04 - Apr 11 with 3907 views | TGRRRSSS |
Brilliant post and sums up QPR in a nutshell - hope that blogs gets viral cos it should be and show the Talksport type scum who we really are. |  | | |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 13:50 - Apr 11 with 3866 views | Deatho |
| A letter to my unborn son about why QPR are great. on 13:04 - Apr 11 by TGRRRSSS |
Brilliant post and sums up QPR in a nutshell - hope that blogs gets viral cos it should be and show the Talksport type scum who we really are. |
Thanks very much. Talksport wouldn't know about a club like QPR even if it jumped up and bit them on the arse. The whole station and its presenters are there to antagonise. It's a shame because there aren't many stations who have a great sporting in put and they abuse the privilege. | | | |
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