The first of our three part awayday catch up, taking in the final three road games of the season, looks at the four goal hammering at Leicester City.
1 – The Match Something of a disaster from a QPR point of view, and a much needed boost for Leicester after a poor run of results that had left them glancing nervously over their shoulders at the chasing pack. Leicester were strong right down the spine of the team with Weale, Brown, Wellens and Howard providing an excellent platform for the likes of Waghorn to showcase their abilities. QPR did their bit as well - weak in the tackle and lacking shape and discipline the R’s waved Leicester through for a fifth minute opener and then having been well in a pretty even game for the majority of the first half thereafter gifted the home side a second before the break when Ikeme got caught in no mans’ land and presented the ball straight to Waghorn who rolled it into the empty net. Things got worse after half time as first Taarabt conceded possession allowing Waghorn to get the QPR defence back peddling again before firing in off the underside of the bar. Then late on Howard confirmed his total physical dominance of the visiting centre backs by manoeuvring himself into a position to guide a header in off the post for 4-0. A slightly flattering scoreline for the hosts, but they deserved to win and win comfortably. For the neutral, disappointingly one sided although Martyn Waghorn’s performance and second goal was probably worth a good chunk of the admission fee.
6/10
2 – QPR performance Neil Warnock actually claimed afterwards that he felt his side could have won the game, despite going down four nil. You can sort of see where he’s coming from as Rangers were well I the game during the first half only to gift Leicester a killer second before half time. Overall though this was a dire display. As happened at Preston the QPR centre backs were completely battered by a rudimentary, physical lump of a striker – Steve Howard played the Jon Parkin role on this occasion, and if the R’s have any ambitions to go anywhere over the next eighteen months they really need to be able to cope better with such an obvious and predictable threat. The main difference between the sides was the spine running down each of them – Weale in goal for Leicester dealt with everything with a calm authority while Ikeme cost Rangers at least one goal and was poor throughout, that’s just how it goes sometimes, the week before Ikeme was outstanding and Weale was letting the only goal of the game at Derby squirm under his foot and into the net. As said Rangers’ centre halves had a bad day while at the other end Wayne Brown was solid as a rock. In midfield Mikele Leigertwood had his worst game for some time, giving the ball away an inordinate amount of times even for him, against Wellens who bossed the game. And up front Leicester had Howard battering his way through with Waghorn excelling in a supporting role while Rangers had Taarabt trying and failing to beat the whole of Leicester by himself and Simpson feeding on scraps and missing the half chances when they came along. Throw in Matt Hill at left back, abysmal again, Lee Cook completely useless out of position wide right and Hogan Ephraim doing nothing to justify his selection ahead of Cook in his favoured left wing role and all in all it was not a good day at the office for the R’s.
3/10
3 – QPR support A reasonably easy trip by road and rail as away days in the Championship go, and the R’s took around 800 fans with them, many of whom had gone well before the end as the scoreline totted up. I include myself in that, a fourth blast of that God awful Kasabian track and chavs dancing was all too much to bear for me and several others. Still, I expect those that travelled to remember both the “loyal supporters” and “we’ll never play you again” chants as we now know Leicester bollocksed their precious play off spot right up with the worst penalty ever taken and will now sadly have to play us twice within the next 12 months and their fans have never been shy of leaving early when we’ve been beating them too.
5/10
4 - Atmosphere We didn’t even have the giant drummer to distract us from the unpleasantness down on the pitch. Cruel taunts about an inevitable impending heart attack and inability to look at his own penis without erecting a scaffold and buying a big mirror first are often all we have to amuse ourselves at the Walkers Stadium as the world’s fattest man hammers seven bells of shit out of a drum so large it has its own platform at the back of the stand. Sadly he wasn’t there for our visit, and event so unusual and momentous that it was noted in the matchday programme. His replacement wasn’t nearly as fat, or as funny, or as good with the drum, so we were forced into watching the football for our entertainment. Leicester have a new ground which, like all new grounds, is completely silent and lifeless on three sides. In the remaining corner you have the away fans flanked as close as possible by 1000 chavs who are allowed to stand up and do whatever they want in the general direction of the travelling support. So as far as atmosphere goes it was basically QPR fans sitting grumpily while the barrel scrapings of Leicester’s society (not an Asian face amongst them I may add) danced, hugged and swore their way through four goals, each followed by that hideous goal music.
4/10
5 – The Ground Boring. Another new ground that looks exactly the same as all the other new grounds. There’s little point in my going through all my various dislikes of these one level, one tiered, one coloured identikit stadium but I think mostly it’s the vague and distant fear that QPR may end up actually playing in one of these characterless, soulless bowls one day amidst a wave of arguments about the need for corporate and conferencing facilities. Why oh why did nobody from Derby, Leicester, Middlesbrough, Coventry, Southampton and all the others ever consider atmosphere, proximity to the pitch, two tiered stands, anything, something a bit different? God these places bore me to tears.
3/10
6 – The Journey As Lindsey and myself were down south for the Easter weekend I got to travel up from London in the morning with Tracey and the rest of the QPR supporters. This took me back to my younger days when my Dad and me would journey to the away games in a big group from Kings Cross, St Pancras, Euston or Paddington. The train we were on was almost completely empty, although my seat did have some rather worrying stains on it, and we were in Leicester nicely on time at noon. After the game I continued my journey north to Sheffield without further incident. Tracey and the rest of the lads went south back to London, where the usual ‘swift half’ at the station turned into a bit of a session by all accounts.
7/10
7 – The pre-match We’ve never really got into the pubs in Leicester properly. Those around the ground tend to be full and home fans only, although our lack of colours mean we can normally escape such policies. There’s not much to choose from around the station – The Hind right next door is a lovely little pub, although I’m always wary of a boozer that needs to state its drugs policy on the door and as The Hind was advertising live Sky Sports but not providing it Tracy and myself again ended up in town in The Walkabout. We’ve all been in them, we know what to expect, the food was fare to crap, the alcohol was pretty cheap and they had the football on. That was something of a relief because Walkabouts do like to believe they’re in Australia and not Leicester High Street and have, in the past in my experience, shown tennis, rugby and some sort of swimming competition instead of live football. This particular branch once showed New Zealand ravaging some non-entity by the thick end of 100 points in the Rugby World Cup on its big screen with three people watching while 50 of us crowded round a smaller screen above the bar to watch Liverpool v Portsmouth with the subtitles on blocking most of the action. Nevertheless this time we got to see Yeovil v Leeds, featuring Terrell Forbes lumbering around looking dodgy.
5/10
8 – Police/Stewards Now we’ve had difficulties here before of course. Who can forget 1500 QPR fans being held in the away end just long enough to miss the 1735 and 1737 trains the majority would have been booked on for no good or stated reason whatsoever a couple of seasons ago? As usual the stewards were over the top and officious, and I again state my case as somebody who has never had any trouble with police or stewards at any football ground in 15 years of following QPR – I merely speak as an observer. First there was the bizarre and needless decision to keep the back row of seats empty. This isn’t a big deal, and it’s a simple request. But both before and after the game the stewards allowed people to sit there only to move them once the game had started. No reason was ever given for keeping these seats empty, and the same policy was not in force in the home areas. Then there was the hilarious sight of one of the ‘supervisors’ (they get a blue coat you know) having prolonged discussions with a QPR fan to my right throughout the second half. Basically it seemed that the QPR fan had sworn at the home fans, nothing unusual at 3-0 down and nothing that wasn’t being done back to us, and then objected to a steward talking to him like a small boy while he was trying to watch the match. Three times the steward lost his rag, waving his arms dramatically and triumphantly at the police at the bottom of the stand as if to say a decision had been made and he wanted the man thrown out. The police stood and looked at the steward like the pathetic nobody he is and did nothing. QPR fans are not a bad lot, again I plead with Leicester City’s police and stewards, just leave us alone to watch the match.
4/10
Total – 37/80