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It's a tempting offer - Preview

QPR can go back to the top of the Championship if they win at their favourite away ground on Friday night, but in their way is former coaching charge John Eustace.

Birmingham (5-5-6 DLWWDL 15th) v QPR (9-3-4 WWWLWW 2nd)

Lancashire and District Senior League >>> Friday October 28, 2022 >>> Kick Off 20.00 >>> Weather — Damp start clearing to a half decent evening >>> What’s Left Of St Andrew’s, Birmingham

It’s a funny, first world thing… turning down jobs.

As we enter into a period of economic uncertainty/catastrophe driven by global factors/Putin/political hubris/incompetence, I’m wary of a drop intro about the jobs I’ve turned down through time. I’m also now so afraid of social media that I constantly feel the need to chuck these disclaimers into writing that I’d previously just have cobbed myself into and to hell with it. As always, please take all of this waffle in the spirit it is intended, and rest assured my choices have been (almost exclusively) bad/terrible. They have led to an economic situation currently keeping me awake at night, so if you fancy cancelling your Patreon because I’m about to confess I once turned down a job at the Hull Daily Mail then I, and my increasingly furrowed accountant, would like to plead with you to reconsider.

Anyway, where were we? Ah, yes: turning down jobs. I’ve no doubt written before, in 20 years of trying to fill 48 match previews/reports and 23 awaydays a season, that my first job, a week out of university, was as the reporter (and everything else besides) on a weekly Derbyshire newspaper called The Ripley and Heanor News. Prestigious. As. Fuck. One of my stories made Private Eye’s ‘rotten boroughs’ section one week when, in the midst of the latest biblical flood out of The Derwent one middle of the winter night, residents (including those in a sheltered accommodation estate of bungalows) had been informed by Amber Valley Borough Council that the first five sand bags were free, but after that they were £80 each or a builder’s merchant had kindly opened nearby at 01.30 in the morning for you to fill pillow cases. To be fair to Amber Valley Borough Council, The Derwent does flood a lot, and sand isn’t… well I guess sand is free. When I proudly told my mum about this she said she "didn’t realise Private Eye was still going”.

What I should have been doing - other than shining a light on such penny-pinching shithousery on behalf of Joe Public/tapping up the latest minutes from the church group in Codnor where Sandra Sandham always brought the flowers and Eric Sandham always gave the reading (burned into my brain I swear to Christ) - is training to be in the British Army. Ok, I admit, this is going to be a bit more than a drop intro.

About 18 months out from the end of my journalism degree at Sheffield some very nice, vague people from the BBC turned up saying they were looking for a nice boy, physically fit, between this height and that height, between this age and that age, for a documentary project they couldn’t tell us very much about at all. Once I’d ascertained these weren’t sexual predators pretending to be vague people from the BBC - and frankly I was so horny at that age I probably would have gone with them anyway - it did turn out that I was a nice boy, physically fit, between this height and that height, and between this age and that age. And so followed several weeks of journeying back and forth between Sheffield and Television Centre, to have these weird and wonderful conversations with Panorama producers about my hypothetical views on how I’d feel if I saw somebody being abused in a nursing home, or a dog being kicked around Battersea Dog’s Home; how I felt about spending long periods of time out of the country; how I dealt with criticism or running up steep hills; how I was when people yelled in my face; whether I could keep a secret… It (very) belatedly dawned on me that what this was all about was sticking some teenage me into the programme at Deepcut Barracks and seeing if I came out of the other side dead or alive, and whose fault it might be if it was the former. I twigged this just in time for the last task, which was to watch their most recent documentary, where they’d embedded somebody with the BNP in Bradford and got them to secretly film people bashing "muzzies” in shitty little northern pubs, and write a critique of it. If it’s not obvious enough from being called Clive Whittingham, I know for a fact I’d last about a minute and a half in the army, so I panned the thing over eight pages (not unjustifiably to be fair, they’d got next to fuck all), and the producer came back to me mortally offended and never called me again. The doc aired in 2008, and they got so desperate for somebody to do it in the end that they had to do laser eye surgery on the lad that went ahead with it. For all that, they got next to fuck all all over again — so little that, like the BNP thing, I wondered whether it should have aired.

While I’m self-flagellating, it is worth saying the BBC were very clear with me that their "get out” at the end of the training, which would in theory see me discharged and not have to go to Iraq or Afghanistan, didn’t feel very solid to me, and in the doc the journo Russell Sharp very, very nearly gets dispatched regardless of it. So, I’m not going to lie, fuck that. But, also, one of the conditions was I basically had to disappear for two years, take on a new identity, not see my family, defer my degree, leave behind everybody I knew and not speak to them or see them, and live as the new person. This, naturally, included not going to QPR. For a normal person that list would be in that order, for me that bit was at the front.

I had another escape from covering planning committees for the Ripley and Heanor offered to me too. Press Association Sport, at that time based very conveniently in Howden which was halfway between my family home and my uni, were keen to the point of offering me the job without interview. Somebody, however, somewhere there, clocked it. Phone rings: "We love your CV, we love your website, we love the extras you’re doing, you’ll be great here, we want you here yesterday but… it’s seven Saturdays out of eight, and I can already see from your CV and your covering letter and everything you’ve told us that you’re not going to want to do it, so don’t waste my time be honest about that now.” I was honest about that, and I never did work at Press Association Sport.

Nor the Hull Daily Mail, where I went for the Hull FC reporter job (which I would have taken), but got offered the junior sport reporter job instead, had to move to the patch for it rather than commute from Sheffield and, again, had to work Saturdays. Rejected. I turned that one down twice. The sports editor at the time, Stuart Rowson (another Grimsby lad), liked me enough to ring back and take another swing at me with some concessions. He went on to be editor of BBC Sport, and was clearly taken with me, so I could have gone there with him, and then onto… Well, it’s academic now isn’t it?

There are others. I only finally got the job on a daily evening paper in Kettering and Corby because the editor, Jeremy Clifford, liked me so much in interview he rang me back a week after I rejected him (for the fear of having to live in Corby) and offered me a better job with more money in a better part of the borough. Even then I drove the news editors wild with my shift swaps and changes, desperately trying to crowbar every QPR game into an unworkable schedule.

I listened to the excellent Life Goals With Theo Delaney podcast this week on my morning runs, former Q editor Ted Kessler is the guest across two parts and it’s a must listen. He’s as QPR as they come, but has in his time moved to live in Paris, taken Saturday jobs, spent years missing QPR, to reach the point he has reached where, frankly, you get invited on stuff like Life Goals With Theo Delaney. I’m acutely aware, and on the odd occasions I think about other things my mum messages/phones/turns up at my door to remind me, that I have held back my career and my life to go to every QPR match, because it’s the thing that brings me the most pleasure, and because it’s the only thing I’ve got that connects me to my dad, who died when I was 14. Some of the early gigs, at PA, and in Hull, I rejected because my dad’s best mate Stuart, who took me under his wing after his death and took me to every QPR game from Grimsby deep into his retirement, was obviously on his last legs and I wanted to eek out every minute I had left with him. But after he died I did the freelance groundwork at Telegraph Sport for years, they subsequently offered me the sort of permanent position that has led others to The Athletic, Sunday Supplement, Fighting Talk… and as much as I reason out loud that the money wasn’t right, I couldn’t ever see Allison Pearson anywhere without kicking her in the shins, the simple fact is it required some Saturday work, and I couldn’t do it. Stuart turned in his grave when I rejected that one, I felt the movement.

Even now, in the television job I have got, which begrudgingly tolerates The QPR Stuff better than any company I could work for other than QPR itself, there are times, like last Wednesday, when I’m in Cannes and not Loftus Road. On those rare occasions I sit there in a hotel room, watching a stream of the game, embittered not because my colleagues are out on the Croisette having a wonderful time and I’m stuck in the Ibis Budget watching fucking Andre Dozzell, but because my friends are in the Crown and I’m not. That voice inside my head that says memories of people like my dad only carry on as long as the last person to remember them, also tells me that my dad would absolutely not have understood why his eldest was fannying around with TV people in Cannes while QPR were playing.

Which brings us, not very neatly, and not really at all truth be told, to Birmingham v QPR on Friday night. A match up of two promising coaches, both with recent Rangers connections, both now known for turning jobs down. Now, you think my career has stagnated and drifted because I’ve deliberately torpedoed it through desperation to see Zesh Rehman scoring own goals at Luton on a Tuesday night, but in the actual football the consequences are far worse.

I always use the same examples in these pieces when highlighting how far football has regressed when it comes to faith in managers. In 1990/91 QPR lost eight in a row and won one of 14 games under Don Howe, a run for which now he would certainly have been sacked. He had a biblical injury list to content with, most of which was populated by his centre backs, and even the Bobby Gould-inspired signings of Andy Tillson and Darren Peacock didn’t stem that bleeding much because Tillson, too, was immediately injured. They kept faith, and when everybody was fit Howe lost one of the next 12, winning eight, including memorable home wins against Man City, Villa and Leeds. When Howe was later replaced by Gerry Francis, he didn’t win any of his first eight games of the season, and only got off the mark with a scrappy 1-0 at Luton thanks to a Simon Barker goal the keeper should have saved in his sleep. In the modern game, the noise about how they’d replaced the excellent Howe with Francis "a younger man” would have been deafening, and he’d have almost certainly not survived. Instead, he went on to lead QPR to fifth in the inaugural Premier League.

That patience isn’t there now. It isn’t there, even a tiny little bit. Lose tomorrow night, lose at Norwich, lose to West Brom, you just watch, we all know the Twitter accounts, that will be asking whether Beale is all that after all, whether he’s destabilised the whole thing — Truth and Justice, indeed. There was a thread on our message board in February advocating Mark Warburton be given a job for life here, and then... It takes, at most, four or five games for opinion to swing violently, and no amount of changing the manager for no gain will ever convince anybody it’s not the right option to take this time, and that sunlit uplands don’t lie one (or maybe two) changes ahead. Beale is already the tenth longest serving manager in this league. And so, if you’re a manager, and you get offered a way out of your current job by medium of an upwards move to another, bigger, club who want you, rather than through the sack and having to sift through whoever Steve Bruce has just been binned off by for your next gig, you take it. There’s no such thing as loyalty, because the clubs, and their fans, sure as hell don’t show any to you if your injury hit, low confidence side happens to lose three or four in a row.

John Eustace an interesting case in point. He had a burgeoning reputation at Kidderminster as a young manager with a successful playing career, then achieving things in non-league while playing a style of football worthy of a level several higher. He traded that to be assistant to Steve McClaren at QPR, which is a very shrewd move for a young coach to make given McClaren’s reputation and connections in the game, right up to the point you actually meet Steve McClaren in person and realise you’ve made a dreadful mistake. He didn’t suffer for that because he was kept on by the club through McClaren’s sacking and when Mark Warburton arrived, at least in part because Sean Dyche — who Lee Hoos knew well from Burnley — spoke to the QPR CEO heavily in his favour. Again, this is unusual. Let’s talk loyalty again, and how the failings of a manager are usually shared by all the staff that get binned off with him, despite having possibly done their job very decently. QPR have done well to rise above that trend and have also kept Neil Banfield on from the last group into the current one — though a cynic would say it’s one fewer contract to pay up.

During his time here Eustace was heavily in the running for jobs at progressive, settled, well-run clubs at Swansea and Blackpool, and also could have been manager of the month for August at Watford. He turned at least the first two down, preferring to bide his time, seeing something in each he wasn’t sure about. When it became clear Warbs was getting the push at the end of last season from QPR he was happy to tell fans in the team hotel the night before the Swansea away match on the final day that he would "wait to see what Warbs does” and almost certainly go with him — two Championship offers were on the table, including Birmingham, and one from the MLS. When the Birmingham takeover subsequently fell through, and Warburton abruptly, and very surprisingly, took on a basic bibs, balls and cones job with David Moyes at West Ham, that left Eustace sitting there wondering why he’d been so loyal, to him, and to QPR. This is why nobody in football is like that any more. You turn down jobs and look where you end up… taking on the Birmingham, sans-takeover, job himself, a far inferior prospect to Blackpool, Swansea or Watford. Eustace spent most of his summer forlornly saying "we know it’s going to be difficult”.

Mick Beale has now turned down Premier League Wolves to stay with Championship Queens Park Rangers, who by any xG measurement on the field, and any financial scale off it, are punching above their weight sitting second right now. Even qualifying for the play-offs, on this budget, would be seen as a formidable achievement, and while Wolves may be second bottom, may be struggling to score goals, it’s remarkable that he’s turned that down to stay here and do this. If QPR lose four of the next five, watch the mood turn, and feel his regret seeping through the interviews. If Rangers don’t get promoted, then what? A fire sale of best players to scrabble under FFP is what. If he’s stayed under the promise of a January ‘go for it’ push, it could feel rather like Les and Lee stepping up as the winning couple of a Bullseye final — "well Jim, we’ve come this far, we’ve decided to give it a go”. Who’s the non-darts player to throw first there, do we think? And if we have to walk past the speedboat we "could have won" rather than taking the thing home with us, what consequences follow?

Eustace may be a bit of a canary down a coal mine for Beale here. Birmingham, contrary to all expectations, are doing alright after a ropey start. A team and club that should, by rights, be a bottom three certainty, has won four and lost two of nine. There aren’t many better or more exciting midfield threes at this level than Hannibal, Chong and Bielek — not often all fit, of course, but if they were always fit they wouldn’t be playing for fucking Birmimgham would they? People are, rightly, starting to sit up and take notice of the work Eustace is doing under those circumstances.

If he can do well there, and if Mick Beale can get that QPR situation into promotion contention, then that speaks volumes to a potential employer about both men. Certainly a volume a good deal louder than walking out on your first job 14 games in to suckle at the withered teet of Jorge Mendes that’s for sure. But then if either, or both, crash and burn here, they’ll sink back down to scrabbling around for the sort of coaching jobs they had before. Best case, somebody like Charlton might be looking again.

That’s the gamble you take and the choice you make, and often you only have the time it takes the board to revolve to make your decision.

Links >>> Eustace impressing — Interview >>> Semi-final win — History >>> Robinson in charge — Referee >>> Birmingham City official website >>> St Andrew’s — Ground Guide >>> Small Heath Alliance — Message Board >>> We Are Birmingham — Podcast >>> Birmingham Mail — Local Press

Below the fold

Team News: Obviously the big news is whether Chris Willock returns from the hamstring injury he suffered in the win at Sheff Utd at the start of the month. He’s back in full training but the management are going to make a call on whether to bring him in here or save him for Norwich next week, and given the team’s form and the nature of hamstring injuries in general and his in particular I wonder if they’ll air on the side of caution. Jimmy Dunne remains sidelined with his ankle injury. Tyler Roberts continues to be plagued by a series of pesky muscle injuries to his lower leg which disrupted his pre-season. He’s missed the last two and it doesn’t sound overly hopeful he’ll be back for this one either. Stefan Johansen is available thought after leaving the Wigan win early with a knee to the bum, which given how the midfield performed without him second half is very good news indeed — the return, not the knee in the bum.

Birmingham remain without long term absentees Marc Roberts, who keeps putting his back out lifting his wallet after four years of that deal Harry Redknapp got him, and Przemyslaw Placheta, who’s just decided to give commentators and match reports a break. Other than that our correspondent there Matthew Elliott reckons it’ll be the same back five as last week, with a very impressive and dangerous looking midfield of Bielik, Hannibal and Chong, and a heavyweight forward line of Deeney and Hogan.

Elsewhere: Well, I guess, for now, we’re looking out for Burnley’s results. My word, what a time to be alive. They’re winning at home, comfortably, against Reading.

That’s one of the 15.00 kick offs, which are preceded in a packed Saturday schedule by two earlies. Bristol City v Swanselona goes at midday because of the police and stuff, while West Brom v Sheffield Red Stripe on Sky heralds the return to the Championship of Carlos Corberan who has taken up the big job at The Hawthorns. On paper, a great appointment, very lucky his Olympiakos stint lasted only as long as it did and he was available at this time of year having completed the miracle job of taking relegation favourites Huddersfield to last season’s play-off final. There’s the inevitable bounce to come of a group of players that were clearly so thoroughly sick of listening to Steve Bruce every day they surely cannot help but improve for having any guy in charge, but particularly a guy who knows what he’s on about. That all said, Corberan’s style is a marked departure for a club that has gone from Pulis to Megson to Pardew, Allardyce to Ismael to Bruce. Darren Moore and Slaven Bilic were the two outliers in that mind, and they achieved the play-offs and a promotion respectively so… perhaps. Tough game to start with mind.

Lutown’s sudden uptick in form and table position, and Bilic’s inauspicious start to his latest gig at Watford, had the Hatters all jolly confident that a rare league meeting between the two may finally yield a first league derby day win for them at Vicarage Road since 1995. Obviously, as we now know, the Hornets triumphed 4-0, but this was only due to a stomach complaint that had swept through the visiting camp prior to the game — to such an extent, apparently, that the only way they were able to name a full bench was by naming players who could never possibly have played, and were in fact physically laid up on their backs, on the treatment table, in the dressing room, during the game. Afterwards a woman (of all people), young kids at her side (I bet she gives them sugary cereal as well, the bitch), delivered a foul-mouthed tirade at the Luton players and staff as they went over to humbly and professionally thank the fans who’d stayed to the end. And that’s fine, I mean if she wants to behave like that, that’s up to her, it’s not how Nathan Jones would behave, but each to their own, if she thinks that’s acceptable, a woman, with young kids there, then good for her, everybody can go about their life as they see fit, but she might want to think about how that might look, or she might not, you know, each to their own frankly, but it’s not for Nathan, though it might be for you, and that’s up to you, and you might think that’s ok, but also it’s not and it’s not, so… Luton play Sunderland at home, Watford travel up to Wigan, where the pay roll is ominously late once more.

I’m increasingly concerned about Cardiff City. I mean, that’s not true, I’ve lost more sleep over the fate of house plants before, but still… I thought they were absolutely woeful at Loftus Road, even before the nonsense sending off and first goal. While they had good reason to feel aggrieved about that one, you can’t be pointing fingers at match officials when your star striker goes chucking the ball in people’s faces seven minutes into the next game. Callum Robinson’s early red setting them up for a third consecutive heavy defeat in the South Wales derby, and they’ve now lost three in a row without scoring a goal. Four of their next five are at home, starting with Saturday’s visit from Rotherham, and including a game against Hull, so my suspicions we may have a relegation candidate on our hands here will get a nice flimsy examination over the coming weeks. Rotherham were seconds away from an impressive midweek win at Coventry, but for a very soft injury time penalty. Cov, now ten points from 12, host Blackpool, who are already one goal up according to the internet because of their Charlie Patino song.

Is there yet another managerial change coming in the second tier, this time at Norwich? With QPR due in town on Wednesday, the Carrow Road natives are restless after six without a win and an insipid performance - inexplicable given the talent they had on the field — at supposed promotion rivals Burnley during the week. Smith doesn’t seem to know what all the fuss is about, having so carefully explained how all six of those games were basically Norwich wins in all but score, and clear moral victories for his team but for… stuff. Will their Justice League leadership keep Smith in employment if an actual, real win doesn’t materialise at home to a pretty dire Stoke side?

Heading the other way with four wins in a row, Millwall into the top six. You’d fancy them for a fifth at lowly Huddersfield, which concludes our weekend list along with absolute raving thrillers in waiting between Hull and Blackburn, and Preston Nil against Middlesbrough.

Referee: Tim Robinson in the middle for this one. You may remember him from such fun away nights as Millwall 0-2 QPR. Details.

Form

Brum: Given the team, finances and boardroom situation John Eustace inherited at St Andrew’s this summer, there was a certain inevitability behind a start that showed only one win from the first eight games — and that coming narrowly, 2-1, at home to similarly hapless Huddersfield. The Blues won only one of their last ten, two of their last 14 and three of their last 19 games in 2021/22 — they’ve actually one of those weird teams in recent years that I scratch my head and wonder how they didn’t get relegated because I can never remember them winning a game, and in fact Lee Bowyer’s side won only five matches south side of November last season, some 31 fixtures. But things have picked up significantly with some business done late in the summer transfer window. Brum are now on a run of four wins, three draws and two defeats from nine matches, climbing to fifteenth in the league. They’re inconsistent — WWDDLWWDL — but relative to what was expected of them pre-season this is a creditable set of results and John Eustace’s reputation is burgeoning once more. They’re unbeaten in three at home, including a 3-0 whitewash of Bristol City and 1-1 with league leaders Burnley. Scott Hogan is top scorer with seven — a total boosted by a hat trick in a 3-2 win at Steve Bruce’s all-conquering West Brom. QPR have a better record at St Andrew’s than any other ground since they returned to the Championship in 2013. They have won five and drawn one of their last eight visits here, losing only one of the last six.

QPR: Nice little bit from the Retro QPR Facebook group — this month 50 years ago the top two in the second tier were Burnley and QPR, and both went on to be promoted to the top flight in those positions. Rangers are certainly in that sort of touch at the moment — the last time they had 30 points after 16 matches was 2013/14 when they had 35 and finished the season promoted. They’ve won five of the last six, eight of the last 11, and lost only two of the last 12. The defeat at Luton Town a fortnight back snapped a run of three consecutive away wins, the club’s best run on the road since January when they won four in a row — a sequence that included a 2-1 win at Birmingham on January 2. The R's have won four of their last six away from Loftus Road, no other team in the division has won more on its travels and only Burnley, Luton and Wigan can match our four. Only Sheff Utd (26) and Burnley (30) have scored more than our 25 goals overall. Leon Balogun and Sam Field got their first goals of the season in last week’s hard fought home win against Wigan, lifting the number of different scorers in the Rangers team this year to 13 including own goals (and Seny Dieng of course) — the best spread in the division. Both goals came from corners, lifting the R’s to six from corners so far, again a Championship high as it stands. Chris Willock, who may return here, has six goals in nine starts and Rangers are still yet to lose a game in which he has scored (W13 D3) — a sequence which, again, includes last season’s 2-1 win on this ground. Our man Jack Supple informs us we need a win on Friday to match our best ever total of October victories — six in 1966. That season ended in promotion, and a League Cup final success via a two-legged semi-final win against Birmingham.

Prediction: We’re once again indebted to The Art of Football for agreeing to sponsor our Prediction League and provide prizes. You can get involved by lodging your prediction here or sample the merch from our sponsor’s QPR collection here. Let’s see what last year’s champion Cheesy thinks this week…

"John Eustace sets his team up well, but they are very inconsistent. Rumours that Willock is available is good news, but I would prefer to keep him for Norwich / WBA. I think we will be too strong for Birmingham so I'm going for another three points.”

Cheesy’s Prediction: Birmingham 0-1 QPR. Scorer — Ilias Chair

LFW’s Prediction: Birmingham 1-1 QPR. Scorer — Lyndon Dykes

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