QPR's pre-season campaign limped into soggy Newport on Sunday for a sparkling goalless draw with the locals - a 50/1 shot for the League Two title this season.
There the Rangers sat/stood/huddled, in the final two blocks of the new side stand at Rodney Parade, a ground named in memory of an ageing Welsh drag act. It looked cold, it looked windy, it looked wet and it didn't look much like the slanting roof was offering much by way of protection. Newport in July, it turns out, is a bit damp. Earlier in the day a bedraggled Noah had taken time away from ark building to seek refuge in the local Lloyds Bar, muttering "fuck this for a living" as he wrung out his cagoule in the gents toilets.
With only the most turgid of pre-season friendlies stretching out on the sodden turf between those of us on the damp side of the ground and those on the really damp side you had to wonder why on earth we'd all bothered.
Ground ticking? Yes, in most cases. This was QPR's first game in Newport since October 1961 and that was at the old Somerton Park ground. Although, as a Twitter pedant pointed out, if you're adhering strictly to he rules of The 92 Club then friendly matches don't count. Maybe it was a first chance of the new season to hear Mel Huckridge serenade a coach-load of QPR fans with Close to You by The Carpenters? Mel stuck his head round the door of the pub after the match having lost 70% of his passengers, and the coach.
I saw pre-season friendlies described over the weekend as "methadone for football addicts". You can't have the good stuff, like competitive Tuesday night trips to Blackburn in January, but here's something that looks and feels a bit like it to keep you from holding up the local post office looking for a fix. Now, apart from that horrific month when Paul Hart was the manager, I don't have a lot of experience on smack, but if the comparison is accurate then I can only assume methadone is like a weaker version of church hall orange squash.
Pre-season friendlies are fitness exercises for clubs higher up the chain and coffer swellers for those towards the bottom. Newport dragged in just shy of 2,000 people (it looked like more) on Sunday at 15 notes a time, a vital top up for a club currently trying to tighten its belt to the tune of £400,000 a season, and that was about all you could take from it other than the minutes clocked up by the players after a long summer away.
I've long since realised that attending a pre-season is like being invited to a wedding and turning up early to watch the bride faff about with her hair — a long, arduous, drawn-out process with lots of experimentation and moments where it looks like the whole thing is going to go completely to shit before turning out alright in the end.
And yet pre-season friendlies are suddenly big business. Crazy Americans, Australians and Chinese, apparently with literally nothing else to do with their time and money, are turning out in their hundreds of thousands to watch Manchester United, Barcelona, Liverpool, Chelsea and the San Jose Earthquakes do battle over absolutely nothing on a pitch laid two days ago over the top of baseball diamond.
Television companies offer wall to wall coverage, bookmakers kick into gear with their string of offers. We can bet and talk about and discuss who will win the International Challenge Cup, or the Premier League Asia Cup, or the Indonesian Super Sunday Brunch Spectacular Sponsored by Dettol. We wake every morning to clips of spectacular goals, fouls, tackles and mistakes all titled "You won't believe what Wayne Rooney did at the Home Depot Centre Stadium last night…" The newspapers and sports websites bombard us with " things we learned from Liverpool's game against a Singapore select X1" — presumably number one always being "Liverpool aren't quite as fit as they would be for a normal Premier League game, but this match will help and they don't kick off for another three weeks anyway."
The FA have to get into protracted negotiations with Tottenham to release Harry Kane for the England Under 21 side and their summer championships because Spurs want him to have a rest this summer, but also want to take him to Australia for two "post-season friendlies" which "the club considers vital to its brand expansion strategy". Tottenham's brand expansion strategy, of course, more important than the England Under 21s actual, competitive tournament. Always a relief to find that Arsene Wenger's persistent worries about Jack Wilshere's potential burn out don't stretch as far as the "Emirates Cup" or the jaunt round Singapore.
It all counts for nothing, and yet it's starting to feel like the pesky business of the competitive action is getting in the way. Actual, competitive tournaments are going out of fashion. After all, even the heralded Champions League sometimes kicks up some Liverpool v Dinamo Tbilisi or Man Utd v Steau Bucharest bore-fest. This way you get Man Utd v Real Madrid every day because you can arrange it all. The fact that there’s more at stake when Carlisle play Morecambe in League Two is immaterial.
Let's just do away with the cup draws altogether, and leagues. After all, we live in a world where tens of thousands of excitable Malaysians will turn out to watch a friendly match between Everton and Stoke. Everton and Stoke. And instead of securing them all in a unit and dosing them up on big tablets and strong whiskey we indulge it and fly Jonathan Walters across the world to showcase his impressive work rate.
Sitting there, soaked to the skin, watching Newport County and QPR fail to produce a single effort on target in the entire second half, I questioned my own sanity. But it's reassuring, and yet infuriating, that the rest of the world seems to have gone even more bonkers still.
There have been successes — at Inverness mainly, where he guided the former Highland League side into the top division of Scottish football and a top six finish when they got there. But spells with Coventry, Sunderland, Brentford, Motherwell and particularly Hibs have gone badly over the last 25 years.
He finds himself now at Newport County. The competitive spirit remains — his reaction to Robert Green's flying save that prevented his side taking the lead in the first half on Sunday was one of a man who'd seen a last minute winner in a cup semi-final incorrectly ruled out for offside — but times are about to get tough.
The Exiles may have been considered a likely promotion candidate from League Two this season, where Portsmouth and Luton are the market leaders prior to kick off, but Butcher's main targets are now in cost cutting. Bristol-based builder Les Scadding, a Euro Millions winner who has helped bankroll the club's recent return to the city and Football League after folding in 1989, has been slowly withdrawing from his role running the club and has now handed over control to the supporter's trust so he can spend more time in his second home in Barbados. Well done Les, tip of the hat. All very worthy, but it's meant the wage bill has had to come down from £1.2m per season to £800,000 — QPR's in the promotion season under Harry Redknapp was £77m by the way.
Eight players have been released, another eight have joined other clubs on free transfers including Ismail Yakubu who was a mainstay of the promotion campaigns. Seven have arrived so far including Grimsby Town's muscular forward Lenell John Lewis (his name is a shop) and Butcher is almost starting from scratch. They looked keen, and fit, and organised, but less than threatening in front of goal. Only Dagenham and Accrington have longer title odds than their 50/1.
The tannoy announcer, and home fans, were at pains to thank QPR for travelling and wished the Hoops all the very best for the rest of the season. One, who looked like the 'after' shot from those "don't take Crystal Meth kids" public service adverts, leant out the window of a battered Corsa after the match and shouted "fuck QPR" at those making their way home over the bridge in the driving rain. Twice.
He seemed like the exception. We return their good wishes for a tough season ahead.
It was a first chance for many to have a look at Seb Polter, the new German target man. He seemed to get a bang early on, and ran uncomfortably thereafter, posing little threat and not doing much to impress. One chance to get a shot away after a neat turn inside turned into a long drawn-out affair ending with a firm tackle on him. He looked short of fitness and sharpness, which is exactly what he is — completely unfair and unnecessary to make any judgements at this stage.
Likewise Jay Emmanuel Thomas, although his penchant for ball watching, and moaning about what the players around him are doing wrong while not doing a lot right himself, tally with a lot of the criticism Ipswich and Cardiff fans had of him last time he played at this level. An intriguing signing.
If they, or somebody else, can finish, then there's every indication QPR are going to be involved in some high scorers this year. Chris Ramsey's system, the same he used against Dundee Utd, often leaves four men forward when QPR don't have the ball and with Massimo Luongo and Ale Faurlin (how wonderful to see him up and about, even allowing for the Mexican people-trafficker moustache) pulling the strings some of the attacks flowed nicely, quickly, with plenty of options for a pass.
Tjaronn Chery fitted effortlessly into that, and seemed a good deal fitter than many of his new team mates. Dreams of seeing him rip his first ever QPR free kick into the top corner were thwarted by the wall in the first half but his willingness to then sprint back and cover the right full back position as Newport countered — working hard for his new team mates, in a meaningless friendly game, after only being here a week — warmed us slightly as the rain slung down and the wind whipped under the roof.
All of that said, Rangers rarely looked like scoring here and the system often leaves the back four badly exposed, particularly in wide areas, especially at right back. Newport came reasonably close on three occasions in the first half — two misses and one fine save from Green — and it was all from attacks piercing into the left channel, exposing Darnell Furlong and the space between him and his centre half.
It's Luongo who looks absolutely key to all of this. QPR's meaningful presence in the game went with him when he was substituted. Newport offered nothing in return, which was rather a shame as Joe Lumley came on for the second half and carried himself with noisy, boisterous confidence. It would have been nice to see him tested with a few shots on a slippery pitch.
Things we learned? Newport is wet. Errr…
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