A trip to Luton hasn't often been called a rare and beautiful thing by any football fan, but QPR's strange hex over the Hatters makes this a fixture we enjoy rather more than it may seem.
Lancashire and District Senior League >>> Saturday October 15, 2022 >>> Kick off 12.30 >>> Weather — Grey, overcast, windy >>> Kenilworth Road, Luton, Bedfordshire
Funny place, Luton. Not funny ha ha, you only have to look at the gaff to see that, but unusual in the perception versus the reality for QPR.
As ever, I can only speak for myself here, but I see Luton accelerating down the fixture list towards us like the date of my mortgage renewal. A proper eye-rolling, ball-aching, chore. Luton, to me, just means hassle. Luton means escorts from stations, Luton means nowhere decent to get a drink, Luton means early kick offs, Luton means more policemen than a Village People concert, Luton means a ticket allocation that could fit in my kitchen, Luton means an away end accessed through somebody’s front room that offers a worse view of the game than they get from Kathmandu Airport. Just agg. You get in, you hold your nose, you get out, you get back to Mabel’s Tavern as quick as you can and you never speak of it again. Lisa, be a dear, run a bath.
Give me some memories of Luton, you might say, and mine would be almost exclusively bad. My first trip here was 2001, for an FA Cup Third Round tie. QPR were an abysmal and soon to be bankrupt First Division side, whose good points began and ended with Peter Crouch, going away to a midtable Second Division team who sensed blood in the water. Rangers were abysmal — really, really shocking. Gerry Francis, club hero, taking the long walk across the pitch at half time in front of an away end collectively at the end of its tether was not a pleasant moment for anybody involved. I’d left by the time late goals from Crouch and Gavin Peacock rallied Rangers from 3-1 down to draw and force a wholly undeserved replay.
Relegated into the third tier themselves, QPR found Luton a tricky opponent as they tried to win promotion back to the Championship. Steve Howard vs Danny Shittu, Alien vs Predator. By this point it was Luton heading into one of the bi-annual financial collapses and after spending all summer chasing Ian Holloway’s favourite boy Jamie Cureton around the transfer window only for him to pitch up at Busan Icons instead, this timing proved very fortuitous to Rangers who swooped in and nicked local goal hero Tony Thorpe for a packet of Monster Munch with a questionable sell-by date on. Thorpe scored a very handy 11 goals for Rangers as they finished second and went up, and the locals in this part of Bedfordshire were really jolly cross about the whole thing. I spent my 18th birthday here (but Aquaman, you cannot marry a woman without gils, you’re from too different worlds… oooh I’ve wasted my life) getting bits of rubble and old boat thrown at me. Not since we nicked Ray Harford off West Brom (strange people to be getting this upset about if you ask me) has there been such vitriol, and they were all gnashing teeth and frothing at the penis as Luton led into stoppage time. I had, once again, ducked the police escort early and missed the injury time Paul Furlong equaliser. Maybe I should just not go, let you all have a nice time without me?
There was a defeat here at the end of Ian Holloway’s first spell in charge, a miserable time when all that fine work done to rebuild the club in the third tier was largely undone. QPR then drew Luton in the FA Cup Third Round again in 2007, though thankfully this time at home. Shabazz Baidoo’s late equaliser in the pouring rain, scored via a handball registering somewhere north of Shaun Hutchinson’s last week on the blatant scale, forced a replay nobody wanted — stick to the drill rap Teaboy — and so off I set through four hours of traffic in a biblical storm from then-home in Sheffield to arrive at Kenilworth Road at 19.10 just in time for the game to be rained off. When I repeated the trip a week later Rangers dominated, but Marc Nygaard ran through all the greatest hits from his miss of the season album, and then Zesh Rehman took matters into his own hands ten minutes from time by volleying a trademark own goal into his own net from 15 yards while facing the other way. Couldn’t do it again if he tried. Fiddlydeeeeeeee.
And yet, Luton approach us with something nearing the sort of cold sweat dread that can only be induced in QPR fans by an afternoon in Nottingham at The City Ground. They may well have been the first team to play and win against Rangers on the plastic in Shepherd’s Bush, but they haven’t been doing a lot of winning in this fixture since. Two from 26 meetings in fact and none of the last seven with QPR winning five of the last six including both fixtures last season. The second, at the peak of Luton’s form, and the trough of QPR’s across the season, was remarkable — offered any odds you liked on 2-1 Rangers at half time when they were singularly fortunate to only be one goal down and you wouldn’t have found many willing punters in that away end. I’m still not quite sure how we pulled it off now. Nathan Jones, fresh from securing his nomination for the 2022 Nobel Prize for Self Awareness by accusing Rangers of over celebrating, admitted the R’s "don’t have to do a lot to beat us”. Stop it.
Tomorrow was going to be tough anyway. Luton are a good team, better than last year for my money and a great bet for another top six finish. They came at us with Cameron Jerome up front last year, now they have Carlton Morris alongside Elijah Adebayo in a fearsome frontline nobody will enjoy playing against at this level. Last season’s game will make it tougher — Jones will be desperate to win this, even more so than normal, and will no doubt not hold back at full time if he does. Chris Willock is, as we know, out.
None of this seems to matter in this fixture though. Gerry Francis was without a win in his first eight games as boss when he came here midweek 1991, with Paul Walsh up front on loan, and won 1-0 with a Simon Barker goal I’d have saved myself. Some truly, truly terrible QPR teams have come here in all sorts of states and got a result. You can turn up with Rehman and Damion Stewart at the back here and leave with Mike Newell screaming "get back in the kitchen” at a female linesman. It’s just one of those weird things. My perception totally skewed by a couple of bad experiences, and living up north in my earlier years which meant getting kettled back to the station for a London train was not a risk worth taking to stay a couple more minutes and see if Paul Furlong might equalise.
QPR take a good, confident team to Kenilworth Road tomorrow — one that has benefitted from an extra day’s rest this week and no Tuesday game. Mick Beale spoke impressively at the fans forum last night and will take his team fired up and ready to play on the front foot. In this fixture, that might be enough. Here’s hoping.
Links >>> Beale, Hoos, Ferdinand — Fans Forum >>> Luton clicking — Interview >>> Gerry’s first win — History >>> Harrington in charge — Referee >>> Luton Town official website >>> Hatters News — Blog >>> Luton Outlaws — Message Board >>> Supporters Trust >>> Oak Road Hatter —Blog
Team News: QPR remain without star man Chris Willock for another couple of weeks but Taylor Richards is finally back in full training now. Seny Dieng continues to nurse a thigh problem, but played through last week improvising with throws instead of kicks, which given the threat he’s posing to his World Cup place is quite some dedication. Rob Dickie is back fully fit from his ankle complaint. Ethan Laird will be touch and go and may not be risked with the hamstring complaint he picked up against Reading, given there are two ‘winnable’ home games still to come this week. Tyler Roberts suffered with a migraine in the Reading game, exacerbated by the floodlights, but is available.
Our man @LutonTownExile says of them: "We’ll play 5-3-2 on Saturday. Horvath in goal. Bree right wing back. Bell left wing back. Lockyer, Bradley, Potts as the three (unfortunately Burke is out). Probably Lansbury at CDM but MPanzu may start. Campbell and Clark all over the shop midfield wise ahead. Morris and Adebayo up top. We might start Cornick. If he doesn’t start, Cornick will get half an hour. I can see Freeman and possibly Doughty being used off the bench.”
Elsewhere: Well, I guess it had to happen, but it’s still a shame for fans of comedy. After one league win all season, no wins in the last nine, even West Brom decided they couldn’t carry on any longer and they pulled the trigger on Éclair Balding during the week. It brings an end to the reign of Steve, Steve, Stephen and Alex (Steve’s son) at a club who from 1971 onwards (excluding Nobby Styles) were managed by Don, Brian, John, Ron, John, Ron, Ron, Ron, John, Ron, Ron, Brian and Brian. Having more recently suffered Steve Bruce, Sam Allardyce, Tony Pulis and two separate stints with Gary Megson it’s little wonder to find Sean Dyche and Gary Rowett creeping around the top of the bookies odds for the next man on the plank. They’re at Reading tomorrow.
The early game, along with our own, is a north-off between Rotherham, still to win since losing Paul Warne, and Huddersfield, who thought they might be getting the Millers boss for themselves until he made the slightly surprising decision to head down to Derby in League One. Among the three o’clocks, a couple of chances for recent wobblers to get back on the horse: Sheffield Red Stripe have gone from six wins and two draws from eight to winless in three prior to their homer with Blackpool, while the Tony Mowbray honeymoon is over for Sunderland who’ve gone from three wins in five to none from four prior to Wigan’s visit — a banker homer you’d think, but Wigan beat Blackburn at home in the week and have the best current away form in the Championship bar QPR. Blackburn, meanwhile, try to right the wrongs of that midweek derby game with a trip up to struggling Boro.
Preston Knob End were just starting to suggest they’d snapped their binary sequence of nils and ones with a home win against West Brom and three-goal salvo in victory at high flying Norwich last week, but then surprisingly lost to out of form Bristol City during the week. PNE will no doubt fancy their chances against their former boss Alex Neil and his pretty lifeless Stoke side, while Bristol City welcome Wawll who may shortly be looking for a new boss. Burnley 1 Swanselona 1 should be a thrill, and Coventry v Cardiff is a lesser spotted exciting fixture between two teams beginning with C.
Slaven Bilic has probably only got a game or two to turn things around at Watford after two defeats last week to Blackpool and Swansea. Things don’t get any easier for the Croatian with a Saturday evening TV game at home to fellow former Prem side Norwich. The increasingly chaotic situation at Hull faces the ever shambolic nonsense of Birmingham Sunday lunchtime — John Eustace proving quite the adept boss in very difficult circumstances at St Andrew’s.
Referee: Well, the good news is they’ve sent us a Premier League referee. The bad news is it’s Tony Harrington. Details.
Luton: The Hatters won none of their first five league and cup games this season, but have only lost one of nine since (W4 D4). Three of the four wins have come away from home at Swansea, Cardiff and Hull which means the 2-0 victory against Blackburn is their only win at Kenilworth Road in eight games (L3 D4). They come into this match unbeaten in five, but that includes three draws including the last two. Birmingham (0-0), Sheff Utd (1-1), Coventry (2-2) and Huddersfield (3-3) are the four drawers here thus far, so we can look forward to a memorable 4-4 for our troubles tomorrow. Luton only kept two clean sheets in the first ten matches but now have three in the last four outings. Summer signing Carlton Morris is out in front as the leading goalscorer with six, following his switch from Barnsley. Luton have a notoriously bad record against QPR. Rangers have won five and drawn one of the last six meetings, including the last four. Their 1-0 win on this ground in an FA Cup Third Round replay in 2007, thanks to Zesh Rehman’s typically cataclysmic own goal ten minutes from time, and a 2-0 here at the end of Ian Holloway’s first stint in 2006 are the only two wins in 26 meetings going back to 1988. QPR have won five, drawn six and lost only two of their last 13 visits to Kenilworth Road. Luton haven’t won at Loftus Road since October 1984.
QPR: Rangers have lost only one of the last nine, and have won three in a row for the first time since November last year — a sequence of results that included a 2-0 home win against Luton. Mick Beale’s men have won six of their last eight, and have won four of their last five away games including the last three. Thirteen points from six games puts QPR top of the Championship form table for away results. The R’s have conceded just three goals in their last seven matches, having let in ten in their first seven. They have three clean sheets in their last five games, after two in the previous 28 going back to January — a sequence that includes a 2-1 win on this ground in April, one of only five wins in 25 games prior to this latest uptick. Lyndon Dykes’ two goals against Reading last Friday was the first time he’d scored two in a game since Rangers beat the same opponent 4-0 in January. In between those four goals he scored one in 24 games for Rangers.
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…
Cheesy’s Prediction: Luton 1-1 QPR. Scorer — Stefan Johansen
LFW’s Prediction: Luton 1-1 QPR. Scorer — Ilias Chair
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