Another defeat on the pitch, another great day out off it. Such is life at the moment following Queens Park Rangers.

1 – The Match
A scrappy affair largely dominated by Peterborough and a very picky and officious referee. QPR were second best throughout, falling behind after nine minutes to a goal from Aaron Mclean that was well worked, watch out for a lovely turn by George Boyd in the build up if you see the replay again, but owed much to lacklustre defensive play from QPR. Rangers barely threatened a goal of their own against the division’s worst defence and it was in fact Peterborough, well adrift at the bottom of the table coming into the game, that should have scored more goals – Boyd and Rowe both guilty of bad misses before half time. In the second half Rangers were reduced to nine men thanks to red cards for Leigertwood and Ramage for mistimed tackles – it was hard to argue with either decision despite Mr McDermid’s poor performance overall. Strangely the closest Rangers came to the elusive goal was in stoppage time once reduced to nine men – Hogan Ephraim fired over with the goal at his mercy after Jay Simpson had pulled the ball back from the byline.
5/10

2 – QPR Performance
Abject once again. It is actually a miracle that we had two men sent off considering nobody was actually putting any tackles in – less of a surprise to see both red cards come as a result of trying to retrieve misplaced passes from QPR players, Faurlin and Vine the guilty parties. Marcus Bent and Tamas Priskin made their debuts up front and were totally anonymous, the defence never once got to grips with Boyd, Leigertwood started wide on the right which turned out to be just as big a joke as it looked on paper and the centre of the midfield was paper thin. Only the levels of effort shown by Lee Cook on his return from injury provided any positive whatsoever.
3/10

3 – QPR support
Nearly 2000 Rangers fans went up to London Road for this one, it would have been twice that at least if they were being given anything to support. Once again those that made the effort amused themselves with self deprecating ditties about ‘going home in a minute’ and the old Kevin Gallen and Paul Furlong chants that were sung with real gusto. Amazing to see so many stay to the end, I was not one of them.
8/10

4 – Atmosphere
Not great truth be told despite the ground having a terrace behind each goal which normally aids these things. The QPR fans were in decent voice, dipping in and out of slagging the team off, getting behind it and signing the name of past legends. I’m sure the Peterborough fans sang a bit too but noise just does not carry from one end of this ground to the other and with no Posh fans to the immediate right or left of the away ends it’s difficult to really get anything going.
6/10

5 – The Ground
London Road is a ground I like visiting a lot. It’s an old style football ground near the town centre and railway station which makes for a good day out and then once you’re there you get a choice of sitting or standing which is always welcome. There are covered terraces behind both goals, one for each set of fans, a newer stand down one side and an old style main stand with a block of seats at the end for visiting supporters. It’s football as it used to be really and that makes a nice change from the identikit new grounds that are springing up here there and everywhere. However, it really could do with some renovation work. There are huge posts holding the roof up at the front of the away terrace which restricts the view terribly, and the toilet facilities had to be seen to be believed after half time – you’d have needed an ark just to go for a slash in the second half. Still, a fun ground to visit and it will be a shame to see it go, assuming we don’t go with it of course.
6/10

6 – The Journey
I sensed I may have problems with this one when I booked my train tickets a month or so ago and noticed that East Coast Railway had charged me for it four times, then re-credited my account with the money for three of them an hour or so later. Sure enough when I arrived at Sheffield at about quarter to ten to collect my ticket it spewed out only a single. A quick call home and check on the computer confirmed I had bought a return so having queued for the ticket machine I then queued for the ticket window to query this with them. The lady behind the counter told me, quite incorrectly as I have later checked and confirmed, that I was given two codes for the tickets and then, despite time really starting to tick, made me confirm mother’s maiden name, date of birth, address, e-mail address and password just to get the code for the return leg of the journey. I then queued up again to collect the tickets with just nine minutes to go before the train left. When that ticked down to three minutes I kindly explained the situation to the couple in front and asked if I could perhaps go before them so as not to miss my train and cost myself another £30. They said no, as was their right of course, and explained that they too were in a rush. Fair enough I thought, until the bloody lying bastards got their tickets, stepped away from the machine and one said to the other: “right we’ll go get a coffee shall we?” Is this country just completely jam packed full of wankers now? Anyway the machine then belched out two Doncaster to Peterborough tickets, to go with the one I already had, and three returns. All booked in the same two seats. I made the train with about 30 second to spare alongside Sheffield R’s Steve and Ellis, changed at Doncaster without incident and, apparently, made it back to Scunthorpe in time to see Hull FC annihilate St Helens in the opening Super League game of the season on Sky. I say apparently because it’s all a bit fuzzy in my mind after the second trip to the Great Northern. Still Ellis has since thanked me for teaching him some life lessons on the train home so I must have been talking sense!
7/10

7 – Pre Match
A bit of a bizarre one all round really. We met up with Tracy, Colin and Nick at Petrborough station and aimed for the Brewary Tap first and foremost because it was near the railway station and had good reviews for the selection of drinks and Thai menu. Colin, sorry mate got to do you for this one, claimed to know the way and muttered something about living in Peterborough for most of his life before leading us on a wild goose chase through a shopping centre to the pub which was, at it turned out, just 100 yards to the left of the station entrance in which we’d all met. Still, everyone makes mistakes I suppose. They had a big screen down in there which looked promising, but no Sky sadly. So we ate there and moved on. Everybody took advantage of the Thai food, which looked and tasted brilliant, apart from Tracy and myself who lazily picked the Thai burger from the top of the menu. What made it Thai? Who the hell knows but it wasn’t the best menu choice we’ve ever made between us.

Yummy Thai food and plain English burgers barely digested we made our way back to the station and the Great Northern Hotel in the hope of catching the Liverpool game. Things did not look promising as we walked through what was definitely more of a plush hotel than a bar to find the big screens and alcohol but sure enough they did have the match and we sat, in a straight line bizarrely, in front of a television and watched Liverpool and Everton leather seven bells of shit out of each other for an hour or so in the “friendly” derby game. The match was so poor we ended up back in the bar there before the final whistle of the QPR game and were later joined by a host of familiar faces before everybody dashed off for their respective trains.

I’m normally wary of hotel bars after the infamous £12.85 for two drinks at Stoke incident but the round in the Great Northern actually came to a couple of quid less than the previous one in the pub so it worked out well. .
8/10

8 – Police and Stewards
The only steward I happened upon all day was the poor sod who was given the job of standing outside the gents bogs during the second half warning of a flood and telling you to enter only at your own risk, with caution and a peg on your nose. I gave it a miss, he was very apologetic though.
8/10
Total - 51/80

Photo: Action Images

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