Fear not, QPR are just biding their time, says Greg Sangwine (probably with tongue in cheek) as he looks back at classic recent examples of the R’s doing things the hard way.
Being a QPR fan is typically annoying even when times are great, we never do anything the easy way. A routine victory that some teams pick up never seems to be very QPR. It’s frustrating, but one thing QPR are certainly not is boring.
You could point to mid-table Championship finishes under Briatore’s various managers, but there was always controversy making everything that little more complicated. I look at the league at the moment and I think if you are a Fulham fan you must have been bored stiff nearly every season you’ve been in the Premier League. Cup runs aside they never play for anything, mid table finishes followed by more of the same. My dad says he’d love that every year but this just wouldn’t be Rangers would it?
Back when Ian Holloway was manager and we were relegated to Division Two many people expected us to be very strong at the lower level. My Dad tells me he had change from 300 quid for our two season tickets that year. They were happy times – Kevin Gallen came back and despite watching arguably some of the clubs worst ever players we had a fantastic time with Andy Thomson slotting in goals for fun.
I remember an amazing, bitterly cold day at Chesterfield with the sleet blowing in our faces, which really was the symbol of our time at that level. One nil down and completely dead, Rangers scored three second half goals in what I remember to be about 15 minutes of play: a Thomson penalty, a Matthew Rose goal and a Danny Shittu header where he celebrated taking off his shirt and swinging it around his head. Despite cruising we were all left waiting for the win as Chesterfield scored again 15 minutes from time to make the score 2-3. We hung on but that really was our season. Only six pros for Holloway to work with at the start of pre season but a rousing eighth place finish and plenty of hope…ahh hope. Very Queens Park Rangers.
After that season and with signings like Paul Furlong and Kevin Mcleod raising expectations, Rangers were expected to perform well. We were the glamour team in the third tier. We were the biggest attendance every week, always had the largest away following and regulars that season look back at it fondly. We all know that season ended with defeat in Cardiff but I won’t mention it. Swindon, Oldham, the Millennium Stadium were all great but my favourite memory was seeing Richard Langley’s last minute winner at Ninian Park. We were left singing until gone half five so the idiots holding bricks could leave but quite frankly none of us cared. I made 70p on the way out - they were just throwing money at us.
Finally we did get promoted and I remember my friend Mark cashing plenty of first score in the second half slips on Tony Thorpe that season. But we kept it close with abject home draws and an awful performance at Plymouth conceding the title. Even at 2-0 up at Hillsborough we nearly let them back in it, just to prolong the agony that little bit longer…all in three year’s work at Queens Park Rangers.
The Championship had its boredom on the pitch. For a long while after the takeover we rarely threatened the top despite making grand promises. Magilton’s team was a bit of an exception, but they leaked goals for fun and that proved to be another false dawn. We weren’t often troubled by relegation but controversy followed us everywhere.
Pre Briatore John Gregory’s excellent management skills kept us in the league with some honest, hard-working, but limited footballers held together by Martin Rowlands, Lee Cook and Dexter Blackstock. I remember going to the lifeless bowl, that Ricoh Coventry place that I refuse to call a football ground, and seeing us stay up. Adam Bolder made that year exciting to the end and that season was never boring. My dad still watches Blackstock’s goal v Preston on the internet sometimes. Despite all that has happened since that was an exciting season we look back at fondly.
However boring the Championship became, Briatore hung over it to make it exciting. Then Warnock came in, bought some great players who played some amazing football and won plenty f matches. But we couldn’t even manage to win the league, despite being the best team all year, without making it even more exciting. Which other team’s fans travel to an end of season match seven points clear of second place having won the title still chewing their nails nervous for the result of the game? In the end, even when it was confirmed on the pitch we had to sit through the agonising Faurlin saga that was only settled an hour before the kick off of the final league game.
We like to make it exciting, the easy option is never good enough. But boy, weren’t the celebrations worth it?
In our short second coming to the Premier League we’ve beaten Chelsea twice, been to Everton and Stoke and won and beaten Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham too. I can’t recall many teams in as much relegation trouble saying that. We were always good enough. At the end of last season we won five and lost five of our last ten games. I was at nine of them, the home ones we turned up, played well and won and the away ones the fans turned up and the manager sent lookalikes to collapse in front of a live audience for only the amusement of Bolton and Blackburn fans. It would have been too easy to just beat West Brom or Sunderland wouldn’t it? I just think for the QPR God’s that wouldn’t have been interesting enough. You can even draw comparisons between that game at Chesterfield and the final day drama at Manchester City: effort and commitment on the most part, quality when it was needed, an idiot individual mistake and last minute drama. Our season’s entertainment summed up in 90 minutes of entertainment aired all around the world. Martin Tyler and Gary Neville said before the game that nothing’s easy with Man City, but then things aren’t much different at QPR. I’d say they’re even crazier.
At the start of the season I, like many of you reading this, would have predicted a mid-table finish for Rangers having shown some real promise over the closing stages of the season. Not being quite ready for a top eight finish, I predicted 12 with a few big teams getting beaten along the way. It’d have been a bit boring and un-QPR like though wouldn’t it? An easy, controversy, stress-free season? No thanks….we’re Queens Park Rangers we’d prefer some more relegation dramas, sackings and has-been Chelsea players. I’m hoping my tone gets across how angry I am at the situation we’re currently in… but I definitely believe we’re just doing it all for the case of entertainment.
We all want that drama, we live it for it. Hope kills for sure but boredom is worse. I actually resemble a coke addict who cannot afford his fix by the end of July. Nothing satisfies my need for some QPR entertainment. I’d never want our season to be like Fulham’s and be finished when we exit the FA Cup. I bet none of you would either. This season we’ll stay up and we’ll do it the exciting way, against all the odds. The biggest comeback to survival in Premier League history. That would just be so Rangers.
We beat Arsenal, Manchester United and Everton but lose at Reading and Southampton. We end up needing a draw last day of the season to guarantee survival but concede two early goals from corners to Jamie Carragher to practically relegate us. At half time Harry surprises us all by making a double substitution bringing on Bothroyd and Derry who both score in the last five minutes of the season to complete our mission. The fans then ask for a victory parade to celebrate our achievements but the club releases a statement blaming the bus routes down the Uxbridge road as the reason we cannot have one. Or something like that anyway.
QPR – not your average entertainment industry. We couldn’t live without it.
Pictures – Action Images