QPR came from two down to draw at Sunderland on Saturday with their first goal from a direct free kick since the Cretaceous Period and the club’s first ever goal scored by a goalkeeper — all in the final few minutes.
After 30 years and in excess of 1,000 Queens Park Rangers games, I do get to the point where I think I’ve seen it all.
Mostly it’s just slogging up and down the country watching a succession of games you’ll never remember against Stoke and Blackburn and Stoke. And Blackburn. And Stoke. Occasionally you get to cross something off — first ever penalty shoot out, first time you see QPR recover from four goals down, first time Tony Roberts keeps a clean sheet - but eventually these things become old hat. Begging that League Cup draw to chuck out Bristol Rovers away, just to tick a ground off. Pools Panel verdict — Swindon/Northampton. Fuck a duck.
More occasionally still Jamie Pollock chips the ball up over your striker and then lobs his own goalkeeper to preserve your First Division status with the most ludicrous of own goals, or Trevor Sinclair launches 12 stone of pure athlete eight foot into the air and scores the greatest goal ever in the history of the entire sport, or Rangers finally win a match at Nottingham Forest, and you draw air into your lungs so you can puff out your cheeks and turn to the bloke next to you and say ‘Christ mate, that was quite something’. Back to work on Monday regardless. Nobody there cares. Nobody anywhere gets it.
I’ve seen Les Ferdinand power past three men and score from 30 yards. I’ve seen Sinclair chip a goalkeeper from 40. Some of you reading this will have seen Michael Robinson do it from 50. I’ve seen comebacks from everything up to 4-0. Some of you will have seen Rodney’s hat trick against Birmingham. Some of you have seen Stan. But, eventually, when you’ve seen Bob Malcolm running after Jermaine Johnson, and you’ve seen Ademola Bankole belting Danny Maddix in the side of the head, and you’ve seen Idrissa Sylla score from more than four yards or Conor Washington score at all, eventually you come to the conclusion that there is, simply, nothing more to see. When Alexander of Macedonia was 33 he cried salt tears for there were no more worlds to conquer.
But then, from nowhere, when you least expect it, when you’re at the depths of your despair with the whole sorry thing, when all hope is lost and all faith is sapped, when you conclude finally you’re wasting your life, and you pack your mental case and head for the metaphorical exit door for the last time, vowing never to return, something new. Something different. Something staggering. Something never seen before, never to be repeated. Something to drag you back in, kicking and screaming, just when you swore you were out. A breath-taking piece of magic. And all you can do is stand and gawp in wonder at what has just occurred. Football, bloody hell.
On Saturday, in The People’s Republic of Sunderland on Wear, QPR scored direct from a free kick.
Take me now I have seen it all.
Now, when I was a boy, QPR used to do this quite a lot. David Bardsley, a hairline I can get on board with, would step up and wrap his foot around a little something from 30 yards out and lay waste to the entire metropolitan area of Southampton. Ray would nudge one off to one side and ask Les to "give it his best shot” and half the population of Oldham would be obliterated. But, then, when I was young, QPR used to beat Arsenal quite a lot. It was just a thing when I was a kid, like school playing fields, and public libraries, and having enough drinking water. You take these things for granted until they’re gone and now wishing their return makes you unpatriotic. For a long while QPR gave their free kicks to Joey Barton, who thought they were too mainstream, and belted them straight into the wall out of principle, having his in-house PR team compose a Tweet about tall trees catching the most wind (we had trees, and wind, back then too) while the opposition broke down the field on transition. More recently we’ve been letting Yoann Barbet take them, on the basis of one YouTube clip of him scoring against whatever waif a bankrupt Bolton Wanderers had ponsing about in goal that day, and him having a Johnny Foreigner name which means you’re definitely good at free kicks, even if you’re a centre back. A wise sage predicted a successful Barbet free kick would lift the roof from Loftus Road, though mainly because of all the damage the previous attempts had done to said roof. For really quite some time now, we may as well have just passed the bloody things back to the goalkeeper and cracked on with the quiz. "Thanks for saving us the time Yoann,” said Jim Bowen.
It is three years, almost to the day, since Ebere Eze last successfully accomplished this for us, at home to Wigan. We’ve played 148 times since. And then a hero came along. Two minutes of time remaining, two nil down, Stadium of Light, a depleted Rangers distinctly second best to a rip-roaring Sunderland, less time in the Last Chance Saloon, more ‘any last requests’ before somebody puts a bullet in you. We were done. It was no surprise that Tyler Roberts was the one to stick his hand up and head to the bar. "I’ll get one in shall I? No fucker else is…” Cheers Tyler. You’re a good man. Don't let this shit drag you down to QPR level, keep trying to bring people up to yours. Piling down the middle of the pitch with pace and purpose, Sunderland’s Gooch (stop it) ultimately felt he had no choice but to haul him down on the precipice of the penalty box. In an ensuing scuffle Ilias Chair appeared to grab a guy by the throat, referee Jeremy Simpson’s inaction as surprising as Chair being able to reach another adult male’s neck. Chair then took the free kick himself, picked the tallest geezer in the wall, beat him for height, dipped it down in time, and found the top corner of the next despite the despairing efforts of anaemic home keeper Anthony Patterson.
After that, nothing else mattered really, but for the record QPR went on to win an unlikely point. Simpson’s decision to add four minutes to a half which, from 65 on, had been given the full, brutal, unashamed Alex Neil treatment was an obvious fucking joke. The ball went out of play on 70 minutes and never came back in. The ludicrous notion that we should be allowed to change half our outfield players in a single Championship game now was used to the absolute maximum effect — stop the game, signal a substitution, get the fourth official to the touchline, and then… have a long discussion about who we might like to take off. At one point a double sub was used as an opportunity for the entire Sunderland team to journey across to the touchline for a water break. A water break. There was one cloud in the UK on Saturday, and it hung steadfastly over this gaff. I was cold. It was actually a QPR free kick, but instead of just letting us take it and making it the Mackems’ problem, Simpson just kept blowing the whistle, demanding they return to the field, but not doing anything to make it happen, nor taking action when it didn’t. We’ve seen this shit with Neil’s vile Preston outfit and Championship referees’ embarrassing impotence in doing anything about it, even in a supposed clampdown on such so-called "shithousery”, is as depressing as it is irritating. To then only add four minutes to the end of the game was an abication of duty by a referee who has to borrow a bollock from his wife just to be brave enough to order his own milky tea in an empty Starbucks. They used to shoot you in this country for cowardice like this.
Luckily, four minutes was all it needed. Sinclair Armstrong was on. Like Roberts, he’s a QPR player who forces the issue. He’s quick, and direct, and ambitious, and built like prime Nigel chuffing Benn. We can talk about not expecting too much too soon, not over-hyping him, not destroying the kid, but at the moment he’s fit, he’s confident, and he makes things happen. He’s going to connect with one of these bicycle kicks soon and burn the whole barn down. You’ve got to give him minutes while he’s like that. His push and go, scorching Gooch down the left flank as the time ticked down, was exhilarating. Fellow sub Macauley Bonne was angry he didn’t cut the ball back at the end but you can’t knock him monstering 50 yards of pitch in double quick time like a donkey on chips and winning a corner like that. Seny Dieng journeyed forward, nearly headed in Chair’s delivery at the near post, challenged for the dropping ball so his opposite number couldn’t stride out and defuse, and then retook position in time for Chair to deliver the perfect return ball right onto his head for a magnificently executed stretching header, looping up and over Patterson who had no chance of recovery, and into the far bottom corner with a satisfying plonk. It was in from the moment he met it, and we were tumbling across the plastic seats up on the cloud base long before the plonk plonked. You do it to experience these moments together. We'd been bitching and moaning about inconsequential bullshit a couple of minutes prior, now here I was throwing my mate Si down a concrete staircase. There was a time when men were kind.
It was the first time a goalkeeper had ever scored for QPR — though Phil Parkes had one disgracefully disallowed against Leicester under the nonsense offside laws of the 1970s — and it won Rangers the most unlikely of points from a game in which they were distinctly second best. Might be a good teaching point for Ilias as well: get it out of your feet, and get it in, nothing more, no elaboration. Look what can happen.
Luckily the police don’t bother with burglaries any more so we’re home free.
Armstrong, by the way, wasn’t happy with the point and went for the ball from the net, thinking we still had time to restart and win the game. I like this kid a lot. When Michael Beale talks about "what sort of QPR we want to be”, I prefer this version, to the ‘woe is me’ slop we churned out for another thick hour here.
Given the context, even a normal, run-of-the-mill late point would have been a fine achievement. Sunderland stormed out of League One last season and were on an unbeaten run of 18 games coming into this one. Confidence is high and crowds are once more touching 40,000 in this part of the world. QPR self-flagellated to death through the same period, carry themselves with all the confidence of an amateur poet too afraid to publish his work, have been hamstrung through the summer by budget constraints, and were missing all of the players you’d want to be missing the least. It's like it's happening on purpose, like there's a curse. Taylor Richards, Kenneth Paal (whoa hoa) and Jake Clarke-Salter have quickly fallen victim to this noxious spell that continues to sideline star boy Chris Willock and Big Bad Luke Amos. Roberts looks the part when he comes on, but has had no pre-season. It’s like one of those Raw TV-produced Netflix documentaries where the twist leading into act three is Neil Banfield’s been poisoning the bastard choc-ices all along. Though nobody would ever admit it, and whenever QPR try something like this they end up losing the subsequent games regardless, it did feel a little bit like Rangers were willing to sacrifice this game altogether and then go all guns blazing into an attractive home double against Blackpool and Rotherham next week with bodies back.
The first half played out exactly like that. Sunderland recovered well from the early loss of eye-catching summer signing Daniel Ballard - weirdly badly injured off one of several nothing-more-than-clumsy Albert Adomah niggles, we wish a potentially great player well - to dominate the game entirely. Jimmy Dunne was rolled too easily on four minutes against a club he spent time with on loan, Rob Dickie swooped in to save the day. Ross Stewart, surely confident of usurping Lyndon Dykes for his Scotland spot soon, nodded down on 11 minutes for Everton loanee Ellis Simms to strike firmly straight at Dieng when an extra yard of angle in either direction would have rendered the keeper helpless. QPR gave the ball away cheaply on 13 minutes and Stewart saw a shot blocked before Alex Pritchard followed up and shot wide.
There was then a vague hint of Rangers getting into the game. Dykes, leading the line alone, did well with his back-to-goal game and got surprise starter Mide Shodipo motoring away down the left — good cross, Adomah back post, free header, had to do better. More good play by Dykes won a presentable free kick that we wasted when Johansen — once again much more 21/22 Johansen than the 20/21 equivalent — gave the ball away leading to a break and a Sunderland corner. Great work by the much-maligned Osman Kakay drew a bad foul and yellow card for QPR legend Jack Clarke but we rather pissed about with that set piece too, Adomah committed another foul, the locals got on the back of Simpson for his lack of action, and Sam Field paid the price with a cheap, crowd-pleasing booking. More arse on a fucking giraffe than this referee.
That meagre progress was interrupted when Stewart followed in on Dan Neil’s shot and converted with ease for 1-0. Rangers then completely collapsed. That’s all it takes: goal against, bit of noise, on the riveeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrr where they used to build the booooooooooats (and dad wor sad) — total, needless, panic. We could have conceded twice more in as many minutes.
Dykes struck one instinctive volley that hit Adomah, missed the top corner by half a foot, and was given as a corner. If he’d connected even half as well as that at the back post when Travelman’s cross from the left flank found him in space it would have been one one, but he didn’t, and this was the only thing Judith Chalmers got right all day on another horrible outing.
One pump down the middle, one contested header, one second ball later and Ellis Simms was piling through to make it two nil with his third goal in two matches since moving from Goodison Park. If this kid isn’t a better bet than that fat mess Salomon Rondon then I’m watching the wrong sport. Nevertheless, you cannot, cannot, (cannot), be as soft-centred and easy to play against as QPR were there. It has to be harder to score against you than this. Talk about Rob Dickie’s header an inch wide with the keeper beaten off a well-worked free kick routine on the stroke of half time all you like, QPR were weak to the point of being pathetic in the first half, and the 904 idiots who’d braved rail strike, drought, cost of living crisis, plague, pestilence, angry partners and all good common sense to journey up and support them deserved a lot better. Put some fucking minge round it for God’s sake.
They got better from Roberts, on at half time for the once-more-ineffective Adomah. They got much better still from Armstrong. It’s this that provides the demon hope. Add Roberts and Willock to Chair, Amos, Richards, Field and you can really put something together. Armstrong coming on late, to run at tired bodies. I can see us causing teams problems. But not like this. Travelman, bless him, I’m trying not to boot the lad, but he’s not capable at this level, and his first half pass completion rate of 53% showed he gave the ball away one in every two times he got it. It genuinely is starting to feel like I could do a better job myself. Sunderland were after him from minute one, as every team will be.
The midfield was busted and ineffective: Johansen a dad in a dads and lads match; Field lost at sea; Chair turning in one of the worst personal performances I’ve ever seen from him - incredibly difficult to mark given the way the game ended, because he'd been garbage prior to that remarkable recovery that he led. Sunderland were up, and in our face, and competitive. Lyndon Gooch was everything our full backs weren’t, and he was allowed to journey all the way across the face of the area unchallenged before unloading a shot wide. Sunderland looked decent. They're bringing Patrick Roberts off the bench, and we're starting with this muck. It took until 55 minutes for us to tackle a geezer, and when we finally did the endless possibilities were unveiled when it allowed Tyler Roberts to move into the area, sit the goalkeeper down, and agonisingly miss the wide-open bottom corner when it seemed easier to score. Maybe do that a bit more.
The Black Cats will cry robbery. The faces walking across the car park afterwards were an absolute study. I wish I could show them to you, I couldn't describe it. Perfect, pure blue ocean. Alex Neil gave the sort of erudite post-match interviews you rarely find in this era of bluster and bullshit, pinpointing tactically exactly what had happened, how he’d tried to address that, what had happened as a result, and how it unravelled. In the end, he say, it boiled down to QPR adding a goalkeeper to a penalty box which, unless your own goalkeeper goes to mark him, means an extra man, and on this occasion the cross flew perfectly his way. It was interesting to listen to, I thought he did well to speak like that after such a disappointment, perhaps it comes with everything he’s achieved here already giving him the security of demi-God status in this part of the world, and five points from three games being a great start to any season for a newly promoted team.
But… When will he — or any Championship manager for that matter, but he’s among the worst for it — ever, ever, ever be able to bring themselves to view a 2-0 lead with 20 minutes left as an opportunity for a 3-0, 4-0, 5-0 parade, rather than an excuse to stop playing, shut up the shop, and start clock running? I’d say QPR were here for the taking, but in fact they’d already been taken. We were done: tied up, gagged, bound. We’d been in the boot of a car at the airport for a fucking month. The smell was starting to arouse suspicion. He got away. He got away? He got away. What do you mean? You didn’t even need to push us over the edge, it had already been done. Help yourself. There’s a bastard welcome mat at the door says Come On In Sunderland. Stefan Johansen is preparing hot, moist towelettes. But, no. Apparently.
We don't understand the intricate complicities of these things. It's not "how football works". Simms, best player on the pitch, off. Throw ins swapped around and passed between people. Free kicks pondered over. The water break farce. Piss well and truly taken. Why? Why is Neil like this? Why is the Championship like this in general? Why is this just standard, accepted practice now? In 20 years' time do you think you’ll be talking about the 5-0 you went to? Or that time you successfully saw off a 2-0 win against a depleted, mid-table outfit at home, by pissing about over a throw and pretending your full back’s got a head injury? It’s mind blowing. And while you’d be hard pushed to say QPR deserved anything from the game, watching a team take a position of such dominance on the field, and the scoreboard and turn it into Now That’s What I Call Shithouse 88, certainly got the sweetest of just deserts.
Sunderland, of course, nearly won the game anyway. You could say QPR thought they’d done enough and switched off, but they were soft and gettable all afternoon and Sunderland had just stopped trying to get them, in favour of clock running. What happened next made Sunderland taking their foot off our throat and trying to see the time out even more unfathomable than that shit is to me anyway. A late ball into the box caused absolute carnage. Stewart chested down and shot Paul Furlong-style, Dieng saved terrifically, the ball squirmed loose to sub Elliot Embleton who had to score but Dieng heaved himself at the rebound and connected just enough to deflect the ball up, onto the underside of the bar, down onto the ground on the right side of the line, and out for a corner. I guess sometimes it's just your day. But we never should been within a postcode of it being ours yesterday.
I genuinely don’t know who I was more cross at: QPR for nearly blowing it all over again; or Sunderland for their cynical bullshit approach to the last 20 minutes of the game when this sort of goal was just there for the taking from a free and open buffet Rangers had been running all afternoon. Still, injury time equalisers from your goalkeeper away from home aren’t time for anger. Sweet dreams are made of this.
I was going to cancel my Netflix, but I think I’ll hang on for this episode.
Links >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread
Sunderland: Patterson 6; Ballard — (O’Nien 9, 6), Batth 6, Cirkin 6; Gooch 7, Neil 7 (Embleton 88, -), Evans 6, Clarke 6; Pritchard 7 (Wright 88, -), Stewart 7, Simms 8 (Roberts 60, 7)
Subs not used: Bass, Diamond, Alese
Goals: Stewart 31 (assisted Neil), Simms 40 (assisted Pritchard)
Bookings: Clarke 26 (foul), Evans 41 (foul), Gooch 86 (foul)
QPR: Dieng 8; Kakay 5, Dunne 6, Dickie 6, Travelman 4 (Bonne 90, -); Johansen 5 (Dozzell 75, 6), Field 5, Chair 6; Adomah 5 (Roberts 46, 7), Dykes 6, Shodipo 5 (Armstrong 81, 7)
Subs not used: Masterson, Gubbins, Walsh
Goals: Chair 88 (direct fk (!!), won Roberts), Dieng (!!) (90+2 assisted Chair)
Bookings: Field 30 (to shut the crowd up), Dickie 37 (foul)
QPR Star Man — Seny Dieng 8 The goalkeeper has equalised and produced a remarkable double save in injury time, it’s not going to be Jimmy Dunne is it?
Referee — Jeremy Simpson (Lancashire) 5 I’m done with this guy now. For a team to be able to wander off to the touchline for a water break on 80 minutes and stand there for as long as they liked, while he blew his whistle and waved his arms and nobody paid any attention, sums up his authority and control of games. Book people, add time on, hell let QPR take the free kick while they’re all standing over there see how quick they get their arses back on the pitch then. To do none of that… And then... The skinny four minutes of added time at the end would be laughable if it wasn’t so obviously wrong, and easy to get right. Given QPR’s pathetically insipid resistance and total unwillingness to match Sunderland physically for the vast majority of this game, there was nothing really to referee here either. Simply not brave, confident or authoritative enough to referee football games at this level. Should not be trusted with them anymore. There’s some church hall orange squash out there needs watering down a touch more and I know just the man for the job.
Attendance 37,884 (904 QPR) That many of us, on the day of a rail strike, at that expense in a cost of living crisis, in a drought, in a heatwave, with our team in this state… I’m in awe. It’s a pleasure to stand among you. You are the best of us. We are QPR. If you’re a Sunderland fan giving it "your support is fucking shit”, or chuntering on the way out that "we only heard them in stoppage time”, I’d like to give your head a wobble myself to the point that it snaps off your shoulders. There’s a shitstorm coming. The wind is already picking up. Show solidarity and respect among fellow sufferers.
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