A final round up of QPR’s Championship winning season before we officially begin the build up to the new Premiership campaign.

Player of the Season

It wasn’t so very long ago that John Gregory withheld the number ten shirt when he named his squad for the new season, saying he wanted a player capable of living up to this history of the number at Loftus Road – Tony Currie, Rodney Marsh and Stan Bowles could rest easy in their beds at night knowing that their legacies were in little danger of being usurped by the likes of Daniel Nardiello and Stefan Moore who Gregory had to work with at the time.

Adel Taarabt wears seven, but he’s a maverick in the finest QPR tradition and over the last ten months he has been the Player of the Season by an absolute country mile. He didn’t win the club award of course, Paddy Kenny took the honours, and while our goalkeeper’s performances have been worthy of high praise and won us crucial points to not select a player who scored 19 goals and picked up 23 assists in a season where his ability has dazzled and astounded in equal measure is ridiculous in my opinion.

Taarabt has always had it within him to be the player he has been over the past season, but has needed a manager to harness it. He’s like a very young, very big Rottweiler – having proved too much for previous owners at times he has strained on the leash threatening to pull Warnock over, and at others he’s turned round and bitten the hand that’s fed him quite considerably, but for quite a lot of the time he has been majestically impressive. Taarabt is the kind of player we could have only dreamed of when John Curtis was trundling up and down the right flank. He’s with us because he’s a flawed individual, and deep down I’m ure Warnock would actually like to give him a bloody good hiding, but the manager recognised the value he could bring to our side and we would not have been promoted without him.

He didn’t win the main club award partly, I think, because fans assumed he would regardless so looked elsewhere for their choice and also perhaps because there were some small minded individuals punishing him for his tantrums against Hull and Derby and selfish off nights such as the one against Bristol City. It’s these problems he brings to the table that keep him at Loftus Road, without them he wouldn’t be a QPR player in a million years. If you did indeed go elsewhere with your vote because of them then, if I may be so bold, you were bang wrong to do so.

A clear and obvious Player of the Year.

Runner Up – Shaun Derry. No, I promise, I don’t have a thing against Paddy Kenny who has been superb and almost entirely error free for the whole campaign which is some achievement. However I thought Kenny was a good signing when he arrived, while Shaun Derry struck me as a poor move last summer. “The anti footballer” was how I wrote him up on LFW which was a huge insult to a player who has not only successfully held the team together covered the back four and been a model of consistency but also shown a very decent passing game as well. All that was missing from him was a goal, and the deep lying midfield players both need to contribute more in that respect next season, but his presence in the team gave the likes of Smith, Routledge, Mackie and especially Taarabt a much more free reign to go on the attack at the other end and the results of that policy were clear for all to see.

Young Player of the Season

It has long been the LFW editorial line that we cannot ever possibly hope to churn out even moderately good young players at QPR with our youth system set up in the way it is currently. This is in no way a criticism of the coaching ability of Steve Gallen, Marc Bircham and the other guys in our youth set up it is merely a statement of fact. Look at the teams who came up with us from the Championship this season – Norwich and Swansea. Neither team has another professional club within 30 miles of them and both only have one competitor within the best part of 50. QPR have 12 other London clubs within ten miles of Loftus Road, five of them Premiership last season and by my count seven with academies. Reading, too, have an academy just a short drive down the M4 from our catchment area. It is absolutely scandalous that while they have been happy to pay transfer fees, signing on fees and big wages to 90-odd signings made since the takeover, our board is yet to invest a single penny in regaining the academy status our club desperately needs.

Without it we are immediately reduced to picking up the cast offs who couldn’t get into the academies at Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea, Fulham, West Ham, Palace, Reading and (correct me if I’m wrong) Charlton as well. Without it we are also left to play the other teams without academies, which means and endless stream of fixtures against the likes of Colchester, Aldershot, Barnet and Brighton on sub-standard pitches – sure it means the boys get to parade a trophy around at the end of the season every year, and well done to them, but the youth team is meant to be about producing players for the first team and the results are there for all to see.

Crystal Palace haven’t got a pot to piss in but their academy set up is churning out players like Wilfried Zaha, Nathaniel Clyne, John Bostock and so on as a matter of course. Palace’s young players slot straight into their first team and don’t look out of place, ours look like lost little boys. This situation is exacerbated by our lack of a series, competitive reserve team – a fact underlined by one of the behind closed doors games with Spurs’ second string earlier this season where, in true Sunday League style, they had to lend us a couple of players to make up the numbers. We are expecting our juniors to go from playing Barnet U18s on a park pitch to the likes of Cardiff, Norwich and Forest last season and Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea next and it’s simply not going to happen.

This year’s LFW Young Player of the Year Award is a sad indictment of the neglect of our youth system. Kyle Walker was not considered for the main club award, as he was only here on loan for three months through the autumn and winter period, but the 21-year-old right back is the only possible winner. In 20 league starts he averaged 7.20 on LoftforWords, 7.70 on the interactive voting, and scooped five man of the match awards. His touch, pace and athleticism added a whole new attacking dimension to our team. He’s quite possibly the best loan signing we ever made and in my opinion will be an England regular within 18 months – any talk of getting him back for next season should be futile, because he should be Spurs’ first choice, but maybe Harry would like to see him go out one more time before surely settling in as the first choice right back at White Hart Lane for the next decade.

Runner Up – Max Ehmer Bearing in mind all I have said about our youth and reserve set up, one avenue we must explore more rigorously is the loaning of players. Now we’re a Premiership club League One sides will be much keener on the idea of loaning our players, but for their part they have to make the most of their spells. How disappointing it was to see Romone Rose return early from spells with League Two strugglers Northampton and Cheltenham and then more recently Torquay because he was no better than what they already had, or Josh Parker heading back early from Northampton because he was left out for a game. And Antonio German disciplined while at Southend for poor time keeping, and unable to make the Yeovil Town bench in the second half of the season. Vital opportunities wasted.

So credit is surely due to Max Ehmer who joined Yeovil when they were bottom and impressed at centre half and centre midfield as they climbed away to safety. Rangers have clearly seen something in him because while the likes of Parker and Rose have been sent on their way today, Ehmer has had his deal extended so he will be at QPR for the next two years at least. A diamond in the rough perhaps?

Goal of the Season

When I was a kid the Match of the Day Goal of the Season award was a thing of great simplicity. A panel would sit down and discuss which one of Matt le Tissier’s 35 yard strikes was the most impressive and a member of the public who agreed with them won a load of premium bonds. Now there’s almost a snobbishness about the Goal of the Season – as if pundits, journalists and fans have to prove their footballing knowledge and awareness by delving deeper and finding a goal that comes at the end of a 25 pass move, or one that sealed a vital point that didn’t seem to matter at the time but six months later proved to be the difference between staying up or going down. QPR named Dexter Blackstock’s (admittedly fine) strike against Preston their goal of the season in 2006 because it won a crucial game, despite Marc Nygaard’s incredible goal at Leicester being far better both aesthetically and technically. As I sat at the Player of the Year dinner watching goals like Hogan Ephraim’s against Middlesbrough nominated while neither of Adel Taarabt’s blockbusters against Preston made the short list I made a pact with myself to go back to the le Tissier tradition of just picking the most outlandish, ridiculous, sublime goal for the award and who cares if 20 passes went into the making of it or it proved to be vital at the end of the season.

Ultimately I came up with the same answer as everybody else for once - Taarabt’s second goal in the 4-0 home win against Swansea on Boxing Day. This was the sort of goal you go to the football to see, beginning with a gratuitous back flick pass to Kyle Walker, then after receiving it back an outrageous nutmeg on Joe Allen who just shrugged his shoulders and gave up on life, and finally a powerful low finish from a good 22 or 23 yards out. It was outrageous and it was a pleasure to be there for it, especially as my seat in F Block gave me the perfect view of Allen’s reaction to it as he was made to look very silly indeed.

Runner Up – Adel Taarabt first goal at Cardiff. Taarabt’s two goals against Preston, and one against Cardiff at home, along with Alejandro Faurlin’s masterblaster against Sheffield United were all in my mind for the runner up spot but the sheer beauty of his first goal at Cardiff swung it that way. The ball was in from the moment it left his foot, and he seemed to be away and celebrating well before it hit the net. In a vital match, hostile atmosphere and coming just minutes after Cardiff had taken the lead to produce that sort of a goal was just absolutely superb.

Best Awayday

The Awaydays stated on LFW many moons ago as an idea pinched from a Stoke City fanzine called The Oatcake. The layout was changed this year because, after five years of writing the same articles in the same format about the same league it either needed changing, or scrapping. To be honest I was all for getting rid of them because I couldn’t really understand why anybody would want to read about one bloke dragging his arse up and down the country on Britain’s railways, getting drunk and watching a poor football team. So last January I stopped doing them, and within two weeks I started getting e-mails (well, two e-mails) from people asking where they’d gone and saying I should bring them back.

So, format changed, they returned this year with Neil Dejyothin’s excellent video and photography skills thrown into the bargain and even more excuse for me to display my obscene train geekery and drinking habits to the world – six paragraphs on the sale of British Pacer train sets to the Iranian national railway in the Scunthorpe column was a new low. It’s an odd concept for a column, and I still can’t believe anybody reads it, so I’m going to be deliberately obtuse and reach an odd conclusion for the Awayday of the Year award.

The points awarded in these columns are like the points awarded on Mock the Week – irrelevant and often bearing no relation to what has been said before. So I’m going to ignore them. The top ranking Awaydays this season were Watford and Cardiff with scores of 101 out of 140. But the Awayday of the Year award is going to one that got 92 and actually finished behind four other days out on the table.

Middlesbrough away this season was why I go to the football. It was an almost perfect day. As the weekend approached people at work started to ask where I was going this Saturday and the scoffed when I said Middlesbrough, which can’t really argue against its reputation as a smog laden, downtrodden, northern industrial wasteland. “Rather you than me” was the general consensus, even from my news editor at the time who grew up there. But right from the moment our train left Kings Cross we had a fantastic time. Tracey, Neil, Phil, Steve and Ellis were all part of the group by the time we arrived, we spent the afternoon in Dr Brown’s where a large Groslch swingtop bottle was available for less than £2 and grease laden hand cut chips were put out on the bar to scoff while you waited for your round. We missed the start of the Swansea v Leeds game while the landlord frantically grappled with his foreign satellite system that required the dish on the side of the pub to rotate left and right to intercept a signal every time he changed the channel – but the thought of two young lads who may once have worked down a mine in these parts frantically operating a pully system outside trying to align the dish with Romanian sports channels merely added to the happily farcical atmosphere of the day. QPR were absolutely superb and won 3-0, we had a Sunday roast served out of a van in a bap after the match, and then hauled two bottles of wine and eight bottles of Grolsch back to the train for the trip home for not much more than £20.

When the players joined us for the train journey back from Darlington it just put the tin hat on the day. Danny Shittu, immense in the match and with the fans, and Alejandro Faurlin were absolute gentlemen and when we arrived back in Kings Cross that night the team and fans walked down the platform as one giving the dregs of the days Premiership support a big “You R’s” as they waited for their trains home on the concourse. A fantastic day.

Honourable Mentions: Credit must also be given to the people of Cardiff, who afforded us a terrific welcome this year. From the moment we stepped off the train police, football fans and stewards alike were all tremendously welcoming, happy to talk football and chat with us, and generally the whole atmosphere around the place was superb apart from the usual gang of morons that every club has who revel in getting as close to the away end as possible and giving it the big one from behind the safety of barriers.

At the other end of the scale, and considering it’s the same police force this seems rather bizarre, minus marks to the coppers at Swansea who accused Owain of violating the terrorism act for taking a picture of the segregation in place between the home and away fans at the Liberty Stadium. Also, as ever, the stewarding in Sheffield bordered on the outrageous with QPR fans lifted aggressively and violently by a gang of thugs in yellow coats after all three goals while one young lass at the back waded into our group once every seven minutes to threaten us with ejection for, in no particular order, standing, coming into the aisle while celebrating, taking pictures of each other in the stands, laughing, and not returning to the same seats after half time. The stewarding and policing in that part of the world has been consistently awful for years, as A Kick Up The R’s editor Dave Thomas will happily testify to. Perhaps they should spend their close season heading down to Cardiff to see how a crowd can be controlled without treating all football fans as criminals before they’ve even set foot off the train. Mind you as both clubs will only have 200 Yeovil fans to steward next season they’re probably laying people off as I write this. If that is the case, then good.

Re-reading the column since the end of the season I smiled at the memory of walking into Nottingham’s Hooters to find out that, after weeks of gentle teasing that this would be the case, Paul had actually slept with one of the waitresses before. Also the brain of Britain in the Ipswich pizza takeaway who charged us £7.98 for an order worth almost £20 and was then overheard telling his colleague: “ “I love working here man cos yeh when I was at home I’d just be bored as fuck man yeh” while it was cooking. Surely some sort of Darwin survival theory should have come into play there by now? Maybe it has, maybe he’s dead now after forgetting to breath in and out while completing another task.

Deeper into farmer country the trip to Norwich shall not be remembered with any great affection. Not least because the subsequent Awayday attracted a barrage of criticism from those home fans who’d had their sense of humour removed at birth for my temerity to knock their historic “on the ball City” chant for being “a bit naff.” The official lyrics to On The Ball City are;

Kick off, throw in, have a little scrimmage,

City!, City!, City!

Prosecution rests. Mind you, they’d have to go a long way to match the Coventry fans who hated the LFW assertion that their side was an ugly, unwatchable sham of a football team that disgraced the club’s history and relied solely on bullying points out of physically weaker sides to maintain its league position so much that some of their websites wrote separate stories about this site. Anyway, without wishing to sound like Alan Partridge having the last laugh too much, let’s just say there was a wry grin on my face when the perpetrator of such a hideous brand of football Aidy Boothroyd was sacked eight weeks after I’d written that article following a run of one win in 16 matches – QPR contributed a pair of wins to that run, and I still maintain we did them a favour, although such is the financial structure of that club it’s unlikely they’ll improve much any time soon.

Mention should also be made of the Leeds trip where I thought I’d got the worst of it when a poor choice of footwear saw my feet freeze into solid blocks of ice in biblically awful temperatures – until I heard that Colin, Neil and the others had endured a seven to nine hour drive back down south afterwards as the blizzards moved in. It should be remembered though, that he eight feet of snow that fell that night didn’t stop Stewart Attwell completing the Ipswich v Leicester game on a pitch with no visible lines ostensibly because Ipswich were winning and Roy Keane had threatened him. That boy will go far.

LFW Pub of the Season

Another reason for the perverse decision to name Middlesbrough the best Awayday despite it finishing fifth in the table, was because it cleared the way for me to give Pub of the Year to the Tut ‘n’ Shive in Doncaster rather than Dr Browns. As fun as it way to get drunk on extra cheap beer, and eat thick cut chips for free from the bar, and spend half an hour watching a satellite dish rotate around in Dr Browns, the Tut ‘n’ Shive remains that little cut above.

A Camra pub within spitting distance of the station and walking distance to the ground, the Tut ‘n’ Shive offers multi-screen sport, hearty pub food in massive portions at rock bottom prices, and cheap beer. It’s almost made almost entirely out of recycled wood – and what’s not to like about that? Great place.

Honourable Mentions: Obviously Dr Brown’s was a close second, and I didn’t consider the always brilliant Mabel’s Tavern where we spent the pre and post match for the Watford game but also use after most home matches. The Waterfall at Derby did decent food and football, although Tracey felt the need to come up with an outlandish story to ‘fool’ the doorman into letting us in despite a ban on awayfans – we were on the second round by the time she made it in.

I also enjoyed the Windsor Castle near Clapham Junction pre-Palace – a pub that was written up in the preview as one with an extensive bar area with food and big screens but initially, if you go through the front door, appeared to only be about five metres squared. Some time spent tapping the wooden walls looking for a secret doorway later we discovered that if you go back onto the street and through the side entrance it’s a Narnia of publand. Sadly when we visited it was full of Scots wanting to watch the SPL, which regular readers will know isn’t actually a sport, and it was only because the landlord was a died in the wool Wolves fan and they were playing that we were able to get some proper stuff on the tv.

The Honest Lawyer in Scunthorpe was an excellent pre-match boozer, the Scream pub in Leicester less so and the pub opposite the station in Ipswich is an absolute shit hole. Credit to Hooters for being a good laugh pre-Forest, and the quay side posh gastro pub we spent an afternoon in at Portsmouth. A shame to see that the Ministry of Ales at Burnley, a previous winner of this award, has been priced out of it crowd pulling Sky by the ridiculous price rises that affect all independent pubs and play into the hands of the Walkabouts of this world which can never, ever possibly be a good thing.

Prediction League

It’s fair to say that the LoftforWords match previews have got a little out of hand over the past 18 months. Various good ideas that have occurred to the staff at LFW Towers all cobbled together in what has become a ridiculously long winded, almost impossible to put together mass of up to (and past on a couple of occasions last season) 7,000 words. The hours spent in the middle of Thursday nights writing it all up is made worth it by the positive comments the previews receive, especially from supporters of other teams, but I must admit it is somewhat demoralising to have people open them, scan down to the bottom, see I’ve predicted a win and say “what have you done that for.” All that effort and it’s just the lousy prediction you guys are interested in? Swines.

Anyway ‘lousy’ was the operative word this season as from 48 match previews I managed just a single correct prediction – calling the Cardiff away game a 2-2 draw. Predictions, it’s fair to say, are not my strong suit. I’ve told the story about my granddad and the greyhound that banged its head on the trap door and had to be shot enough times already for you and I to know that it’s a family thing. If you’d care to glance down our Prediction League you’ll find me nestling nicely in 54th position, among those who started the season and predicted a few games and then got bored. And I’m only that high because I tended to stick Taarabt or Helguson down as my first goalscorer every week.

Glance up to the top of said table and you will see a title race that would have had Sky Sports presenters reaching for the wet wipes had it been played out at the top of the Premiership. The top five separated by just six points, and another ten or so within striking distance further back. The scoring is done thusly: If you predict the result of a match accurately (eg. 3-1) you get 3 points plus a bonusof the number of goals in that game (eg. 3+1 = bonus of 4). Otherwise, if you just correctly predict the outcome correctly (ie. home win, draw or away win) you get one point. Finally, if you guess the correct first scorer for your team then you get 2 points.

which is as clear as mud I’m sure you’ll agree. What is indisputable is that attaining 70 points, as this year’s winner Tinhead managed, is a mighty fine achievement. The Prediction League on LFW has long rewarded pessimism and misery, this year it managed to seek out a guy who actually thought we might only lose six times and keep 25 clean sheets. Congratulations are in order – but I’m not sure I’d want to be stuck in a lift with such a happy individual. Six correct results bringing a bonus of 17 points, eight correct scorers and 19 correct outcomes for Tinhead, well done indeed. The agreed pre-season prize of £50 will be winging its way to him from the LFW bank account in due course.

A further note on the nearly men – Hants Hoop (second) and QPR Nippon (fifth) are there or thereabouts in this competition every single season which is worthy of high praise. Congratulations too to Grant1956 and cyprusmel who finished third and fourth after taking it right to the last day.

The Prediction League will be back next season.

LFW Betting Column

Such are the time constraints imposed by writing said match previews it often means that the Betting Column, which I think has just completed a fourth season, gets left until late on a Friday night before being posted. This is a shame, and something I’m hoping to rectify next season. First and foremost it’s a well written and humorous feature that’s well worth a read, and second of all for the first time this season both pundits actually turned a profit – and quite a healthy profit at that.

Had you backed every tip our boys gave you through the season you’d currently be sitting on a profit of some £790 – which is enough for not only a new season ticket but a new season ticket with the special £35 bolt on of stuff we always used to get for free. That profit divides unequally between Andy Hillman who recovered from a negative position held for much of the season to post a final profit of £63.08, and Brian Power who has had a couple of seasons to bed in and certainly made the most of that experience with a £730.71 haul.

I want to take this opportunity to thank both pundits. It’s very easy when I’m asking around for help and volunteers in the summer to stick your hand up – the sun is shining, everybody is optimistic, work is quiet, you have some spare time on your hands and it sounds like fun. But then come December when it’s cold and you’re snowed under at work and the tubes are full and the weather is awful all you really want to do is get home on a Friday night, get a beer out of the fridge and get warm. Writing a weekly column for LoftforWords is probably the last thing on your mind but Andy and Brian have steadfastly turned in good quality copy, on time, every single week without need for reminders or nags or anything.

I hope to have them both back next season.

…and finally

Well if you’ve got this far then you’re one of the people worthy of thanks in the annual LoftforWords. I’ve enjoyed doing the site this season, far more than I did the previous 12 months for obvious reasons, and I’m looking forward to carrying it on for a sixth year in the Premiership. But it’s only because of the people who read it, contribute it, post on its message board and so on that keep it going. Our figures have increased steadily as the season has gone on to a point where we are regularly pulling more than 60,000 page impressions in a day – a superb achievement that we’re very proud of.

I say ‘we’ because I’ve had lots of help and contributions over the course of the season. I’m bound to miss somebody out because I always do, so apologies in advance, but thanks to Rob Gilbert, Colin Speller, Dave Barton, Lewis Jones, Saffa Michail, James Bishop and others for their copy, thanks to Andy and Brian for their regular betting column and if you’re out there considering writing us a piece then get on and do it – they’re always gratefully received.

Congratulations to Owain who, despite picking and choosing his matches while living in first Dusseldorf and then Paris, successfully picked out all six defeats suffered and attended all of them.

Personally I’d like to thank three people especially this season. Firstly Tracey, who has been travelling around with me as part of different groups for years and has put up with my constant swearing, angry tirades, violent goal celebrations, drunken behaviour, and insistence that we must be on the platform ten minutes before the train arrives just in case it turns up and leaves early. It was great that we managed to get to every game this season together and see us actually achieve something.

Secondly Neil, who has become a fully fledged member of the travelling crew and whose superb photography has added so much to the site. He will be back with his camera next season I hope, but still won’t be receiving a salary. He’s also been unfeasibly generous with money and tickets on a couple of occasions this season both to me and message board posters and is a really superb friend to have around.

And, finally, finally, my girlfriend Lindsey who for the majority of this season hasn’t seen me at all during the week because we lived at opposite ends of the country and then didn’t get to see me on Saturday either because of Rangers, and then put up with LoftforWords commitments on top of that. She’s put up with a lot and never said a word in complaint, and things have got a whole lot better just recently. I’ve told her we have eight less matches next season, which she met with a suspicious grumbling noise similar to that perfected by Marge Simpson. The girl deserves a holiday.

Photo: Action Images

YorkRanger added 23:09 - Jun 6 Clive - really enjoyed the final round up and with all the dramas of the last couple of weeks over club ownership, resignations and season ticket prices it was a welcome distraction and a nice opportunity to reflect again on the many happy memories of the 2010-2011 season. Enjoy the Summer.
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HollowayRanger added 23:27 - Jun 6 true without taarabt we would never of made it an he was the championships player of the year ,but i guess it says a lot that the players didnt pick him themselves ,maverick on AND OFF the pitch have a long well earned rest ,me thinks you will be busy come the new season
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simmo added 02:29 - Jun 7 Also the brain of Britain in the Ipswich pizza takeaway who charged us £7.98 for an order worth almost £20 and was then overheard telling his colleague: “ “I love working here man cos yeh when I was at home I’d just be bored as fck man yeh” while it was cooking. Just one of the many paragraphs within your countless contributions that I have read back a few times whilst laughing my arse off... This was an unspeakable pleasure and your take on next season is right up there with match of the day, proper media coverage and the increased ease to convert my young son to be a qpr fan as things to look forward to next season as a premiership club. I don't care what all the others say about you Clive, your alright by me. I hope you enjoy your summer.

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Jeff added 08:34 - Jun 7 Cheers for allowing me to contribute in some small way to this site Clive! - already plans are a foot for betting domination next season! fantastic write up of the season, and thanks for reminding us of so many of the good things that have happened this season! On a personal level, it has also been a pleasure to properly meet you and Neil (multiple times now!) and so many others from this site and have a chat and a beer and talk all things Rangers - look forward to doing it all again next season...

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tinhead added 08:42 - Jun 7 Cheers for the nice words Clive. I think you'll find I'm an excellent person to be in a lift with as long as my arse doesn't decide to do cartwheels. :-) I hope my optimism can lead us to such lofty heights next year
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westolian added 09:47 - Jun 7 Group hug !! Clive, thanks for everything you do for us on this site
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isawqpratwcity added 10:02 - Jun 7 Have a great summer, Clive, you've earned it, many times over. Do you have a post schedule for the close season at all? My vote for photo caption of the year: Tracey holding two hands full of drinks and the caption "Please don't be fooled into thinking this is a round of drinks for several people." Ah, brilliant.
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Charlie1 added 13:14 - Jun 7 Stop pinching my arse during the group hug Westy! Thanks to Clive and all. This site is great and continues to grow. I fear, some testing times ahead next season! Keep up the good work and next time, don't have a diet coke!!!!!!!!!
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Grasshopper added 22:08 - Jun 8 Clive, I live overseas and have not seen the R's for a few years now. I feel so much closer to the action thanks to your fantastic reports and humour. We are all lucky to have a professional like you to make this site such a good read. Thank you for all your efforts and have a good summer, we'll need you back and refreshed soon.
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Monahoop added 22:09 - Jun 8 Without a doubt this is the best club site of them all by a million miles. Thanks Clive for the entertaining reports throughout the season. Look forward to the same next campaign.
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DublinQPR74 added 22:51 - Jun 8 I pity fans of other clubs who don't have such entertaining reports and previews to read. I often laugh out loud when reading them. It's my favorite forum too. I just checked out the highlights of that QPR 4-0 Swansea again after reading this. What a game.
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SomersetHoops added 09:10 - Jun 9 Well done Clive! I've spent far too much of my time on here this glorious season, when I could have been making money to pay for my season ticket. Your site has a great group of people attracted to it because its so good. We need your forum to share our views and the site adds a great deal to the experiece of supporting QPR. We may not always agree with each other, but one thing is clear WE ARE QPR.

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NorwayRanger16 added 10:38 - Jun 9 You are Premier quality Clive and deserve to be writing Premiership previews/reviews, which will bring even more readers to this fantastic site. I'm lost for words to describe how much i look forward to your writing next season, you are absolutely brilliant. Enjoy your summer, well deserved ! :-)
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E3ranger added 11:30 - Jun 9 Thanks so much for the ridiculous amounts of work you put into running this site, Clive. I genuinely look forward to the previews and write-ups, and they are always a really enjoyable read. I love the away day stories and fighting British Rail on a weekly basis, but all the detail you'd want from a really decent review is there too. Consistently brilliant. Was nice to meet you a couple of times this season and thank you in person. All the best, and have a great summer.

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jo_qpr63 added 22:10 - Jun 9 Cheers clive for all the work you and all the rest of the team have done. I've been supporting QPR 29 years but have only had internet for 2 of them, so its been a great way to reading other fans views and expressing them.. i love you all... By the way whats the views of the 27 year old league 1 player craig mackal smith for 4 million. I think we can do better..
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