Queens Park Rangers 1 Hull City 2
Nottingham Forest 1 Queens Park Rangers 0
Blackburn Rovers 1 Queens Park Rangers 1
Rotherham Utd 0 Queens Park Rangers 3
Queens Park Rangers 1 Wolves 1
Nottingham Forest 0 Queens Park Rangers 0
Queens Park Rangers 1 Ipswich Town
Queens Park Rangers 1 Fulham 3
There is this song by Hard Fi called Move On Now which I
quite like. Hard Fi aren't in my top ten list of bands, but they can write
songs and Move On Now is a strange ballad for a rock band -with a trumpet in
the middle...a sort of jazzy interlude for the rest of that breakthrough album:
Stars of CCTV. Of course, the title speaks for itself. This solemn sort of song
about a broken relationship as he looks out his window to the planes taking off
from Heathrow I have always found touching.
It's a song that's been in my head a lot during this time of
great transition both in my life and in the life of QPR. All the more apt when
I hear:
Looking out my bedroom window
See the planes take off from Heathrow
One by one they come and go
On and on, on and on
Think about this place I call home
All the shots and all that come
All around, all around
Clubs have all closed down
Nothing's going on round here, it's time we left town
Before it brings us down, down, down
I suppose the one thing I can say as I read this is that
there is no way I am getting out of QPR. It's stuck with me as much as I am
stuck with it. I am annoyed and angry but I haven't shut up shop just yet. I am
good with being angry at the club and the players. I get that. But let's not be
so hard on ourselves...Given that we've lost so much recently, we have to
remember we are ourselves impacted by grief and change. And if we take that in
to account I suspect we're only on stage two of the five stages of grief
(denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance).
I think about the places I'd go
It makes me think of the monotony; what it has been like
sitting at Loftus Road week in week out. And the reason for the lack of blog
posts from me this year...I remember bringing a friend to Loftus Road many
years ago. He was trying to like the football for me. But from our seat in
South Africa Road he literally plane-watched. I didn't understand it as things
were different on the pitch then. But I sure as hell would understand it now.
It might be more exciting if I played 'guess the airline' with my Flight Radar
App. Endless hours of fun.
I was out of town during the last match against Fulham and
out of town again this time. I suppose I must be grateful for being so
fortunate, although sometimes superstition does kick in and I think, would we
have won if I was there? Fat chance. I did watch on the net though, and from
the off I could hear our fans doing their part in what should be a derby where the
team must come out for a fight. Twenty minutes in though, and I
thought...something just isn't working here. Forty five minutes and I wondered
why I had even bothered. At sixty minutes I started falling asleep. And then of
course there was the twitter meltdown. Fans angry at the performance, angry at
the team's attitude...and rightly so. People calling for the board to sort
things out, people calling for Fernandes' head. People are revolted,
disgusted...
I honestly don't know where I stand on all of that. There
isn't enough that we are exposed to, to truly know the ins and outs both at
board level and in the training ground. But what I do know, is that management
during a transition period is always hard. There may be times when results go
our way and other times when they will not. At the very least, you want the
team to show pride in wearing the shirt, a positive attitude. But the human
spirit is fragile- what do we know about what might have happened in the
dressing room that morning. Or in all the players' various homes - a row with
the WAG perhaps or up all night with a new-born baby? Who knows? And how does a
manager 'manage' that?
Of course I hope the reason for such a poor performance does
lie within the realms of a fortune as opposed to a lack of respect for the
shirt. And on that basis, let's say I am not optimistic, but I am sympathetic
to the cause of transition and change. It take time, it really does. But for us
fans, time is always of the essence because we spend so much of it being such
passionate supporters. For many of us, it's the one thing we look forward to
week in week out.
Move on Now finishes:
Dance halls are empty
Got a feeling my love, we've gotta get out
It might also be worth just sitting back and continue
watching the planes land at Heathrow with that jazzy trumpet playing in the
background and just letting things be. Something will move on one day.
