Amusing

Queens Park Rangers 2 Charlton Athletic 1


I am thankful that my last game of the season was a win, albeit an 'ugly' one, with a beautiful goal in the final minutes courtesy of El Khayati. It felt good to be with friends and have an excuse to give them a huge hug when that goal was scored. I also celebrated afterwards at my leaving drinks with many great friends who took time out of their day to join me. I'll miss you lot! The next day I also found out I had won a bet on the Grand National - picking the name based on the old Tears For Fears hit - Everybody Wants to Rule the World (not the Take That song it was actually named after!). So all in all a positive and lucky week for the Emster.

I haven't quite figured out how I will continue writing about QPR from abroad, but I think with a bit of creative thinking and some help from friends I might just be able to do it and it might be even more amusing than usual. Watch this space.

And speaking of amusing things, the other night my neighbour reminded me of the 'radio show' that Gemma and I did 2 seasons ago for the Derby away game on Mixlr. The recording still sits on the Mixlr website and having not heard it since then I decided to have a little listen. Honestly, I had no idea just how funny it was. If you fancy a bit of light relief go to my showreel on: Showreel. I remember clearly how we were determined to make it crystal clear that no one should be listening if they were expecting any serious commentary. And as we poured glass after glass of wine, we must have sounded like the Patsy and Edina of football. And amazingly, we had about 60 listeners at one point-many of whom were not actually known to us. I honestly think there is still a gap in the market for frivolous and irreverent football humour coming from the female gender. A selection of great quotes to whet the appetite:

"If you want commentary you are in the wrong place."

"This is not professional, and it's very biased, and if there are any rude men around who are sexist you will hear this sound *sound machine plays*, and we will also be very sexist."

"Don't consider this a fact-based show."

"Richard is my neighbour, he is a big Snotts County fan, he is not actually with us today because his partner would be with us too and she would interrupt the whole time"

"Simon Thomas from Sky has over-plucked his eyebrows."

I do miss some of the old QPR podcasts that weren't always that serious. I remember the first one I went on which was called a 'spit and sawdust' episode. No special guests, no agenda. But I was in fits of laughter. The title of that podcast was 'Lucky Knickers'. Says it all really. More recently I saw the bit of controversy on twitter about the QPR Podcast a few days ago. Completely unfair really. Why complain when people are perfectly within their rights to do their own show and make their own commentary? If I could have an opinion though, I would only say that a bit more light humour would be add a bit more colour to the show... More recently I enjoyed the kids being invited on to the show. Kids always have a way of telling the God honest truth completely innocently. Was it Finney's daughter who said she supported QPR because her Dad made her? Very funny.

I fly out to Asia in 3 days and it feels unreal that the long wait of about 7 months is coming to an end. My fingers and toes are crossed that I will find as much laughter and fun in the next year as I have had with my friends and family here.

You RRRRRRSSSS

What it takes

Charlton Athletic 1 Queens Park Rangers 0

Queens Park Rangers 1 Leeds Utd 1

Tiger Cubs current running total: £15,206.66

As we enter the final stretch of the season, and QPR's run of poor results continues, my feelings are a paradoxical mixture of relief and fear. Relief because our shot at automatic promotion is likely gone and in theory it's now time to enjoy the football. Fear because if we do actually make the playoffs I am foreseeing a stressful period and heartbreak whether it's away to Forest in the first round, or a final at Wembley. I have a feeling that this is typical of most QPR fans, but I am not sure.

I am still bitter about our spate of injuries from some of our best players. And even those who might not be our best but provide some creativity: BAE, and Kranjcar for example are allegedly out due to aggravated injuries through training...It feels like all the luck is against us sometimes and at lunch post-match yesterday a friend and I had evil thoughts about breaking Burnley players' legs. How can I have stooped so low?

The manager and coaches must have moments where they feel just this. And while they cannot say it outwardly, perhaps Harry's recent short and rather depressing press conferences confirm it. A good manager, however, gets on with it. There is a job to be done, and 'you gotta do what you gotta do' with what you've been given. And if that means starting again with a set of players many of which fans barely recognise or know I guess - so be it.

Last week about forty people (including myself) took a 15 mile walk straight across London from West to East; from Loftus Road to the Valley to raise money for the QPR Tiger Cubs (QPR's team for children with Down Syndrome).  I was made aware of the QPR Community Trust project last year when I saw some of the tweets about the walk to Arsenal and I was surprised at how little was raised (looking at last year's fundraising page it reads at £2567.50) knowing that many QPR fans would love to donate if they had only known.

When I saw the announcement go up looking for walkers I felt it was right to try to help raise more money if I could, and there were many other newbies like me who joined in the challenge. I nagged friends and family, colleagues at work and baked biscuits (thanks Betty Crocker), as did many others. It felt as if our media team made a much bigger effort this year to seed out details of the walk and the fundraising for some weeks in the run up - getting players to talk about it on TV and ex players like Les Ferdinand donating. On the day itself I must say I was not prepared for just how tough the walk would be. I may have done a couple of triathlons and a few 10ks but walking almost solidly for 6 hours was one of my toughest challenges to date. The last two miles were painful to say the least, but with the kids having joined us at the Cutty Sark and football at the other end I had to focus my mind on making it to the end! 15 miles is a 'helluva' long way!

Would it also be fair to say that a season is a 'helluva' long time? Don't they always say life in the Champ is a marathon and not a sprint, and anything can happen in between the beginning and the end? Ever since we lost Charlie Austin I've been seeing balls miss the net where once he would have popped them in. And there is that little bit of sorrow in my heart. But as of the end of yesterday's match we are hearing that Simpson could be back within a week and Charlie in 4-6. Barton will also return from suspension of course -which will make a difference at Birmingham. But it's less about clutching at promotion straws now and more about having some of our first choice people back and enjoying watching them play. Right now it feels a little like those last two miles of Tiger Feet 5 where I'm not sure I can make it with the leading pack, but frankly I'll be glad to finish in one piece.

Promotion, playoffs, up or down, for me these last few weeks have been about discovering more of the positive things that QPR does in the community which I think we sometimes forget about. In our world raising money for charity is a full time business and you have to have a thick skin and still remain positive. You simply have to do what it takes to raise what you can.

A big thank you goes to Andy Watkins and Fiona Hodgson as well as Ian (the lead walker) for all their hard work, and to all the Tiger Feet walkers who made me feel welcome.

Please watch the video below to find out more, and donate here if you haven't already Tiger Cubs

Video by Nick Reinis

Paying it forward

Reading 1 Queens Park Rangers 1

Queens Park Rangers 1 Charlton Athletic 0

It's a little late on a 'school night' to be writing but I'll try to make this one short and sweet. I couldn't help but feel required to pay it forward today after the events of the last few weeks.

I was back at Loftus Road last Saturday having been away on holiday to the Philippines. Yes, the Philippines. For those that don't know it's also my home - I am half Filipino and have family and friends there. But luckily for us we are mostly based in Manila which was largely untouched by the typhoon. I received several messages from friends in the QPR community making sure we were all ok, and was amazed to see just how generous not only the QPR community has been but the whole of the UK with their donations to the DEC appeal. Everyone has already seen plenty of new coverage so there isn't a lot more to say except thank you.

On to football matters, having missed most of the Reading game having watched a juddering stream on my iphone from a Philippine island I was very much looking forward to watching the Charlton game. It was not the most thrilling of matches, and while there was nifty passing taking place it all felt a little bit like we were (as we had been a few times in the last couple of seasons) being a bit too clever - one too many passes and some of those passes going backwards rather than forwards. Is it me, or are we lacking confidence and a bit of aggression going forward?

I was praying for a long-awaited goal from 'my Charlie' and was so pleased to see that he scored a screamer from 30 yards out. Alas, no #slidingmovement for me, but according to Mr Barton a change of boots and laces to Rainbow ones appeared to have done the trick once again for him. Interestingly, the commentator on the Football League Show announced that Charlie had scored with his right foot, but had pointed to his left - perhaps he didn't know the real story about the laces and the fact in in some way Charlie was paying it forward by wearing the laces again.

One of the things you may not know about what is happening in the Philippines is that one of the biggest problems we have with the huge amount of natural disasters that take place there (we had an earthquake not long ago in the same region that took over 2,000 lives, and two years ago typhoon Ondoy killed over 400, we also have several active volcanoes one -Mount Pinutubo- erupted in 1991 killed several hundred), is the displacement of tens of thousands of people from their homes and livelihoods. And because we are such a complicated array of thousands of islands it's extremely difficult to get aid to those that need it. So it was with much appreciation that I watched the video at half time of the work that Air Asia are doing partnering with the Philippine Red Cross as well as using their own planes to help with the cause.

Of course I feel very proud to see QPR players doing their bit to galvanise individuals and to listen to the near silence at Loftus Road while the video played. But I am not surprised. It is, after all, what our community is about. People are paying it forward everywhere, even when perhaps they don't receive too much themselves.

Let's just hope positive attitudes permeate all aspects of the game on and off the pitch. Perhaps we'll see less playing it backward at Doncaster this weekend as I pay it forward and visit my Grandma.

Sweet dreams and thank you again.