Welcome back/to QPR

Queens Park Rangers 0 Swansea City 5

I, along with several thousand QPR fans, will try to draw a line under what has been the worst start to a season I can remember. I wasn't expecting to write a blog tonight after such a heavy loss. Swansea at home couldn't have been a better test for another 'shiny new-look' QPR squad.

I was prepared to forgive the 8 minute goal from Michu as we were looking slick and confident: Park was workman-like and Hoilett looked like he was fired up. Early days, I thought, early days. And at half time I checked the stats: we had pretty much equal possession, had completed the same amount of passes as Swansea and had several shots more on goal. Sadly the only one that counted was the one from the opposition. One would have thought, that this 'shiny new look' team and our experienced manager would have sounded the alarm bells at half time. But it seems to me that a lack of respect and over-blown confidence prevailed which resulted in a second half where we simply crumbled. I don't think I've ever seen so many people leave the ground so quickly after goals no. 4 and 5 occurred. And once 4 goals were scored, I have to say I was thinking "I just can't take 20 whole minutes of this." Yes that's how much time we had to suffer.

And here is my line:

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On the other hand. My morning and early afternoon were filled with high hopes and excitement as I prepared myself for this season's first trip down to The Green to see the members of the QPRTWITFAM. It was great to see @Loftboy63, @Funkyprawn, @RichieQPR1, @Mrs_AJams et al. It was also nice to meet my sister from another mother @Gemcricketmad and her son for the first time.

On the way down to the Bush it was nice to read all the excited tweets as people from all over the country made their pilgrimage down to Loftus Road. There were many new faces too, a lot of new fans from Korea who were there to support Park Ji Sung asking for directions to the 'Queens Park Rangers Stadium'. It was nice to hear from some of the old fans that they were excited to welcome this new international following. There was a positive feeling in the air. I really like the way QPR fans are embracing the changes at the club.

Also today, the latest QPR writer @writesaidfred68 was down from Norwich with his two kids in tow, signing his book which is now selling at the QPR club shop. Unfortunately I was not able to see him, but I wish his book all the success and urge all fans to get down to the store and buy it if you can.

Here I erase some of the line

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I am considering watching Match of the Day & Match Choice today even though we lost. Why? I need to understand what the hell happened. OK, I know what happened (I merely want to re-affirm my belief): we don't have a defence, and we were completely wrong tactically, we shouldn't have had Cisse up-front alone, Fabio was frighteningly bad...etc etc etc. Well, in all honesty, we were Queens Park Rangers. And that's what we do in the first game of the season: we squander a great opportunity.

What does it mean? My prediction is now what we will have an EXTREMELY exciting season. We will not be suffering from mid-table mediocrity. We certainly won't be playing boring football (good or bad). We will see some serious under-achieving going on, and we will see the 'old boys' playing the better football. Sound familiar?

Well, we are familiar with it, but I did feel for the two young Korean chaps who shared a carriage with me on the Central line home. I wondered, have they made previous pilgrimages to Old Trafford before? Looking at one of them who was wearing the new Air Asia-sponsored kit, I thought - has this boy realised changing allegiance will bring him such pain and anguish on a regular basis? Does he know what we'll probably lose to Walsall on the 28th August? Will he be there at all after today's performance?

Welcome back to another season with QPR everyone, and welcome new fans to what will likely be one hell of a season.

You RRRRRssssss

 South Africa Road on a sunny day before the crumble

Finally, they put my name on my seat!

Intermittent access

Queens Park Rangers 1 Stoke City 0

I write this from the Far East mid way through a relaxing holiday that is just what the doctor ordered. I promised myself I'd write a blog and haven't missed doing so since I started in January of this year. But this could be my toughest task yet given that it took forty of minutes of the first half to finally get a connection to the game online, and the second half consisted of stuttering access...we could just about get running TV commentary but I saw very little passing or movement, and I missed the goal on the 88th minute when the connection pretty much ground to a halt. So no different from your recent average QPR match then?

So I am so not going to pretend that I know anything about how the boys played. Apart from being able to read the reports online (eventually), and also seeing a few highlights from an NZ website (which showed Barton in a very good light) including the player's prostrations of relief at the final whistle, I really haven't a clue from a personal level what happened.

I had lovely day though, all in all. It started with getting to know the chaps who work here at the resort I'm staying in. At breakfast, they suggested a new beach for me to visit on the island and said they'd take me over at sunset. I was happy to go along, but warned them I needed to be back in time for the big match. Football is not a massive sport here in the Philippines. Ironically despite the average height of the Filipino, basketball is. But football or 'soccer' has grown in popularity with the help of the Premier League and the Champions League brands and the growth of Cable TV sports offering Premier League matches every weekend. So it was with some excitement but very little knowledge that the boys started to talk to me about football. They had no idea who 'Quinn Park Ranger' were, but were hungry to understand what it was all about - how fans spend copious amounts of money watching their teams play, and whether we had anything to do with Barcelona or Real Madrid (one day young Paduwan, one day).  'Greg'  met me at 3pm to make our way over to this new beach. He was wearing a yellow Chelsea shirt. This was far from ideal as you can imagine. And I quickly told him in no uncertain terms that this had to change soon. I was keen to make sure that he understood the implications of wearing it that day but to be honest I pretty much got a blank face until the point at which I said, please don't wear that this evening when we all sit down around the computer to watch the game together. Message received, loud and clear.

So as night fell, and we drew close to kick off, a group of us sat around the computer in the middle of a 'jungle hilltop tent' and I had all my links ready to go just in case some worked better than others. It was a hot & sticky night, and there were a few mosquitoes around. But wifi was working, and we had pizza and fried chicken at the ready, and the stage was set for the big showdown.

Or not.

The build up to the match was all excitement and nerves. And then. No streaming video. I tried QPR Player and managed SOME radio coverage but this was fairly intermittent too. So I relied on twitter to keep me in the loop. We did get some pictures by the second half, albeit literally 'screenshots'...But by the 80th minute, I have to say I had given up on  our life in the Premier League. With Bolton still winning at that point I was one of those who was tweeting 'Bye Bye Premier League'. I know there is a small army of fans who would be quite happy to see us winning games back in the Championship instead of going through what we're going through now. But really, judging by all the reactions that I am seeing online, most of us don't want to go back. Who would want to? With all this wonderful attention we are getting after 15 years our of it...NO WAY. I am loving every minute of it. So when I finally saw everyone saying Cisse had scored you can imagine my ecstatic reaction. Needless to say the group of people around me had no idea what was going on as all they could see was a video screenshot of the match that had stopped moving around 82 minutes. Bless 'em. They sat through it all patiently with me even though there was neither good football, nor any real decent streaming coverage to watch.

And then I missed Loftus Road like a big hole in my heart. I imagined all the fans running on to the pitch (exciting but slightly premature methinks), and the players relieved that Bolton had drawn at the last minute, and everyone from the #qprtwitfam having a drink at The Green afterwards. I stayed up for another 2 hours (we're 7 hours ahead here), trying to watch video highlights but I was only disappointed with what was a really poor connetion at that time of night for some odd reason.

I sit here now at breakfast, finally able to show the guys video highlights of the game and shots we made (a few potential corkers from Taarabt & Barton!!). The lads here started saying 'Gametime Hoops', and I thought - you guys have been doing your homework on QPR, only to realise they were talking about something to do with the NBA (how little I do know...). So perhaps it will be a while yet before I can fully convert them over here.

So I am now looking forward to another day in the sun but also missing home very much and feeling so nervous about this weekend.

But, at 82 minutes in yesterday, who would have thought we would still be in the mix at all? The drama that is football, and that is the Premier League is really why we love the game so much (whether we admit it or not). But did I honestly think when I started writing this blog in January that by the time I was on holiday we'd still be fighting for our lives right to the death?

You just couldn't make it up could you?

QPR in the Philippines

'It was the best of times

Queens Park Rangers 1 Tottenham Hotspur 0

...it was the worst of times'. Kept echoing through my head throughout the match today, even before Taarabt scored from a fantastic free kick. The match itself was filled with everything that a QPR match is expected to bring these days to Loftus Road: agony, ecstasy, pleasure and pain - all in one go. As I've said before I am quite sure that plenty of people suffer increased blood pressure during matches, and there were several 'shrieks' from the crowd when we thought for a millisecond that perhaps we were done for as Tottenham came so close to scoring.

But I also thought about the fact that this was my last home game (as I'll be on holiday during the Stoke game) and wistfully looked back on my experience so far in this season which could quite easily be compartmentalised in to two halves. In January I started writing this blog, and in one of my first blogs after the first cup tie against MK Dons I asked whether this was the turning point in our season. The football we played at that game was ugly, QPR favourite Ale Faurlin got a serious injury, and I think if I remember correctly, it was Warnock who said that the last minute goal from Helguson was perhaps a turning point. Little did we know, however, that the real turning point lay in the massive changes that were to come in the form of new management and a host of new players. At that point in time, our season well and truly became a dogfight, while the previous half was about a QPR team unsure about what it stood for with a varied and less than spectacular run of results.

'...it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,'

...I then made my journey up to Newcastle not long after, taking the coach for the first time. It was the first of quite a few games where Mark Hughes spent time tinkering with the team, testing out the squad and understanding who could do what. The irony is that those who have really shone through have been our Championship players: Derry, Buzsaky, Mackie and Clint Hill have been invaluable and quite frankly up until a few games ago they were the only ones who looked as if they gave a damn. It's amazing how it appears to have taken so long for everyone else to really show some passion. It's taken so long for the penny to drop that if QPR go down it's not just the club that might suffer, but their own careers as well. It would be unfair to say that our 'shiny' new team of Premier League big boys haven't performed in more recent games, but poor behaviour and a flurry of red cards has made them (Cisse you know who you are) look foolish. But we've also had some bad luck, and Derry being sent off at Old Trafford was the icing on the cake in terms of poor referring decisions. However, it seems we're getting used to playing with ten men. When Taarabt was sent off today, there was perhaps a moment of confusion from the crowd and just a little anger, but as my neighbour said 'it's almost like we just shrug it off now we're so used to it'. By that stage though, I was honestly starting to believe we could really win this match and I remembered all the tweets coming in saying #believe all week.

'...it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,'

And speaking of tweets, I spent some time at The Green just before today's match, meeting with many people who I've been getting to know in the virtual world. The #qprtwitfam is well and truly established, and putting faces to names and seeing people 'come to life' was a great experience. Hello to everyone I met, I am so looking forward to seeing you all again soon. One of the greatest things about being a Rangers supporter has been meeting fans who are just as obsessive as me. Sadly, apart from my father, I've never had any close friends who have supported this greatest of teams, and so making new friends has been a highlight of my season. My experiences travelling away on the coach have also been a real hoot, especially given that my first coach trip meant being filmed by Sky Sports News at the ungodly hour of 4.30am at Loftus Road. There I was at the 'back of the bus' getting to know other crazy supporters. So even though I haven't yet experienced an away win this season it has been a wonderful season of light for meeting like minded individuals who share the same hopes and fears as I do. It's just like QPR to keep us hanging until the end of the season though...while we have lived through a true winter of despair, the recent home wins against the big teams have brought us a spring of hope.

'we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way'

And so we look ahead, with three games to go. And who can honestly say after these past performances that they aren't winnable? But the first one next Sunday in the hellish depths of Stamford Bridge will likely be the toughest test yet. I shall be there, arm in arm with my dear father who has chosen to grace me with his presence at an away game for the first time ever.

'- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.'

But alas, we are so far from the end of the season as far as knowing what the future holds for Queens Park Rangers. We have left it till the dying end to save ourselves, and will likely because of this, have to suffer from another 'iron on' sponsors logo on our shirts next season whether we are up or down.  Will we be looking back on this season thinking it's much like the one we're in then? My emotions on that subject are completely contradictory. While I hope for a season in which our biggest issue in the Premier League is mid-table mediocrity, I also think it would be dead boring. And if we end up back in the Championship, will I be pining for the excitement of the Premier League?

This is life as a QPR supporter. And the only thing that I am sure of is that I love this club. And while it's been the best and the worst season I've ever lived through so far that one fact will always remain true.

You RRRsssss

'Hard done by'

Sunderland 3 Queens Park Rangers 1

That's exactly how some of the Queens Park Rangers players feel right now. They earn tens of thousands of pounds a week, have a more than comfortable lifestyle, and yet, they are playing terrible football as well as suffering from indicipline. And still they get to keep their jobs.

On the other side of the coin, you have a frustrated Owner and Chairman who have done all they promised to do, and thousands of fans who not only spend their hard-earned money on a Season Ticket but spends hundreds of pounds a week and countless hours supporting the Rangers away from home.

It is frustrating that we haven't yet had any kind of winning streak so far this season. But what is more frustrating is that we have players who don't appear to feel or behave as if this predicament we are in is in any way their responsiblitity. This, I must say, is what angers me the most.

The online Urban Dictionary  site  has this definition for the phrase 'Hard done by'

'This wonderful ironic phrase is used to describe someone who is acting as if Fate has just dealt him or her a terrible blow, when they have, in reality, suffered a minor inconvenience and should just get on with it.
On the other hand, "hard done by" should NEVER be used to describe someone who is trying to recover from a genuinely tragic event.'

Firstly, we have our infamous captain Joey Barton. He admits he played badly last Wednesday. Credit to him for admitting it. I respect someone who can admit when he's s***. But be prepared to take the backlash from fans once you've done that. You can't expect people not to react to you, whether they are right or not. Humans simply aren't like that, and when you decide to make your life and thoughts so public you of course have a right to respond, but you probably don't have a right to constantly kick off and feel so 'hard done by'. And if you are a man like Joey Barton, who lives a wonderfully luxurious lifestyle, you will get little sympathy from others, including those who support you. So when he says there 'nothing he can do' because he is sitting on the bench, you just think to yourself, really? Is that his attitude? Does he actually think that in his current form he would have made a difference and that the world has been so bad to him for not giving him the opportunity? This attitude just isn't good enough. I would expect a captain to be completely behind his team and any selections made, and would expect that through admitting he isn't good enough to play right now, provide the right kind of support for everyone at least emotionally if not physically, instead of sitting there yawning  for all to see on MOTD and having a giggle when Taiwo scores the only goal for the Rs. 

And secondly, we have Cisse. First time he was sent off earlier this year, most of us tended to forgive him. After all, it was an emotional reaction based on his feelings on two horrific injuries he has had. But this time around, not only is there no excuse, but his reaction on the pitch - like a little boy who tried to pretend he hasn't done anything wrong when he knows full well he has- comes from the same ilk as Joey Barton's behaviour. It just smacks of being 'unsportsmalike' and I am quite sick of players wearing the QPR badge acting as if the world has been conspiring aginst them. 

Contrast this with the way that Bolton have come together since last week's terrible event at White Hart Lane. While I don't want to belittle in any way, what happened to Fabrice Muamba by comparing it to the troubles of a load of spoiled football players at Loftus Road, what we have seen with how Bolton have come back is players with real heart, playing well because they have something to prove. And I have no doubt that they will survive in the Premier League. We have players who think they have nothing to prove and therefore I feel no ounce of a competitive streak in them. 

Last week Fate dealt Fabrice Muamba, and Botlon, a terrible blow. But QPR has everything going for it, and the players are pissing it away disrepectfully for everyone to see.

I am not saying this of all the QPR players, but a few bad eggs make it worse for everyone else. And something has to be done to either shake these guys up, or take them out of the first team completely to salvage our pride as a football club more than anything else.