Part of the process

Crystal Palace 3 Queens Park Rangers 1

Queens Park Rangers 1 Everton 2

I was going to title this post 'Dad is always right'. But I changed my mind and decided to use something he said to me as we walked to the car after today's match against Everton instead. Obviously, we are as distressed and depressed as other QPR fans tonight. Sunday evening blues just got even worse.

I've been wondering about what's wrong with us. I don't think it's the same problem as the season before last. Our biggest problem then was lack of spirit and passion. We were carrying several players who neither cared or liked QPR. It isn't perfect in that department now, but it's probably the best we could hope for, for a small club based in London, with, frankly, not a lot of glamour to offer. So tactically, earlier this year, I thought it was our defence. We had injuries and it was all going rather pear-shaped.  Then I started wondering about our mid field (too slow, lacking creativity), but Fer started to shine...Last week at Palace even the thought of Austin losing his mojo and getting frustrated entered my mind.

But Everton weren't good today. So what went wrong? For the most part we were hoofing the ball, making some sloppy mistakes at the back and midfield... and again we looked like we lacked pace everywhere (even though we had all our fast players on the pitch). I just couldn't break it down in my head. But my ever-intelligent father summed it up on that walk down South Africa Road. The difference in spite of the fact that Everton do not have the strike power that we have, is that they managed to break from midfield a hell of a lot better than we could. Or, to put it more depressingly, they managed to break at all, and when they did they had not only their forwards in the box, but two or three of their mid field. We were too predictable because we are just far to slow and not creative enough to move forward positively on the break. We stop, we look around and pass it to either of the two strikers who are the only ones in or near the box. And by then the opposition are well prepared defensively. So, it wasn't until Vargas and Taarabt came on that the ignition was turned on. And by then, of course, it was too late. It simply has to be like that from the start, and we need to be the first to score. Fat chance of that happening in future matches.

My mood is relatively unforgiving today.

I said to Dad 'I really don't think I can cope with watching the remaining matches this season, I'd rather know now for sure that we're relegated'. Roll on Fish Bits of Doncaster (if they get promoted from League One this season), and the great delights of Wigan pies (if they don't get relegated). But Dad said 'You cannot say that, it's like a wound. It's painful and it hurts because it's healing, you've got to take it because it's part of the process'.

Well, tonight I feel like passing on the process to be honest. But he is probably right. Even though I can't see any healing going on, he did say 2 minutes before Zamora scored on May 24, 2014, that he thought we would nick it. And Dad is (almost) always right.

Space Mountain

Manchester City 3 Queens Park Rangers 2

At the end of my last blog post, I said you couldn't have made up our crazy season. And true to form, last Sunday's match delivered on that thought. Everything about the match represented all the highs and lows we have been through as a club: from the agony of a potential loss, to the ecstasy of salvation through the misfortune of another, through to the disappointment at the antics of a captain we just can't fathom. It really had to be us who played in the match that would define the most dramatic change in the history of the Premier League since it began. Some fans have argued that the passion with which we played the match was overshadowed by what was the media hype surrounding the immature and unwarranted behaviour of Joey Barton. However, regardless of his sending off and the controversy surrounding it the focus was always going to be on City's win. If we had won the match it may have been another story - papers would have been strewn with stories of City's inability to penetrate a QPR team that was already being compared by the 90th minute with Chelsea and how they had battled with Barcelona only a few weeks before. Forgive me if I dislike the comparison...but there it is. The final result meant we are now free, thankfully, from that comparison.

So, while we can't really make sense of how and why things happened the way they did this season, there was some consistency in our record of LWLWLWLWLWL for the last 11 games. This record is represents exactly what it's like to be a QPR supporter: it's a fr***** roller-coaster ride. And for me reminiscent of the feeling that I got when I rode Disney Land's Space Mountain (albeit much more prolonged and worse for my health).

When I rode Space Mountain for the first time, I was sat next to my 'wimpy' younger brother and it must have been over 25 years ago. And I vividly recall him saying his prayers while I revelled at the craziness and sang 'Upside Down' by Diana Ross throughout the ride. Perhaps it was the early stage of masochistic behaviour that was soon to be fed by an obsession with Queens Park Rangers FC.

And what an obsession it has proved to be. It has been a great season back in the Premier League, and as a fan a great experience writing this new blog and making new friends in my travels away as well as on twitter.

Writing the blog has brought me real joy, and made me feel somewhat 'rejuvinated' as a person. Call it corny, but has made me really proud to be here in London, supporting such a great club with such fantastic fans. Even as a wrote the post on the Stoke match from a hilltop in Boracay, Philippines I was missing home and imagining the atmosphere back at Loftus Road.

I booked the holiday in December, perhaps stupidly not thinking that we'd be fighting for survival right to the last day. And my flight arrived just around the half-way point of our final match. Usually the flights in to Heathrow delay themselves as we circle around London hoping for a time spot to land. But to my joy we landed 30 minutes early, and so when the pilot told the cabin crew to take their seats I made sure I grabbed my iphone ready to switch on twitter & Sky Go so I could catch up with the match quickly. 

From there it was a roller-coaster of a ride home. As I made my way to customs and immigration, I could feel the nerves of the #qprtwitfam as we were still 0-0 and Stoke were winning. But it wasn't long before Bolton fought back. And by that point having rushed through to pick up my suitcase, I could hear the Sky Go commentary telling me that City had scored. At half time, I was in this mad rush to get home as quickly as possible and perhaps catch some of the match...but not before picking up some food at M&S. Once I came out in to arrivals,  I rushed in to M&S, grabbed some chicken and then I heard it - Cisse had scored. And I screamed in excitement. People were staring at me in there like I was a loon. I suppose that if they had any interest in football they would not be hanging around at the airport M&S, but I didn't care. I ran up to meet the car that was picking me up. And lucky for me the lovely chap was excitedly listening to the football on the radio. Bless him, he was a Tottenham supporter and I have no idea why he was routing for the Rs, but he was. It was all so exciting, and when we heard about Barton being sent off, I just couldn't believe it...it sounded awful on the radio - and it was embarrassing. And then...the commentator said that 'Taarabt' was making a run down the left hand side and flicked the ball on to Mackie who scored that incredible goal. The guy turned round to me and said 'is Taarabt playing? I had no idea'. Having only just landed I wasn't sure who was in the team or on the bench..and only realised later that this was a mistake. It was screams and shouts in that car all the way down the A312, A40 and A406...and as I paid for my ride, around 90 minutes in to the match I knew that Bolton had only managed to draw and we were safe. As I came through the door in to my home, where my temporary flat mate was watching the game, I thought 'we're gonna do it' and win this one. We were going to cause one of the biggest upsets in Premier League history.

Well, the rest IS history.

And what a welcome home.  We could say that it's a shame that City's win overshadowed a fantastic performance by QPR. Or we could say it's a shame that Barton's antics overshadowed the football press in the following days. But then life would be utterly dull for us if we didn't have something to moan about or fight for, wouldn't it?

And so while I have proclaimed a hope for 'mid table mediocrity' next season, and admittedly looked at Swansea and Norwich with envy at times, there is a big part of me that hopes for another season of excitement. Call me nuts, but this stuff is addictive.

Thank you QPR for driving me crazy.

You Rssss.

Space Mountain (welcometosocal.com)

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

Works like a charm

Queens Park Rangers 2 Arsenal 1

I can't actually believe we won today. When the final whistle blew everything went in to slow motion because the final minutes were a frantic as always and I was convinced Arsenal would pop in a goal unfairly. But I guess that's the point. In this instance, we actually 100% deserved this win and it would have been unfair if we lost.

Before the match I bumped in to some fellow fans, among them @sandyhoops. We talked about the charms that we wear to bring us luck, and the things that we don't bring to avoid a bad game. One could say that we feel so powerless as fans that we can only hope that the superstitious things we do might somehow have some kind if impact on what happens on the pitch. I'm convinced that if I wash my QPR shirt before the end of the season we won't stay up and quite frankly I don't care how bad it smells by the time we get to the 13th of May.

Is it wrong to believe we have a part to play with these actions? Perhaps it's a little silly, but it's only one part of what we do, together with the money we spend, the songs we sing, and the countless hours on trains, buses and cars we spend to support the Rs away. There are even those fans like @richardtreml who said in jest that he knew we'd win by not going today.

Our much lambasted captain Joey Barton said in the programme today 'It's vitally important that the people you work for - appreciate you and believe in you'. And he was talking directly about the fans. It's so easy for us to criticise, and certainly I was one of them last week after the Sunderland game. I was fed up with what appeared to be a lack of commitment and team spirit in key players including Barton. Sometimes, the way he expresses himself just doesn't endear him to us and I can't quite understand what he says. But perhaps it is because he is so confident in who he is as a person that it often comes across as a personal as opposed to a collaborative crusade, which isn't actually the case. And evidence on the pitch today suggests he is a team player.  Long may this more passionate spirit from him continue.

But he also went straight to the point saying that we turned the game around against Liverpool because 'the crowd got behind the lads' and 'all of a sudden we thought we could could get something'. He has mentioned this a few times in the programme, which suggests he truly believes this. And that excites me because we honestly did not play well for most of that Liverpool game, but simply by being totally behind the team, we probably made a difference. It was an unlikely and rare turnaround though, so why we expected to have such a great result at Sunderland looking back is beyond me. We cannot rely on such good fortune all the time (a team like Liverpool breaking down in the last 15 minutes).

And today? Well, today was different. Today, almost every player on the pitch worked really hard. We weren't lucky to win, we deserved to win through hard graft, passion and determination. Of course we aren't supposed to be anywhere near as good as Arsenal on paper, and there were several hairy moments when I am sure my blood pressure went up. Derry, Diakite, Barton, Taarabt stand out as key players - a solid mid field which was critical against such a team. And what a great goal from Taarabt which I am sure I will watch a few times this evening (bring on MOTD for a change!).

Speaking of Taarabt, I often forget just how young he is - born in 1989 he will be just 23 in May - and if he can play that well at this level now we haven't even seen his best yet.  In spite of our difficulties as a club,  I feel he has matured in his approach to how he plays the game both as a personality and a footballer. He is a joy to watch and when he is on form he works like a charm and is absolutely magic. It was a shame that he got booked for an extended celebration and I am looking forward to seeing how/why he got hold of that fez. But there it is. A player like Taarabt can make things look easy, and while we may say he is magical,  we can now say that he is actually solid and hard working.

On the subject of lucky charms and Taarabt, on my way home I thought about those snake charmers that you see in Marrakesh's Jemaa El Fna square. They say that they literally hypnotise the snakes through music, and I've seen pictures of these guys literally charming a few snakes at a time. I have no idea how hard a snake has to work to perform (there is also probably some animal cruelty playing a part here too), but it does take at least one snake charmer and one snake to keep the show going. So whether you believe in luck or not, let's continue to play our part and get behind the boys.

You Rsss.

Snake Charmers in Morocco (Source: traveljournals.net)