QPRnet Blogs

I’m on holiday next week (visiting the in-laws if that counts as a holiday?), so you can get next weeks tribulations a bit early…

I learnt two things this week.  The first is that you cant just cut and paste your blog from word into the blog section without getting all you punctuation screwed up.  I blame Ron (hmmm – a recurring theme to my blogs… That’s interesting).  The second (although I probably knew this for a while, but didn’t want to admit it) is that I was wrong.

Tonto wrong? Never! I hear you cry  Perhaps not, but I do admit I was wrong about JG.  When Waddo was being let go and JG’s name first came up I was more than a bit worried.  He’d been out of the game for a couple of years, there had been all those shenanigans at Derby and he was GP’s mate.  That added up to disaster to me.

But its not time to say that I was wrong – very wrong.  JG I salute you, you have performed minor miracles since you arrived.  A+ for effort and B+ for results too, there’s very little I could argue against you other than the daft Christmas Tree formation, but even then I’ll give you credit for trying something a little different.

In the transfer market, I don’t think I can fault you.  Cullip and Bolder were the difference between us staying up and going down.  The two youngsters from Chel$ki were handy and this summer Barker and Nardiello look like good signings and both were free.  In the meantime, I think its very difficult to argue against anyone you let go.  We had far too many duds clogging up the training ground or being Billy Big Bowlegs about the place.  Its noticeable that since they went how much happier the place is.

Off the filed, with the exception of the Chinese Brawl, things have improved markedly as well.  Harford and Neil mean we have a proper looking coaching team for the first time in years (probably since Jackett left).  The wages saved now that the big earners have gone will surely help the financial stability of the club, yet the quality of the players hasn’t dipped.

For the first time in a while, there is optimism on the message boards (with the obvious exceptions of Smiffy, Chairman of the Board and MatthewRanger on Rivals, but they are not easily pleased!).  My only hope is that that optimism doesn’t translate into over ambition and they don’t expect play-offs as a minimum.  Comfortably mid-table would be an achievement in my opinion.

Well done John, with you in charge, I’m actually a happy Rangers fan

If Ron is silly enough to allow me to have a blog, he’s gonna have to put up with my rant first and foremost. It’s about money in football.  Once I start on this subject it’s often difficult to shut me up - ask my colleagues in the office, ask the FA (yes I have written to them about this), ask my wife (actually she is the one person who does get me to shut up, usually by putting her I-pod on…). But since you are reading this you can either just stop or carry on “listening”.  At the end of the day its Ron’s site, so he gets the blame in my opinion.

When I was a lad (god I must be getting old if I start things with expressions like that), football was about players.  You bought some, you sold some, managers made some better players and failed with others.  It was an expensive game but effectively the game was run by double glazing salesmen made good in sheepskin coats and it was a hobby.  A hobby that millions of us were all involved in and cared about of course, but you always felt you had a chance.  Get promoted - who knows, with a bit of luck you could win a cup, or challenge for the league - Wimbledon were the prime example of that.

Football changed for good back in 1992 and in my opinion it didn’t change for the better.  One of my favourite questions is “Who were London’s top team the first year of the Premier league”.  Of course we know the answer - most other people don’t - Arsenal is the most popular answer, followed by Chelsea.  For the record Spuds were the second highest.

Three teams from the first premier League aren’t even in the Championship next season - Leeds, Forest and Oldham and Wimbledon doesn’t exist anymore  Ten clubs have had serious financial difficulties since that date, which is almost 50%.  In addition since the premiership started numerous little clubs have fallen on desperate times, culminating in Scarborough going out of business last week (I still remember the days when beefy Botham played for them).

I have nothing against the concept of the top teams getting the best prizes.  I understand that the team that wins should get the most prize money - fair enough, but the FA seem smitten with the idea put forward by Manure, Arsenil, the Red Scousers and of course Chle$ki that winning the European Cup is more important than the state of British clubs.  Michael Ballack’s wages for a week would have saved Scarborough and his monthly ages would also save Wrexham and York, the next most likely clubs to go to the wall.

The obscene amount of money the premiership makes and keeps to itself will be the death of football in time.  Next season we all know which three teams will finish in the top three, only the order of the top two is up for debate.  The most interesting thing will be how Arsenil react to losing Henry.  Whoppydo.

In the Championship we very nearly had the case that the three that came down went back up again.  Interest in the sport will dwindle. It’s happened in the US with NHL and to a lesser extent Baseball and Basketball.  In these days of multi-sport satellite telly people will find something else to watch.  I’m not talking about those of us on this board, we have football in our veins but the kids will get bored and the kids are our future.

There was a banner at a Brighton games recently (during the will they wont they saga of their planning permission).  It said “Roses are red, BHA are blue, the FA only care about 20, but we care about 92.  Well said sir.

Every so often a topic hit’s the message board will all the newsworthiness of a Varc missive on how we’re all doomed. ‘Guess who supports the R’s’, followed by a spurious report about some near-celeb sporting a hooped top. This could mean that they’re one of us or in the area, committing a few burglaries. We all get excited and then trot out a list of possible celebrity fans…then we go back to moaning about Paladini.

Nothing wrong with anyone supporting the R’s, albeit no kind of positive indicator or mental stability, and it’s certainly no longer the natural home of the glory hunter. There’s no chance of Michael Jackson or Sly Stallone being paraded at Loftus Rd, though the latter proved a formidable stopper in Escape to Victory!

There are those who we can safely say are time served, bona-fide brethren of our club, Mick Jones is the only legendary musician I’ve witnessed going through the sale bin at the club shop, Robert Elms love him or loathe him wears his colours forcefully. While I’m sure Andrew Ridgely getting punched on our terraces was merely a cover up for a nose-job, I’ve seen that Wham video with him poncing around in an R’s kit enough to believe he’s sincere and as much as I despair every time he’s mentioned, Pete Doherty putting Kate Moss in a top on the inside sleeve of his last album just made me think…yep! Spot on.

I can’t help but wonder about how we react to the ‘news’ that another celeb has been outed as a Rangers supporter. I suppose it depends on who it is. I’ve seen no evidence to suggest that Bill Bailey is a QPR fan, yet it’s taken as gospel. Wendy James of fifteen-minute famer’s Transvision Vamp, maybe, but Vanessa Redgrave…an R, this one is too far fetched. Outspoken on everything from Vietnam to the minimum wage, yet I didn’t see her on the barricades during the Fulham and Wimbledon merger debates!

Once a person in the public eye is confirmed it changes our perception of them. Alex Tudor will always be a talented young man who never really reached his potential…but he’s one of us. Ashley Giles, the erstwhile King of Spain is mocked as the ‘wheelie bin’ in most quarters and would be treated with indifference in this household, were it not for his allegiance. Ashley has had a lot to deal with recently, I can only guess how hard it’s been for him and his family, but I share this one heartache with him and I understand his pain.

So why save my vitriol for Michael Nyman? The composer of many film scores and countless minimalist classical pieces produced a piece of work entitled ‘the final score’. Part of a larger piece; it was inspired by the QPR team of the seventies and Stan Bowles in particular. In a film inspired by the music and the publicity that followed, Nyman positively gushed at the memories leaving us in no doubt as to where he was, shoulder to shoulder with the Superhoops.

Nyman, however, seems very aware of his image, take a look at his website, fashionably donning mock-eighteenth century glasses he looks every inch the avant-garde musician. So when a broadsheet asked for a colour piece a few years ago, something about his love of football, what do you think he came up with? Gerry Francis’ goal of the season, Stan dropping his shorts, 1967, 1976 or 4-1 at Old Trafford?
No, he chose to write about how much he enjoyed watching Spurs with his sons! He was almost reduced to a puddle by the enthralling spectacle! Now I’m not a father, and I’d like to think I’d give any child of mine a choice (whilst nudging them gently, obviously) and if they chose Spurs I’d like to think I’d indulge them in their choice…but to celebrate it and the experience of watching them…not possible.

You see, we’re no longer the sexy choice of the chattering classes, for someone like Nyman to go on about Loftus Road at a Knightsbridge cocktail party would elicit blank looks…mention ‘Tottingham’ and they’re off and running, he doubtless does a very good Martin Jol impression…every other Spurs fan I’ve ever met does.

This has happened before, Phil Collins was often touted as an R, but with his hair went his soul and by the start of the eighties he was mouthing off about Gazza and Linaker like the good ol’ Lilywhite he wasn’t…good riddance!

A few weeks ago, Nyman was mentioned again as an R’s supporter, lazy journalism or has something lured him back…the poetry in (falling) motion that is Marc Nygaard, the sanguine elegance of Steve Lomas, the stout heart and sound mind of Zesh Rehman…you can see why he’d give up White Hart Lane.

Maybe he’s just been tempted by the sheer weight of celebrity rumoured to be holding Queen’s Park Rangers close to their heart. Try googling Celebrity-Fans-QPR and see what you get, Nick Cave, Robert Smith of the Cure, Leslie Thomas (I suspect this is true given the amount of mentions we get on ‘The Last Detective’), Jamie Oliver, Rat Scabies, Ade Edmondson, Graham Parker (would the punk movement have foundered completely if we’d carried off the title in 76?), Sir George Young, Ralf Little (that has to be arse!), Matthew Kelly, Henry Kelly, The Pasadenas (I’m not making this up), David Cassidy, Bruce Welch of the Shadows and Martin Clunes!

But there’s one name that came up, one name that if it were true would make everything all right. If Betty Boo is a QPR fan then I know I’m on a righteous path…Altogether now…
…And boy, I really miss you
and all I wanna do is kiss you
I’ve used up all my tissues
’cause there’s more serious of issues…
What does she mean?

Rogue Male.