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Like many of you I’ve spent much of the weekend reading the boards, trying to come to terms with the death of a young man who represented more than mere investment or promise. Ray Jones symbolised a cherished future for Queens Park Rangers football club, after weeks of worry about the imminent demise of the club we are now asked to comprehend to loss of someone who could have led a new QPR away from these dark days.

Young lives are seemingly lost this way every day, I’m sure with the will to look I could’ve produced statistics about teenage lives lost in road traffic accidents, but the manner of his death seems somehow secondary at the moment. All I know is a couple of weeks ago I very nearly turned into oncoming traffic at a junction, a moment’s aberration that twenty years of driving couldn’t save me from, what chance a boy with a few weeks experience.

I got lucky, hundreds, year in and year out, don’t!

We’re all struggling to articulate how we are feeling, it’s not easy to express what you really feel, twice as hard to make sense with a keyboard. There are some really touching thoughts on the boards and some a little trite, but all are coming from the heart. I think we need to be a little patient with each other. I’m not a father, but I understand how your point of view is fundamentally changed by parenthood. With the death of any child, be it eighteen years or eighteen months, a parent is shown a glimpse of their own child’s mortality and this heartache is doubled by their kids own grief as they always seem to be drawn to younger players like Ray.

In all too short a time we will again be consumed by feverish speculation over the future of our Club, a club which appears to want to exist in the shadow of debt and dishonour, a club that can only seem to earn respect when tragedies like Ray Jones and Kiyan Prince occur.

We will take to the field again too, players will wear the hoops and we, as fans, will take to the terraces.

I don’t want a stand named after Ray; we shouldn’t retire his number or erect a statue. But in everything we do, as a Chairman trying to rescue a club, as a manager trying to make the best of his limited resources, as players striving to make a career or as fans relentlessly supporting our team…remember that we have one more chance to do it better, one more chance to do it right, one more chance to try again and again and again.

Ray Jones will never have one more chance…lets not waste any more.

Rogue Male

During the current whirlwind of news Rogue Male craves your indulgence as he goes a little off topic…

Friday the tenth of August, early on a surprisingly sunny evening. I like many a good solid, middle class, middle England male, am filling my dishwasher and staring at the number of empty wine bottles gathering above it, wondering how we’d managed to consume so much since the previous weekend. A news channel is on in the background, just noise really, I’m not really concentrating.

Just for a few moments I tune in, I hear news that makes me feel, for a few seconds at least, as desolate as I ever have. For those few fleeting moments I am crushed by a barely bearable weight of sadness. Tony Wilson has died.

I don’t know whether this is a northern thing or perhaps it’s to do with the age I’ve managed to get to, but I find myself stopped in my tracks by news like this. It’s not like losing a family member or close friend that is an agony that must be almost indescribable. The Death of Tony Wilson or Anthony H Wilson as he had latterly styled himself feels more like losing a part of me. I can only think that its akin to realising you can’t wear tight jeans anymore or the weekly 5 a side game you considered more important than the Champions League is now beyond your puff. Something you considered important to who you are and how you became that person is no longer around.

This isn’t the first time this has happened, the untimely deaths of Joe Strummer and John Peel both struck me the same way, I even cried at the end of John Peel’s biography, something I’d not done for years before, not even at the millennium stadium or since.

What they all have in common is when they became important to me, Strummer and Peel are more obvious to fathom. They spoke directly to me at a point in my personal development when I was struggling to define myself. Both in their own particular way, helped. When Tony Wilson was shaping the type of man I am, I barely knew who he was.

In Granada land, the north west of England, not Andalusia, Tony Wilson was the plumby voiced counter point to Bob Greaves on Granada Reports, they along with the now infamous Richard and Judy went head to head with Look North West’s Stuart Hall, all pink shirts, bling jewellery and ‘fond farewell’s’ and John Munday a big teddy bear of a man who’s main notoriety was our illicit knowledge that he lived with Roy Barraclough, Mr Bet Lynch on Corrie. If I’m being honest, in our house Hall and Munday usually won, I found Wilson a bit creepy, a bit of a nerd. I don’t think I was alone, but that never mattered to him.

What was really important and where Granada always beat the Beeb, was with music, thanks in no small measure to Wilson’s commitment and swagger. So it goes was remarkable and frankly for a fairly new teenager, a bit scary. A hippy, who’d shed his Granada Reports suit and was telling me that Iggy Pop was the most important man in the universe.

I was just too young for Punk, I bought No More Heroes, then took it back because the man at Dawson’s had put Mull of Kintyre in the bag by mistake and I can remember the excitement of getting London Calling the day it came out, but in truth Punk preceded me.

But I wasn’t one of the hundreds of people who claim to be amongst the forty or so who witnessed the Pistols at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, I can say I was around as the bands that would form the first vanguard of Factory’s assault on the music industry were starting to appear.

You did try to spread yourself thin though, living between Manchester and Liverpool meant you were dividing yourself between the surreal, psychedelic pop of Bill Drummonds ‘pool and the driving, hard-edged, bastard funk of Wilson’s Manchester. It was hard to position yourself for posterity too! I decided quite early on that A Certain Ratio were going to last longer than Joy Division…not for the first or last time I’d be doing some hasty backtracking later on.

Nowadays, these are often referred to as dour, long coated days of questionable politics and even more questionable haircuts. I believe ‘Control’ the new film about the life and death of Ian Curtis, Joy Divisions doomed front man, buys into and perpetuates this monochromatic, bleached out myth.

That’s not my recollection of those times, personally I prefer to remember Wilson’s own version of events, brilliantly captured in Michael Winterbottom’s 24 hour party people. It may not have exactly happened like that, but history is written by those with the best lines, Tony did and said some crackers.

Stricken with liver cancer, Wilson, who always maintained he was the only person not to make any money from Factory, was forced to take help from friends and colleagues to afford the drugs that kept him alive. Nobody was spared the irony of The Happy Mondays, who Wilson had funded a decades worth of drug abuse, paying for his supply.  Last weekend, Anthony H Wilson went to his final rest; I sat down and watched 24 hour party people again.

Cheers Tone!

Rogue Male

So the club isnt for sale then… confused? you bet.

So it looks as though GPs reign is coming to an end. I dare say some will say good riddance, but as Rivals has closed, it will be difficult to find out what Smiffy is saying. IF he does go, and I appreciate it is still an if as I write and may even stay an if for ever, then there are some things we should be grateful for. There are also some things we should be glad never to be seen again. So what did GP do well and what did he do badly? Here is my take on things.

The positives.

1. He managed to keep the club afloat, maybe by the skin of his teeth, but it is a feat nonetheless.

2. He attracted more investment to the club. OK so they never turn up to board meetings (unless they are trying to dump chairmen) and showed little other interest in the playing side of things, but the investment also contributed to keeping the club afloat.

3. He pretty much let the manager get on with it and backed them in the market. The main exception was nick Ward, but despite the claims that he would “bring in his mates”, he didn’t.

4. He bought in JG, who has transformed the club.

The negatives.

1. The PR side of the club has been, to put it mildly, appalling. The Court case was embarrassing enough, but the information that come out of the club was often sketchy, damaging and in several cases wrong. The fans were often left in the dark.

2. The way he got rid of Bill was poor. It meant he started with a sour taste in everyone’s mouths.

3. The rumour mongering about the club was also damaging. Ingham’s best attempts to convince all QPR supporters that GP was going to sell Loftus Road were not a good start, but it meant that rumour after rumour followed GP about, most of them inaccurate, but enough to damage relationships with supporters.

As I said in a previous blog, I believe GPs heart was in the right place, if not always his head. If Flav, or any other potential buyer come in then GP should be remembered for being the person who got them here, and well done for insisting that they have to spend money on the team.

Lets hope it is farewell GP as a new money man could take this team far. JG is the right man in charge and the team he has now assembled is the best we’ve had since we got promoted. It shouldn’t take too much to take the team to the next level and challenge for promotion, especially if the supporters actually get behind whoever takes over.

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times…

The season has begun, the Saturday papers were awash with previews and the Sundays were jam packed full of big match analysis…all of which was largely left unread. Obviously I spent most of Saturday evening trying to get a glimpse of our goals and I’ve pretty much devoured our write ups in both the Observer and the News of the World…I’ve already surpassed the sum total of words. Anyway we are up and running.

What really caught my eye this week was coverage of two ‘hot’ football topics and their impact of two quite similar players in my mind. Dennis Wise and Jamie Carragher, both, I think, made the very utmost of their talent and probably have done as well in the game as anyone could have expected.

Dennis on Thursday was genius. He made those endless hours trawling through repeated chunks of nonsense spouted by increasingly wooden presenters on Sky Sports news so much more worthwhile.
Why? Leeds lost their appeal against the 15-point penalty. Of course they lost the appeal, like the other team who tried to avoid the penalty on the last game of last season, Boston, they’ve received just desserts. The extra five are all down to Ken Bates’ shenanigans through the summer.

But it was Dennis who really starred here, he came across as a cheap hood whose boss had been sent down and who knew that retribution was just around the corner. He was obviously trying to sound threatening but with Dennis you know that he won’t strike until you’ve turned your back.

It’s hard not to feel sorry for him at Leeds. It doesn’t matter if he leads them back up, they’ll never like him. They see him as a ridiculous glove puppet with Batesy’s hand doing the necessary and who would argue, Ken is the godfather of Wise’s son.

For Leeds this season was always going to be difficult as Sheffield Wednesday andd we know, reputations count for nothing and every team want to beat you. Leeds fans will be fleeced for as much as King Ken can get and they won’t expect to be thanked. I know not everyone will agree with me, but I wouldn’t wish this on any Football fan.

I found myself listening to Alan Green on 606 on Saturday evening; now we all know that he is definitely not…I repeat NOT a Liverpool fan, honestly! He was defending Jamie Carraghers qualities as a footballer, he was having to do this because the central defensive hole created by England’s premier lump, JT, means that Carragher’s decision to announce his International retirement means that the spectre of Sol ‘I could be an actor’ Campbell getting a recall has raised It’s Easter Island like head.

I’ll be honest, I don’t care who plays next to Ferdinand, I don’t think Terry’s any better than Carragher, Campbell or a whole host of contenders. I’m not bothered that the increasingly smug, bombastic and shouty Green has little idea as to what his job is, (just tell us what is going on and stop pontificating), what I’m focusing on is the concept of a bit part player, hard working as he may be, feels he is of sufficient status that he is in a position to ‘announce’ his retirement…Pele, ok, Beckenbauer, yes I can cope with that, Cruyff, always a controversial figure, so yup…announce away Johan. But Carragher?

He’s not the first, I was similarly annoyed by Shearer, who realising that he probably wouldn’t be allowed to run the England team as he had under Keegan decided that he would ‘retire’ (before suffering the ignominy of being dropped maybe?). What about Scholes, I hear you ask, and I could easily be wrong here, but it’s so much easier to make my point, I ‘m fairly sure that Scholes told England, who then chose to make it public…anyway, let’s get back to Jamie.

Frankly I reckon you should earn the right to make a decision like that and I’d like to think that the player doing it should at least be missed!

Maybe he just thinks that it’s a far, far better thing he’s doing, than he’s ever done before and the Champions League is a far, far better rest I go to than when playing for England before.
(Apologies to ‘Dickensy’)

Rogue Male

So the dark clouds are gathering in the once golden south. Families and friends are thrown into turmoil as optimism fades and the relentless pressure rises.

No, there you go again with the weather…alright, the Cotswolds does look like Bangladesh, but you are just catching up, that’s all…where I come from this is a drop of light drizzle!

This approaching disaster is no act of God, it’s purely man made and while it has seemed at many points avoidable, it now appears inevitable.
This disaster will mean years of pain and soul searching, a deperate fight for survival will replace lofty ambition.

It’s our Football club that’s sinking, not an Oxfordshire village. A journey that probably started long before the age of the Thompson’s is approaching its destination. The false dawn of the post-administration years is beginning to spiral down the plughole.

We’ve travelled a treacherous path these last dozen years, suffering a crew that wanted out, an enthusiastic amateur out of his depth and a bunch of faceless nobodies prepared to pay top dollar for any acne-riddled youth who managed not to tie their bootlaces together. Finally we have been left with our current company, a rag tag, motley squabble of pirates and weekend sailors, wanabees and never would-be’s playing at running a football club.

So, becalmed, awaiting our fate, we speculate on our limited choices. Haphazardly drifting on, preying for twentieth place and a player or two to sell each season. Eleven thousand becoming ten, ten becoming nine. Each desperate year the manager talking vaguely of the playoffs until the leaves start turning and ‘getting points over Christmas’ becomes the winter mantra…the only difference will be the manager, we won’t always have he one who doesn’t realise he’s looking more and more like Lionel Blair.

If this scene is not to be played out then it would appear we have two stark choices, roll over into administration and hope to resurface someway further down the food chain, battered but hopefully still intact or like fifty or so other league clubs we could continue scanning the horizon for a sugar daddy (or Mummy…I’m not sexist). The latter is often suggested on the myriad boards, a seemingly easy option that will wipe our tears away and ease our collected furrowed brow. Is this really an answer? Do we really want an Amnesty International pursued ex-dictator arriving on our doorstep, talking about the Champions League and frozen assets? Maybe we do a Leeds and sell our souls to the Devil?(Albeit a devil that looks like Father Christmas!).

I know what you are thinking, another whiney article bemoaning our state and offering nothing constructive, no possible solution. Those that sit and moan are part of the problem…all right, all right, calm down!

I have a cunning plan…well a thought to throw at our plight.

The news recently talked of a future superpower, growing rapidly, who have sectioned off vast quantities of working capital from its gross national income to invest in western concerns. What if a football club, failing, but with a little bit of history, a reputation (fast fading) for good exciting play and players and in desperate need of regeneration was to be open to new money. What if this country already knew of this club, had already established ’sporting’ links?

Oh yes…we sell to the CHINESE!!!!

Whaddyathink, huh! C’mon, don’t dismiss it out of hand…alright we’ll need to mend a few fences, but…wait a sec…Don’t press the back button, I…(CLICK!)

Rogue Male