QPRnet Blogs

Two weeks ago I was going to write a blog about a various subjects, we changed our badge and made a right cock up of presenting it, the kids won their league again, we signed two players and let five go. Hardly groundbreaking news but all noteworthy stuff.

Then Luigi De Canio left.

So instead I wrote about my disappointment with that and hoped things wouldn’t get worse with the board making a poor appointment. Earlier this week I was going to sit down and revisit the lost blog and round things up for the end of the season.

Then we appointed Iain Dowie.

So instead I had to write about that, whilst it’s not a total disaster it certainly wasn’t the most exciting move the club has ever made and it didn’t exactly make me relish my season ticket renewal coming through.

Then I got my season ticket renewal through.

I think everyone was expecting a rise, we are paying high wages to attract players and the owners constantly stress that whilst they are rich the club isn’t. We all understand how close we came to administration and I’m sure we all accept that for the club to be a viable business they need to bring more money into it but nobody expected prices to rise to this level.

QPR have always had a small to medium loyal following, they are there rain or shine, come what may, they have supported the club through thin and thin and would be happy to dig a little deeper in order to see it move onto a level we all thought impossible but to hit people as hard as they have is heartbreaking.

Only a few weeks back QPR’s Deputy Managing Director Ali Russell was telling the AGM that they wouldn’t over the top with rises and that whilst there would be rises in all areas they would be “reasonable”. His idea of reasonable seems to be making us one of the most expensive clubs in the division.

To rub salt in the wounds the club are busy posting stories on the website about “unprecedented demand” whilst the phone lines ring off the hook with angry fans trying to make their point. Either they really believe this has been well received or they really don’t care. Either way it’s been the new owners first massive blunder and they could well pay for it for years to come.

We are all grateful for the new owners coming in and saving the club, we are surely excited about the potential they bring with them but it looks like they have seriously misjudged just how much our gratitude is worth.

Expectations for next season were already sky high, possibly too high and I believe we were already heading for disappointment. The club are at fault on this, they put out countless sound bites about new eras, global brands, don’t miss out etc etc. Add these crazy prices to this and you are going to be left with a pissed off, pent up fanbase who won’t just want success they will demand it. If we are going to be charged Premiership prices then we will expect Premiership quality.

As if to add insult to injury you have to pay £4.50 to have the book sent to you! Another nice little earner on Royal Mail prices there.

The first line of the season ticket story on the official site continues in the propaganda vein

“The 2008/09 Coca Cola Championship campaign promises to be one to remember for Queens Park Rangers Football Club”

At these prices it better be, it’s just such a pity so many will have to enjoy it via Soccer Saturday on Sky Sports.

The rumour mill is already kicking into gear and we have been linked with three players this week alone.

Apparently we are interested in both of Plymouth’s Hungarians, Peter Halmosi and Krisztian Timar as well as Wolves striker Sylvan Ebanks-Blake.

Any of these would be good signings but I expect to see us linked with almost everyone in the Championship and half of the Premiership before the summer is out so right now none of them are worth discussing in depth.

What we need by position for next season is worth a few thoughts though and personally I think we’ll be looking for at least five first team players.

Goalkeeper
The club needs quality cover for Lee Camp in case of injury and Campy himself can only benefit from much needed competition.

Right back
Assuming Michael Mancienne is not still here in August we will need to replace him, in fact we probably need two right backs!

Centre back
With Damion Stewart reduced to cover and Fitz Hall as fragile as an egg we need another solid centre half in the ranks.

Left winger
We have no natural player for this position and whilst Rowan Vine has done a fine job playing there we really need to get a left side expert in as soon as possible.

Striker
The missing piece of the jigsaw, the famed 25 goal a season front man, easy said, but not easily found.

What, and who do you think we should sign in the summer? You can leave your comments below.

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Many congratulations to Aldershot on winning promotion to the Football League.

When the new club was formed out of the ashes of the old, the guy who lived next door to me was their first manager and got them their first promotions before moving onto league football so from a personal point of view it’s nice to see them complete what he started.

From the Rangers side of things it’s also fantastic to see them do so well under the guidance of Gary Waddock. Waddo was a legend as a player and I feel bad for him that things didn’t work out well in his short spell in charge of the club. He’s a fantastic, determined fella and it’s good to see him get a second chance in football and showing what he can do.

I had a feeling he would resurface again, when he was written off with the injury that temporarily finished his career he was determined to prove everyone wrong and play professional football again. He had quite a journey in doing so but he did exactly that and now he might just be doing the same in management.

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What a brilliant atmosphere the Rangers fans created at Hull on Saturday. That new De Canio is song is infectious and was sung almost non stop for over twenty minutes!

It reminded me of when Forest came to Loftus Road the season they were relegated from the Premier League and their fans sung “Brian Clough’s Red Army” for the entire second half.

Fantastic stuff!

It was a terrible shame to hear about the injury suffered by Rowan Vine last week and I wish him well with his recovery.

We certainly felt his loss at the weekend’s game against Preston, not having a player of his quality in your side makes you realise just how good he is. He is someone that can suddenly make an impact, a rare breed of footballer that can have you on the edge of your seat in excitement and his absence was felt heavily on Saturday.

He gets his fair share of stick, I’ve heard him called lazy or unproductive, I prefer to think of him as mercurial! He is a classy player though and a real joy to watch and it’s a great pity we’ll be without him for the remaining games.

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Talking of the Preston game what a hilarious result that was! How often have we sat there and watched Rangers throw away leads over the years knowing exactly what’s coming? It’s happened time after time after time and it was brilliant to actually be on the other end of it for once.

As soon as that board went up for four minutes injury time I just knew we would equalise and when we did I couldn’t stop laughing! It was a travesty of justice for Preston, a thoroughly underserved point for us but good lord it made my night!

It’s a great sign as well that this team just will not give up no matter how poor they are playing. They always say the sign of a good side is to pull results out when you don’t deserve them. Based on that performance we’re on our way to being a bloody good side!

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So we move onto face Hull City this weekend, one of the season’s unlikely trio of promotion chasers. I’m a big fan of small clubs doing well but Jesus what an awful Premier League it’ll be if Bristol City, Stoke and Hull all went up, the other 17 teams would be over the moon I’m sure.

I quite admire Bristol City’s moxy and out of the three of them I’d rather like them to do it, Stoke are Stoke and Hull make such a girly fuss about us it’d be brilliant to throw a spanner in the works on Saturday.

It won’t be easy but it’s great to be going into games like this knowing we’ve got as good a chance as ever to get something out of them. It’s even better not having to go into it crapping yourself about getting to fifty points though!

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More doubts have been cast over Luigi De Canio’s future this week and frankly I’m starting to get a bit worried that he isn’t that settled here. Getting mugged on Saturday night wont have helped none either.

He hinted in an Italian interview this week that he would consider his future in the summer. Maybe he’s playing hardball, I hope so but I also heard reports from Italy early this week that we were sounding out former Cagliari manager Marco Giampaolo. I dismissed that as rubbish at the time but who knows?

Hopefully this will all turn out to be nothing more than a poorly translated article as whilst there would be a queue of fantastic managers a mile long wanting to get into this club I don’t think another change would help us right now. On top of that I’ve grown quite fond of the little fella and would hate to see him go.

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When Adam Bolder joined Sheffield Wednesday on loan he had the following to say

“I am quite an attacking midfielder, hopefully I can get box to box, get some tackles in and hopefully come up with a few goals.”

I cracked up at the time, an attacking midfielder indeed! Well who’s laughing now eh! Two goals in the Steel City derby must have surely earned him a some sort of place in folklore and probably secured a permanent move in the summer for him too.

Bolder’s exit seems imminent and, like many of the players we’ve said goodbye to lately, he played his part at the time but the club rapidly moved past their abilities.

Normally it’s quite difficult to work out who will go and stay in the summer, this year things look pretty cut and dried, Bolder will surely be followed through the exit door by Rehman, Barker, Walton, Bailey and Nardiello and with doubts hovering over Jake Cole and Damion Stewart’s long term involvement it looks to be another summer of change in the offing.

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A massive congratulations to Martin Rowlands on his return to the Irish international set up, Gigi promised to have a word in Giovanni Trapattoni’s shell like if he kept up his good form and it looks like he’s been good to his word!

Rowly still has to make the cut from the initial 40 man squad down to the final 28 but looking down the list of the other midfielders picked he must stand a decent chance of that. He’s in the form of his life right now and it would be richly deserved.

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And finally, I spent some time last week upgrading the blog site to an improved software package and hopefully this will work out better than the old one. Comments are open once again and fingers crossed the spam should be controlled so please feel free to comment on all our posts below and I’ll be back next week with another Ron Around.

Rangers were in The Financial Times this week, the last time they mentioned us was because we’d gone into administration.

Yes the Lotto kit deal has really made waves and, at the risk of repeating myself every bloody week, isn’t it great to see us getting nothing but good press at the moment.

Briatore only seems to have to open his mouth and the media flock to him. Can you remember the last kit deal that was covered every half an hour on Sky Sports? Their twenty four hour rolling news thingy bellowed out that this was the biggest kit deal in Championship history, which probably isn’t so impressive considering The Championship is only three years old and not many teams have changed kit supplier in that time but still…

The figures quoted just sound crazy, twenty million over five years is a fantastic sound bite and, whilst it might not quite work out to that considering it’s performance related, it just goes to show how seriously this club can be taken with the right people in charge.

Flavio has been quick to shoot down any mega spending rumours though, and any chances of “doing a Chelsea” have been given short shrift by Briatore and De Canio this week.

As exciting as it is having all this wealth at Loftus Road I am really pleased with the level headed, baby steps approach our new owners seem to be taking.

Taking the steady and sensible route might not be the most pulse racing approach to running a club but surely it bodes much better for the future that we are keen to build slowly and surely rather than go for boom and possible bust.

Evening folks here we go with another “Ron around” the weeks news, see what I did there? Enough of the cheese, let’s blog…

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It has been a strange old week of transfer talk with Rangers starting the week being linked with the galactico, Luis Figo and ending it being linked with the less glamorous Peter Ramage. I know which one my money is on!

The Figo thing has been fascinating, he has brushed it off of course but it can’t hurt us to be linked with players like this.

My old mucker Mr Skinner likes to remind me that the Chelsea revolution kicked off when they signed Ruud Gullit and it will take us doing something similar to kick start the new Rangers era in earnest.

I have no idea how good Figo would have been, is he past his best? Yes. Would he have the heart for it? No idea, but Christ it would have been good fun finding out.

The number seven shirt wouldn’t have known what hit it, from Matthew Rose and Adam Bolder to bloody Figo!

I have little doubt Flavio made enquiries, and I expect the story got planted in the Daily Mail on purpose but why not, stories like this may or may not pan out but they make the football world sit up and take notice and if it’s not Figo that ends up being our Gullit it will be someone similar and soon.

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I floated the idea in last weeks Ron Around that we would be pretty high in the table if the season had started from the day De Canio took over. It perked up Simon’s interest and out of boredom he prepared a table for me to talk about this week.

However before I could write it up someone else on our message board did the same thing (although in much more detail!), then before you know it they are talking about it on Sky Sports. Does George Gavin read this site?

Anyway turns out we would be fifth which just goes to show what a turnaround Gigi has achieved in his short time here and it gives me a lot of hope for next season.

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Talking of next season, everyone is talking about next season! From De Canio to Blackstock the excitement is building already but with that comes the pressure.

We are already hot favourites to gain promotion next season and I even read that one bookie was quoting odds of 20-1 for us to qualify for the Champions League within the next four years. Staggering.

We have put up with years of bizarre stories and all for the wrong reasons, things don’t get anymore sensible on the Rangers news wires but at least the gossip it positive for a change.

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The day we leave Loftus Road might be a while off but it’s certainly on the cards, even De Canio has been talking about the possibility this week.

He told the official Rangers newspaper, The Daily Mail, “If QPR were to reach the goals which the directors have set, the idea of a more spacious and comfortable stadium would be guaranteed.”

It will be a sad day that we don’t play games at LR, it’s seems more and more inevitable though and I only hope that when it is done we are kept as local as possible and a ground is built that retains some of Loftus Road’s charm and character.

I wonder if Bernie switching the Grand Prix back to the BBC has anything to do with the soon to be available Television Centre?

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Finally a quick good luck to the Youth Team as they get ready for their Youth Association Cup semi final match against Colchester on Good Friday. It’s an away fixture that somehow we are playing at home which should help.

If you want to attend and cheer on the boys the game kicks off at Harlington at 2pm and we’ll have news of the game on the main site later in the day.

Welcome back to another, albeit a little shorter, Ron Around.

It has been a hectic couple of weeks with Rangers playing six times in the last twenty days but hey we made it to the top half of the table! Well for twenty four hours anyway.

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The last couple of games have been both strange and worrying, why is it we fall to pieces as soon as we concede a goal? Luigi De Canio must be tearing his hair out on the training ground at the moment.

Normally I get over a bad game fairly quickly, especially this season when I’ve seen so many positives but Sheffield Wednesday really pissed me off. You could excuse the collapse if it only happened every now and again but it’s happening all too often. What’s more annoying is you can see it coming a mile off!

We tried our best to throw things away against Blackpool as well, how you can end up clinging on for a win with eight defensive minded outfield players on the pitch after being three nil up is beyond me but that’s QPR at the moment.

We have such a soft underbelly it’s untrue, it isn’t like teams carve us up for a period of time then make the breakthrough, they score, we fall apart.

When you watch us play so well for long periods then try and commit football suicide it’s bloody annoying and something we have to sort out because we can’t rely on getting three up just to be sure of winning a game.

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That said what an achievement it has been to get up to twelfth in the league. Gigi has taken us from rock bottom to the top half and if it hadn’t been for some dodgy results we would be right up there scrapping for a play off place.

It’s all the more amazing when you consider we were the last team in The Football League to win a game this season!

It would be interesting to see a table based on games played since Gigi took over, I might try and work that one out for the next edition as I’d love to see how we compare against the rest of division under De Canio.

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I was sad to read on the official site that Frank Sibley has retired from football and is suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

Sibley spent so much time at Loftus Road through the 60’s to the 90’s he became part of the furniture. Always an unsung hero he has made a massive contribution to the club on and off the pitch across four decades and I wish him well for the future.

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Performance manager Joe Dunbar has left the club today giving credence to the rumours that Gareth Ainsworth has now been installed as De Canio’s deputy.

The Kilburn Times reported that he has signed a new contract in a player/coach role although there has been nothing official said on that yet.

If true that can only be good news, Wild Thing seems like an infectious bugger to be around and hopefully that’ll rub off well on the players. Good luck to him.

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Finally I’ve had to disable the comments section on the blog site for now, it seems there is no stopping crazy Chinese Viagra sellers whatever you do!

If you want to get in touch the email remains the same, ron@qprnet.com

‘Till next time….

Here we go with another look around the news stories of the week with the rather cheesily titled The Ron Around!

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I think it is fair to say the last two games haven’t exactly set the pulses racing but whilst draws against similarly placed teams seem acceptable to me I don’t think everyone shares that view judging by the moans and groans I heard coming out of Loftus Road on Saturday!

Personally I think the progress we’ve made under De Canio has been magnificent. I really believe we are just a few steps away from being a pretty damn good side but it will take time to get there. Inconsistencies are going to creep in along the way but in the long run this side is heading in the right direction, of that I am sure.

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One thing I am not sure of anymore is how they sort the fixtures list out these days. We go from five games in January and February to a massive seven fixtures in March then back down to four in April, any chance of spreading them out a bit chaps?

Next month presents us with some real challenges as well, the home games against Blackpool and Scunthorpe should give us six points but gawd knows what will happen in the other five.

Kicking off the month at home to Stoke doesn’t look particularly appetising at the moment, especially when you chuck in a live TV audience, and we finish March with two bloody hard looking away games at Wolves and Ipswich.

Hopefully by that time we’d have got enough points on the board to be able to simply relax and enjoy the games!

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Great to see Angelo Balanta break through into the first team picture and score his first goal this month. Everyone seems to be signing his praises right now and he looks to have an exciting career ahead of him.

My cynical side is remembering that we’ve been here before so many times over the last few years, from Dennis Oli and Oliver Burgess, to Scott Donnelly and Kieron St Aimie our kids just haven’t quite made the big step up yet.

Hopefully Angelo will be the first to do so, once you get one through others start to follow and before you know it you have a little production line going on.

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Talking of the youth team good to see them earn another fine victory this past weekend. After sticking five past Peterborough in the Youth Association Cup quarter final they followed that up by shoving another four past them in a league meeting on Saturday.

They really are romping away with the league this year and after winning it last season perhaps the time has come to get the under 18’s back into the academy set up as soon as possible as you have to wonder how much of a challenge this division is now.

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Scott Sinclair is back in the Championship, this time he has joined Charlton on loan until the end of the season, and it should be a good move for both parties.

Scott is an undoubted talent but he just was not interested when he was with us and spent most of his time being too worried about getting hurt and missing out on League Cup ties with Chelsea. With that millstone off his neck I bet Charlton get to see some fine performances from this young lad.

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Another week, another newspaper interview with one of our colourful owners. This time it’s Flavio and The Times. Bloody good piece it is too, I’ll quote you the opening paragraph.

“Flavio Briatore wants to get married and settle down one day, but for the time being the 57-year-old is happy running a Formula One team, owning a football club and dating a supermodel.”

It’s a tough old job Flav but someone has to do it eh mate!

It is great to see the press take us seriously for once though, Flavio and Bernie aren’t just professionals in the business world they know how to work the media and the club is getting nothing but good exposure at the moment. Long may it continue.

More next week ….

Welcome to another blog, I have decided to use this section to ramble away about anything that catches my eye between postings. I will try to post one once a week, on Wednesdays or Thursdays from now on. So without further ado…

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Is there a hotter striker than Patrick Agyemang at the moment? Here’s a fact for you, having scored eight times so far for QPR how many shots on target do you think he has had? Yep eight! The man is clinical to say the least.

The last player to score in six consecutive QPR games was Rodney Marsh in 1967, there’s two players I never though would be mentioned in the same breath! If Patrick manages to score in the next two games he will equal Brian Bedford’s club record. That’d be quite something.

For someone who raised many a quizzical eyebrow when he was signed he was really set the place on fire right now and must be in the running for Chris Kamara’s February player of the month award. Granted he doesn’t play for Stoke and isn’t Ricardo Fuller but even the so called football league expert must have sat up and taken notice of him.

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Good to see John Hollins back in football, if you didn’t catch the news earlier in the week he is the new boss of Blue Square Premier Side Weymouth. You will struggle to meet a nicer fella than John and I am sure Weymouth can only benefit from his experience.

Some of my happiest days watching Rangers were spent standing behind the dugout at Harrow Borough when John was in charge of the reserves, always happy to have a chat, even during the game (!) he’s a top bloke and I wish him well.

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It must be difficult being as good as Ben Sahar, totally under appreciated at QPR despite his world beating talents the poor little guy had to shuffle back to Chelsea, crying into his Mum’s bosom all the way home.

After pouring his heart out in yet another interview he has been given another chance to show what he can do, this time at Sheffield Wednesday. Just what you need when you’re fighting a relegation battle, an egotistical, self inflated whinge bag.

Here’s some free advice Benjamin, shut up bleating, roll your sleeves up, graft for a few years and let your football, rather than your mouth, do the talking and then you might find that your career starts to go the way it should.

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Well done to the under 18’s who battered their way past Peterborough to get into the Youth Association Cup semi final. Last time they got there, back in 2005, they really should have got the final but were seen off by Swindon leaving then boss Joe Gallen gutted. Hopefully they’ll go one stage further this time around.

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Interesting to see Bernie Ecclestone dismiss the “39th” game idea. If there was someone who I thought it might find favour with it was Bernie. Here’s a man who knows the value of globalisation and yet he is dismissing the idea out of hand.

I also find it slightly re-assuring as it shows that he understands football is different to other sports and he isn’t set to impose the same ideals that have made him billions through F1 onto QPR. If we get promoted I can see Bernie becoming a big player behind the scenes of the Premier League and it is good to know he has a solid understanding of important matters like this.

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The players returned from Portugal this week, hopefully refreshed and revitalised for the remainder of the campaign. They also have a new captain in Gareth Ainsworth after we bombed out our club captain for the second season running.

Last year Kevin Gallen was loaned out to Plymouth in a questionable decision, this year Adam Bolder has moved to Sheffield Wednesday in a not so questionable decision.

Despite not playing since the Chelsea game Ainsworth has become something of a lieutenant for Gigi De Canio and will play a key role as an ambassador off the pitch with Martin Rowlands wearing the armband on it.

There can’t be a better model pro for the rest of the squad to follow than Wild Thing, if he can impart just a tenth of his energy onto the squad then he will have done a cracking job as club captain.

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Speaking of De Canio it looks like he is finally rid of the translator and carrying out his training in full English, this can only be good for him and the squad.

I’m still a little concerned at reading recently that Gigi’s family haven’t joined him in England, it must be incredibly hard to settle in a new country without having your wife alongside you and I would hate to think something like this might shorten his stay at Loftus Road as I really think we’re heading places with this little guy.

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A massive thank you to everyone who voted for QPRnet.com in the inaugural Football Pools Fanzine awards, we have been nominated in four categories and you can find them, and vote for us, at the link below.

We don’t expect to win, in fact we were delighted just to be nominated but if you want to help us out with a vote that would be much appreciated!

http://www.footballfanzineawards.com/the-nominees.php

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A final note on our blog comments, feel free to leave whatever comments you want below, however I’ve had to change it so they close after a week otherwise we get smothered in thousands of adverts for Viagra and such like.

There really wasn’t another solution, other than such them off completely, there was just too many to edit out and buying a cupboard full of the stuff didn’t seem to satisfy them either, still it helps to pass the time during those blank weekends.

Till next time…

Just like buses you wait ages for one billionaire to come along, then two turn up at once.

In twenty odd years of following Rangers you get used to good news eventually turning into bad, hope turning into despair, but today’s news that the Mittal family have bought a 20% stake in QPR has bought much joy to the Queens Park Rangers fanbase and particularly in this corner of Northolt.

It was only last July that we had to sell Lee Cook simply to pay a few bills and stay solvent for another month and here we are, six months on, owned by three extraordinarily wealthy men.

We couldn’t look to the future, we didn’t have one. Simply surviving week to week was an achievement, now we could be ready to reach for the stars.

I’ve said before I’d have just been happy to have Briatore on board, here’s a wealthy man who has succeeded in everything he has done but to have him helming the club with Ecclestone and Mittal’s fortunes backing him up is, frankly, staggering.

Of course we’ve (kind of) been here before under Chris Wright so there’s always the worry about what will happen should these guys decide to take their ball (and their wallets) home but that’s for another day.

We can’t say for sure what the future holds for this club now but at least we can be sure we have one. Before we didn’t know if we’d have a club to support a couple of years down the line, now the only question is what sort of club will we be supporting in a couple of years time.

It’ll be exciting finding out though.

Happy Christmas R’s!

Rangers have spent this week being linked to some crazy, yet fantastic sounding transfers in the press. Francesco Totti anyone? What about Alessandro Del Perio?

Neither seem particulary likely and both stories take me back to the heady days of the nineties when we were linked with moves for Paul Gascoinge and Roberto Baggio.

Whilst it is unthinkable that the likes of Totti and Del Perio will be strutting their stuff at Loftus Road anytime soon it does show what the benefits of having a high profile owner in place can do for us.

People are actually talking about us now, in Italy they even followed our match against Norwich, simply because of Briatore’s involvement. Suddenly QPR are interesting.

For years fans have bemoaned the clubs lack of decent PR, now we have a man at the helm who is giving us headlines for the right reasons.

Whilst the likes of Italian superstars in Hoops maybe a pipe dream for now, it’s making the world of football sit up and take notice of this little West London club and that cant be a bad thing.