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Season Review Wednesday 18th May 2005 by Ron Norris
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September began with tickets sales being suspended once again, the game against Plymouth was the one that suffered and it took two days before they were back on sale. Ramon Diaz was the name on everyone’s lips this month, the Argentinean was rumoured to have agreed a deal to take over at Loftus Road, the one stumbling block was that Ian Holloway was still employed. The club moved quickly to confirm that whilst Diaz was a contact of new investors Barnaby holdings he had not been offered the QPR job and nor would he be. Danny Shittu continued his comeback by playing 55 minutes for the reserves against Fulham in a friendly |
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Terrell Forbes left the club for good having stuck around on a month to month deal after his official release in the summer, he eventually moved onto Grimsby. Queens Park Rangers attempted an assault on the music charts with the release of a club single by “Supa Hoopz featuring the QPR Massive” unfortunately the only thing it assaulted was peoples ear drums. |
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Lee Cooks transfer fee was finally set by a tribunal at £150,000 with Mark Devlin saying it was a good deal less than Watford had originally demanded. Joe Gallen’s youth side went top of the South East Conference with a stonking 7-1 win over Gillingham. Shabazz Baidoo and Andrew Judge both scored hatricks. Serge Branco joined Rangers having previously been on trial that summer before opting to move to Leeds. That didn’t quite work out and he eventually arrived at QPR on a short term contract. Former Brazil captain Dunga made his Loftus Road debut for a press call where he was officially unveiled as the figurehead of Barnaby’s investment |
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Des Bulpin left the Rangers youth set up having only rejoined the club in the summer. His release was said to be due to “financial reasons”. Joe Gallen took on full responsibility for the Centre of Excellence. Rangers won the first of what would be seven deadly wins with a 3-2 home victory over Plymouth. Paul Furlong scored two of Rangers three goals and then dedicated the win to under fire boss Ian Holloway. “We dedicated that to the gaffer, he's had a bit of a rough week and we wanted to put things right for him” he said. The second win came at Crewe, Rangers struck twice, first through Furlong again and then Georges Santos to earn a 2-0 victory over Dario Gradi’s side. From there we went to Brighton and made it two away wins in a row after Matthew Rose’s stunning last minute winner earned Rangers another 3-2 result. Danny Shittu also made his return to league action as a late substitute. |
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The Carling Cup second round saw us crash out 3-1 to Premiership side Aston Villa at Villa Park with Kevin McLeod getting Rangers only goal of the game. The game would be the last we saw of Arthur Gnohere, he was carried off injured and never played for the first team again. After the cup exit it was back to league action and Rangers responded with another 3-2 win this time over Leicester City. We had found ourselves 2-0 down at half time but an impressive fight back saw us overcome Mickey Adams side to earn the win. Paul Furlong got the last minute winner. |
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Then we finished the month in style with a 4-1 demolition of Coventry and a fantastic Jamie Cureton hatrick which looked to have set the wee man back on the right path after a disappointing start to his Rangers career. "I'm the sort of player who shoots when people least expect it” said Cureton after the game. Certainly as the season progressed that proved true as almost no one expected him to shoot by the time May came round. Suddenly we had won five league games in a row, Ian Holloway was named manager of the month and all talk of Watford, Diaz and relegation was a distant memory. And it was still only September! |
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