 Friday, 4th Jan 2008 10:29 QPR face Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Saturday as their 2008 FA Cup campaign gets underway. I never really went in for the whole hating Chelsea thing as much as the other QPR supporters. At school in West London as I got into football I can’t recall coming across one Chelsea fan in my whole time there – there were one or two Tottenham but by and large everybody supported Manchester United and then when I moved back north I found myself surrounded by the bastards. You couldn’t move for bloody Man Utd training tops and Ryan Giggs posters. None of the glory hunting tossers ever went anywhere near a match, but still saw themselves as being in a position to mock me and my continued QPR obsession even though I’d spent my weekend battling with the rail system at a young age to get to Gresty Road or Vale Park or somewhere else you don’t really want to be on a Saturday while they’d watched Soccer Saturday. They’d all crow about how wonderful United had been at the weekend (if they’d been on Sky) and how they weren’t glory hunters because in fact their Dad’s mate had once been to a match at Old Trafford when United drew 0-0 so there. I couldn’t stand it, it was like spending every day of your life for four years surrounded by clones of Terry Christian. Chelsea never really registered with me. Sure I sung all the songs with the other QPR fans but I can’t recall ever looking for their results, rejoicing in a defeat for them or really paying much attention at all. They were an irrelevance to me. Now, ten years on, Chelsea are well and truly on the radar as a club showing all the traits I despised about that Man Utd team of the 1990s. Firstly, you can’t go out in Sheffield without passing somebody in a Chelsea shirt, top or coat. In Sheffield. Now please, I’m not having it that all these 45 year old blokes walking around in replica shirts were doing that even five years ago – course they bloody weren’t, they were extolling the virtues of the Neville brothers. Chelsea v Sheff Utd 1992, attendance 13,763, Chelsea v Sheff Utd 2007 attendance 41,897 – prosecution rests. There was a team in the Sheffield Uni six a side league last season that turned out in matching Chelsea training vests – not one of them made one match at the Bridge all season. They could regularly be found in the student bar mind you, mouthing off about “JT” as if they knew the odious git personally. There’s the diving, the cheating, the penchant for scoring in injury time that shouldn’t have been added and from corners that were actually goal kicks. How much longer do Sky expect people to subscribe to their television service to watch Drogba collapse holding his face for no apparent reason whatsoever? There’s the constant talking about all the money they’ve got – one of the prime reasons I can’t stand any QPR fans singing about our new found wealth - the behaviour of their players in airport bars on days of mourning, in nightclubs, with women and at times on the pitch. The crowding round referees, the way Lampard played at the World Cup and so it goes on. I’m coming to the party late, but I’m coming to it passionately. Mild dislike turns to passionate hatred whenever that grinning piece of dog turd Peter Kenyon appears on my screen saying they’re gong to win the Champions League in three years because it’s in the business plan. We may be going to the Bridge with slim hopes of getting anything, but we’re going with a club to be proud of and long may it stay that way. Five minutes on Chelsea When they had the likes of Damian Duff, Scott Parker, Geremi, Robert Huth, Carlton Cole and others knocking round in their reserves there was always a quality player to come in and cover for injuries. They may not have been a very happy player, having not seen action in anything other than the League Cup for months on end, but they were good and Chelsea were fairly relentless. Since these players have moved on, to little further success it must be said although that’s what happens when you join Newcastle and West Ham, Chelsea have struggled whenever they’ve picked up injuries. Of course Chelsea’s newly acquired taste for a serious injury crisis hasn’t helped – I’ve never known a club lose the spine of its side to injury quite so often. When John Terry isn’t flopping his old chap out and urinating on dance floors he’s invariably breaking something in his foot. Petr Cech hasn’t been the same since Stephen Hunt deliberately, and it was, enough of us saw him go through Martin Rowlands in that Brentford match to know what that horrible little man is like, kicked him in the head and fractured his skull. Makelele plays when he feels like it, Drogba spends almost as much time on the treatment table as he does moaning about how hard done to he is in the French press and so it goes on. Mourinho was ushered out earlier this season – in the end he was just too results orientated and outspoken for Abramovic and co. The Russian got into football after watching Real Madrid’s galacticos annihilate Man Utd at Old Trafford and sticking Robert Huth up front while defending a 1-0 win at Bolton doesn’t quite tally with that. He wants Chelsea to be loved (not a lot of chance while Kenyon’s on your pay roll mate) and to entertain and although they’re certainly doing that more under Avram Grant they’re already six points behind Arsenal with half their side about to head to Africa for anything up to five weeks. It’s not an insurmountable hurdle for them, but you’ll struggle to find anybody still backing them and it’s looking more and more likely that the cups represent their best hope for silver wear for a second season running. What happened the last time these teams met? Chelsea: Hitchcock, Clarke, Gullit, Spencer (Peacock) Hughes (Furlong) Wise, Burley, Lee (Johnsen) Petrescu, Phelan, Duberry QPR: Sommer, Bardsley, Maddix (Ready) McDonald, Yates (Brazier) Brevett, Barker, Impey, Dichio, Gallen (Hateley) Sinclair Attendance - 25 590 Head to Head Past Chelsea v QPR Matches Team News Chelsea have something of an injury crisis going on at the moment. John Terry, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba are all out injured. Ashley Cole returns from a ban but Ricardo Cavalho is suspended – both players were sent off against Aston Villa on Boxing Day. Michael Essien also misses out for accumulating five yellow cards. Referee Form QPR are in decent touch themselves of late. The defeat at Home Park is the only blotch on the record in the last seven matches. Single points have been taken off Scunthorpe and Wolves while Burnley, Colchester, Watford and Leicester have all been beaten. Three of those wins have been by two clear goals and after looking toothless for most of the first half the season Rangers have scored seven goals in their last two games and 12 in their last six. Prediction Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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