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Making your own fun - preview
Saturday, 4th Apr 2015 00:07 by Clive Whittingham

The persistent line of questioning to QPR's (black) manager Chris Ramsey either suggests sports journalism has sunk further than we feared, or that people have lost hope and belief in his team's prospects - or both.

West Bromwich Albion v Queens Park Rangers

Premier League >>> Saturday April 4, 2015 >>> Kick Off 15.00!! >>> The Hawthorns, West Bromwich
The QPR fans have started half-heartedly betting on the pre-match press conferences, ticking off the inevitable points of discussion that will be raised with Chris Ramsey like a group of embittered pensioners in a Bingo hall.

Will there be a discussion about Harry Kane? Almost certainly. Who discovered him? Who gave him his chance? Would another manager have given him that chance? How does it feel to see him doing so well? Should he be picked for England? Is he better than him, or him, or him, or him? How good is he? How good can he be? What’s his background? What kind of boy is he? Do you like him? Do you miss him? Do you think about him at night? Are there more Harry Kanes out there waiting to be discovered? What was life like before Kane? Does the influx of foreign talent suppress the Harry Kanes of the future? Will life ever be the same again now we have him? What does he use to keep his hair in place like that? Why does he never close his mouth?

Will there be a discussion about Tim Sherwood? Almost certainly. Do you talk to Tim Sherwood? Are you still friends with Tim Sherwood? Did Tim Sherwood ask you to join him at Aston Villa? Will you join Tim Sherwood at Aston Villa? How do you think Tim Sherwood is doing at Aston Villa? Are you pleased about that? How might Tim Sherwood have done with QPR? Was Tim Sherwood harshly dealt with by Spurs? Should he still be at Spurs? If he was still at Spurs, how would he be doing? Would you be pleased about that?

Will there be a discussion about the forthcoming QPR match? Hmmmmm. Perhaps. On Thursday this week we made it all the way through 14 minutes of televised discussion without the words “West” or “Brom” being said once. Quite an achievement really.

But of course, what we really want to talk to Chris Ramsey about, is the colour of his skin. Any hope that the novelty of having a real black person in charge of a Premier League football team might have worn off after three months was dispelled emphatically by Sky Sports’ Darmesh Seth — a television reporter who, without breaking stride or laughing at the ridiculousness of it, could be seen outside Loftus Road before a recent home match signing an autograph. Signing autographs. I kid you not.

This week Darmesh asked Chris Ramsey first of all about whether there is a racist undertone to the way managers are appointed in this country, and Chris Ramsey said there is, just as he had done last time he was asked. Then Darmesh asked Chris Ramsey about whether he agrees with John Barnes that there is a racist undertone to the way managers are appointed in this country, and Chris Ramsey said he did agree, as you could probably have guessed from his previous answer. Then Darmesh asked whether there was covert racism in football, and Chris Ramsey said that the lack of black managers in the Premier League showed there was. Then Darmesh asked whether Chris Ramsey would find it hard to get another job in football after this one because he’s black, and Chris Ramsey said it’s difficult for any out of work manager to get work but the Evening Standard still had enough from it to splash “Ramsey — I’ll find it harder to find work because I’m black”. Then Darmesh asked if there should be a Rooney rule in English football, whereby one black candidate must be included in the interview process for every coaching position, and I suspect Chris Ramsey probably agreed but by that point I’d moved into the kitchen to thrust my hand into the food blender just to see if I was still capable of feeling anything at all any more.

Of course racism in football, particularly in opportunities for managers and coaches, is an issue. It’s as plain as the white skin of the other 19 managers in the Premier League. But Chris Ramsey is asked about it every week. And it’s all he’s asked about.

Later, on the Twitter, one wit compared the situation to the guy with the mole on his face in Austin Powers. However hard they try, the sporting journalists of Britain — almost universally white and male - can’t help but point at the black manager and repeat the word ‘black’ over and over again at him. There’s a scene on the more recent Anchorman movie that seems appropriate. Message board regular Konk recently pondered whether Sky might like to ask Chris Ramsey about his memories of carnival, or Nigel Farrage’s UKIP policies, or the political situation in Ferguson. You’d think it ridiculous, until Thursday roles around again and Darmesh or one of the other Sky drones turns up and starts to speak.

The pre-match press conferences are a nonsense — we all know this. Managers being deliberately provocative to wind up opponents, or deliberately bland to avoid headlines. An exercise in talking about, and analysing, something that hasn’t happened yet. Insisted upon by the broadcasters as part of their grotesque deal with the Premier League so that Sky Sports News has content to fill 24 hours of Friday television in between reading out the crucially important Tweets of Jon Walters and Romelu Lukaku. They’re not for the fans, and QPR are one of the few clubs that make them available to watch live. If you don’t like them, ignore them, sound advice as always.

But still, you can’t help but wonder why Sky use their 15 minutes with the QPR manager in this way. Sitting and watching that channel for more than half an hour at a time will pulp your brain into a squishy mess so perhaps they know that the standard viewer isn’t cognitively functional enough to remember that Chris Ramsey was asked all this last week and said exactly the same thing. Or maybe there are actually reasonable people out there who haven’t gone through a full frontal lobotomy who want to hear the black man talk on behalf of all the other black men, as if they’re all the same, every single week.

Maybe it’s because to talk about QPR would be to bore the viewer, because nobody is interested in QPR. In the age of the “games that matter” QPR are a total irrelevance so best to ask the QPR manager about Tottenham, or Harry Kane, or racism, or something that does matter. You couldn’t move at these things back in August without being asked a question about Louis Van Gaal but he’s since been downgraded from ‘Zeus’ to merely ‘brilliant’ so that’s died away slightly now.


Or maybe it’s because people have given up on QPR this season. Now on a run of 10 defeats from 11 matches, including the last five, including one of the few remaining winnable home matches against Everton a fortnight ago, it’s looking bleak. Burnley have now overtaken Rangers as the most likely of the bottom three to escape. Victories are needed quickly, and two crucial away games in four days loom large. Fail to win at least one and relegation will be all but confirmed. Then the topics of conversation will turn to money, Financial Fair Play, transfer embargos, who will be putting QPR’s team together for next season and how they’re going to do it.

Perhaps then we’ll soon be pining for another round of ‘ask the black man’ before every single match. In the meantime, it feels like a weird sort of racism in itself.

Links >>> Pulis rescue act — interview >>> Bob Hazell v Cyrille Regis — history >>> Probert returns — referee

Danish striker Marc Nygaard celebrates his eighty third minute equaliser at The Hawthorns as John Gregory’s QPR snatched a dramatic 3-3 draw from this fixture in October 2006.

Saturday

Team News Long-term absentees Richard Dunne and Leroy Fer are nearing a return to fitness, and LFW has heard a whisper that Dunne may in fact feature this weekend or at Villa on Tuesday which would be a boost to QPR’s beleaguered defence. Other than that, and Mauro Zarate going back to West Ham with his long-standing issues, it’s the same group of the bad, the mad and the sad.

Ben Foster is injured, which is a shame given his performance at Aston Villa in the league, but given his propensity to play like a super hero against QPR it’s probably for the best that we’ll face Bo Myhill instead. Callum McManaman, who QPR sniffed around in January, is injured but leading scorer Saido Berahino is back from a knock while Chris Brunt and Caludio Yacob The Albion Man return from bans. Craig Dawson, the centre half, is suspended.

Elsewhere: As Jesus would have wanted, Easter Sunday this year can be spent with Sunderland v Newcastle — needless vitriol based on geography with added assault of police horses.

That’s the stand-out fixture of the weekend along with Arsenal welcoming the Collective Men of Liverpool in their united, ongoing battle for the prestigious fourth place in the Premier League.
QPR, or at least those at QPR who still hold out hope (it’s what kills you), will be watching Leicester’s hosting West Ham. Nigel Pearson’s falling down routine clashes headlong into Big Fat Sam’s Big Fat Farewell Party with unpredictable results. Or, 0-0. Burnley host Spurs on Sunday, and given how they played Man City at home last time out that might not be as one-sided as the North London side hope.
Big Racist John and the Referee Baiters host Meticulous Mark and the Taffia on Saturday evening while Louis Van Gaal hosts Tim Sherwood — and they need a ground the size of Old Trafford to contain the two egos otherwise the match might be off. Everton against Southampton smells of end of season while Swansea away starts the tough run of fixtures through to the end for Tigers Tigers Rah Rah Rah.
Palace host Man City on Monday night — all out to Crystals afterwards for Jägerbombs and packets of prawn cocktail Monster Munch on Pards afterwards.

Referee: Lee Probert is in charge of this one, his first Premier League game of the season after a summer injury. Probert was highly thought of last year, refereeing the FA Cup final, but didn’t return to action until December 20 this year and has since done 11 games in the lower divisions. His last QPR match was Jose Bosingwa’s nadir, at home to Newcastle at the end of the 2012/13 disaster. His full QPR case file is available here.

Form

WBA: West Brom’s defeat at Loftus Road on December 20 plunged them into relegation difficulty. They’d won only two of the previous 11, and four of 17 league games in total to that point and the decision was taken to sack Alan Irvine and replace him with Tony Pulis. Since that game, QPR have won once. West Brom, meanwhile, have won seven of 17 in all competitions with four draws thrown in for good measure. Away from home, the Baggies have remained poor — three straight defeats prior to this and 11 without a win since victory at Leicester at the start of December. At The Hawthorns, though, they’re formidable — four straight wins prior to this, seven wins from the last nine fixtures here. The Baggies have kept six clean sheets in 11 league matches since Tony Pulis took charge.

QPR: QPR have lost 10 of their last 11 matches, and that lone victory at Sunderland is the only success the R’s have had in 14 games since they beat West Brom 3-2 at Loftus Road in the corresponding fixture on December 20. At that point QPR had won four, drawn one and lost four of nine but the form as totally collapsed since then. Rangers have scored in their last five games, but they haven’t scored more than one goal in a game since the Sunderland game, and prior to that the last they did it was the West Brom game. Rangers have conceded the first goal in 25 of their 32 games this season in all competitions — they have come from behind to win on only two of those 25 occasions, against West Brom and Leicester.

Prediction: Reigning Prediction League champion WestonSuperR tells us…
“The last chance saloon for me was the Everton match - a game we had to win to stand a chance of staying up and failed to do so. I hope the team haven't quite thrown in the towel though, especially as for some reason I am travelling to this one. But I suspect many might have and will already be thinking of where they may move in the summer.

“Of course a win here and another three points against Villa and we are right back in it but what are the chances against two teams with new managers that are showing a bit of form? Well very little when you consider we have just lost ten of the last 11, every single away match bar one this season and a manager with an appalling record who must now have lost of the confidence of much of the dressing room.

“Sorry to be so negative but when you consider that West Brom will probably see this as an excellent opportunity to virtually secure their Premiership status then it is a simple 2-0 win for West Brom for me.”

John’s Prediction: West Brom 2 QPR 0 — No Scorer

LFW’s Prediction: West Brom 1 QPR 0 — No Scorer

The Twitter @loftforwords

Pictures — Action Images

Photo: Action Images



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TacticalR added 14:58 - Apr 4
Thanks for your preview.

Yes, just whatever did we do before Harry Kane? I think we used to talk about QPR.

At the moment the only bright spot on the horizon is the potential return of Dunne and Fer.
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