The speed at which QPR fans turned on their own side during the Barnsley game was alarming, and not helpful to the team and our goalkeeper in particular.

The peasants are revolting
The ink wasn’t even dry on the LFW season preview where I’d tipped Wolves to under achieve largely because of the treatment they get from their own fans at home games and suddenly we were at it ourselves. It was a very strange atmosphere at Loftus Road on Saturday, not a pleasant one by any stretch of the imagination and I have to admit that although I expected this to happen several times this season I didn’t expect it so quickly, so vociferously and out of my own mouth.

I actually woke up on Sunday morning thoroughly ashamed at my reaction to certain events on Saturday and vowing to make a concerted effort to improve my attitude to the team by the time we return to headquarters to face Doncaster a week on Saturday. I hope plenty of other people have done the same because the tension and atmosphere inside the ground for the first 20 minutes of the game was not conducive to good football, winning matches or inspiring players to give it their best for us.

Radek Cerny must wonder what on earth he’s got himself into for a start. Now Cerny is an experienced keeper at the very highest level both in this country and his homeland and it’s probably all water off a duck’s back to him but he cut a lonely and disconsolate figure in the Loft End goal mouth when his own supporters turned on him with the time on the watch in his debut match still in single figures.

Cerny is a good shot stopper, a brilliant shot stopper even, and his distribution out of hands is second to none at this level. However some of his kicking is a little erratic and he will not, and hasn’t ever, looked very convincing under crosses and as Barnsley fizzed balls back and forth through his goal mouth with alarming frequency in the first few minutes he looked like a forlorn rabbit picnicking in the middle of the A316. We’ll have to get used to that I’m afraid, he’s not suddenly going to start catching instead of punching or coming out instead of staying on his line at his age.

Sadly for Radek he’s displaced a fans’ favourite in Lee Camp - a keeper who ran Rowlands very close for our Player of the Year award, a keeper who won a promotion with us and played a big part in that, a keeper that turned up on loan again two years later and helped to keep us up and somebody we trumpeted as a terrific signing when we got him last summer. I made my feelings clear last week - Camp is a better keeper than Cerny and with more than a decade on his side I worry that by preferring Cerny to him now we may lose somebody that could keep goal for us for a many years in favour of somebody who will need replacing in 18 months time. Most of all though what has Camp actually done to deserve being dropped?

Anyway, like I say I discussed that last week, this week’s issue is the fans’ reaction to the team on Saturday and it was, in my opinion, unacceptable. What possible use can it do to abuse your own players 15 minutes into the first match? Yes we were poor, yes we were losing, yes we could have been losing by more but I don’t see how chanting Lee Camp’s name can improve that situation. In the end we were lucky to get back into the game and then turn it around so quickly otherwise things could have turned ugly.

Like I say I definitely include myself in that. I didn’t join in with the Lee Camp chant but I gave Cerny some stick early on, and in the second half when he flapped hopelessly at a catch even an England cricketer would have managed, and vented my spleen several times during the match. The poor, long suffering people that sit near me in F Block know what I’m like and accept me with better grace than I really deserve to be honest. I think I’d calmed down a little bit by the end of last season but it’s amazing what having a £600 season ticket in your back pocket can do to your mood as Barnsley go 1-0 up.

That £600 was hard for me this summer - almost impossible. Another £50 or so and you wouldn’t be reading this today and F Block would be a whole lot quieter this season. I’ve over stretched myself, spent money I don’t have, worked myself into problems through buying that bloody season ticket and when you turn up on the opening day of the season to find a team tipped for relegation waltzing through your expensively assembled back four at will and your keeper flapping around like an epileptic seagull while the perfectly fine and impressive young man he replaced sits on the bench kicking his heals it’s very hard to sit there and say nothing. Well it is for me anyway.

At the height of my lunacy at QPR games, when only Northern the Elder could really stand to sit with me, I did try writing something my Grandad once said to me when I was just perfecting the art of testiculating at football matches: “They can’t hear you ya know.” Now you could say this is the man who once mistook a Delicatessen for a pub called The Delicate Susan so what the hell would he know about anything but I think I’m going to have to go back to the writing on my hand technique, along with the chewing gum, the finger tapping and the talking to myself that also succeeded in calming me down at matches last season. If not for the sake of my own body, I have the stomach lining of a 53 year old air traffic controller, then for the sake of our team that needs better support from QPR fans than it got at the weekend and for those that sit around me.

There’s a young kid just got a season ticket in the seat next to me, first time it’s been filled for a while, and he doesn’t need me in full flight next to him at every match this season. It was him more than the team really that had me waking up feeling ashamed of myself on Sunday morning but for the team’s sake we could all do with being a bit more supportive than we were on Saturday, even though the problem of raised expectations is one of the club’s own making. We’ve seen first hand at Molineux just how much damage a home crowd can do to their own side and while it may be tempting to get up and ask Iain Dowie if he thinks this is worth £600, as I did on Saturday, we and I must refrain in future if we want some of the exceptionally talented players we seem to have stumbled upon to feel free and confident enough to try things and express themselves in home games without the fear that some oik is going to abuse them if it goes wrong.

Let’s not go down the path of the spit producing, loud mouthed regulars at Wolverhampton - I’m game if you are.

First impressions
Not bad for a kick off but I’m not doing any hand stands. Work putting their foot down on my Tuesday afternoon/Wednesday morning holidays prevented me from going to Swindon on Tuesday so I’m giving my first thoughts on our new signings based on the Chievo and Barnsley matches and the ridiculously biased commentary Swindon Town offered us on Wednesday - I know it was local radio guys but there really is no excuse for saying we and they in commentary, and using the word thankfully every time QPR missed a chance. At least make an effort at impartiality. Anyway here goes:

Radek Cerny: As I said above a nervous debut and I expect more of the same. Cerny is a very good shot stopper and made a couple down low in the corners on Saturday that were a lot more difficult than he made them look. His distribution out of hands is also excellent and that enabled us to get our wingers into the game in dangerous wide areas much quicker than we ever have been before. There was a fifty yard underarm throw to Cook in the first half on Saturday that was a joy to behold. Sadly his kicking out of hands was not so crash hot, and a couple of efforts spiralled high into the sky and barely made the halfway line in the second half. And like I say he’s never going to come and catch many crosses for you so get used to it.

Peter Ramage: Steady and little else. Far too often already he’s run onto a perfectly reasonable ball out to the right and hacked his cross straight out behind the goal. The reason I said Michael Mancienne wasn’t worth pursuing for the money Chelsea were asking was because he couldn’t attack or cross a ball to save his life and at the moment I’m afraid we may have replaced like with like in that respect. I though he was at fault for letting Hume run off him for the first goal at the weekend as well so still much to do and I’d have Connolly at right back for now I think.

Kaspars Gorkss: Another nervous debut. Didn’t win a header for the first 20 minutes against Barnsley and looked to be all over the place for most of the first half. Settled down a bit in the second and was excellent and composed against Chievo - hopefully just first night nerves there although another two goals at Swindon hardly fills you with confidence. Needs time to settle.

Emmanuel Ledesma: The talk of the town. On the ball he’s got all the tricks and flicks but it’s not all style without substance – he delivers a nice ball from wide areas and likes to take a shot on, although his finishing leaves a little be desired. He comes with all the baggage typically associated with a foreign player though – plenty of play acting, failure to retreat at free kicks, moaning, niggly fouls, rolling around. Now it’s one of our players doing it it’s funny though isn’t it? A quality player, sure to be a hero at Loftus Road and people are already starting to ask whether that agreed fee of three million Euros is a done deal or whether Genoa can say no and take him back.

Daniel Parejo: Started the Swindon game which I wasn’t at but reports from there sound promising. Against Barnsley he came on at a time when we just starting our infuriating routine when leading that sees us line up on the edge of our own box for the final 20 minutes and spend the remainder of the game handing possession back to the opposition. That all stopped when the Real Madrid lad came on, our ball retention went through the roof and that can only be a good thing.

Matteo Alberti: Three sub appearances so far and he’s looked tidy with the ball and very speedy when running into space.

Sam Di Carmine: Poor as a sub against Chievo, suspended for Barnsley and introduced late against Swindon . Too early to even gain any first impressions.

Spark the Tiger
I’ll warn you before I begin - I’m a sucker for mascots. I love them. The whole mascot grand national think cracks me up and some of the characters that have developed over the years really add something to the matchday experience. Obviously there are good and bad ones - H’Angus the Monkey at Hartlepool who ended up being the mayor of the town, the needlessly violent Cyril the Swan at Swansea, Toby Tyke who almost sparked a riot at Oakwell one afternoon by wiping his backside on a toilet roll and hurling it into the travelling Manchester City supporters - funny guys, genuine characters.

The best mascots, as well as having good suits and a taste for the manic and chaotic, often have a really good story behind them as well. H’Angus was born out of an old tale that a monkey once washed up on the beach at Hartlepool and, after a brief trial, was sentenced to death by hanging for being a Frenchman. In Jude the Cat we had not only a mascot with a bit of character but one with a bit of a story and history behind him as well.

Jude’s antics on the pitch over the past ten years have often had me laughing out loud - who can forget him dressing as James Bond and parading two ladies in front of the Loft End before wrestling one to the ground in the goal mouth and simulating moggy love in her direction? Or the day that Lee Probert mistook him for Paul Furlong and said he was confusing him when QPR attacked - in true Probert style a quiet word didn’t suffice and he actually sent Jude off - the ITV cameras showed him rolling over onto his back in the tunnel as he struggled to come to terms with the decision. Like I say, a character.

The idea for Jude the Cat came from the real cat of the same name that lived in and around Loftus Road for many years and could often be seen dancing between punters’ feet in the club shop or walking along the roof of the executive boxes mid match. Gerry Francis was very keen on the idea of a lucky black cat and the name Jude comes from the club’s original name. So there’s a good story there, and a nod towards the club’s history. Add in the fact that Jude was very marketable and the over priced stuffed Jude’s sold very well in the club shop and it’s hard not to conclude that we had a very good mascot on our hands.

There are of course some very poor mascots around as well. The giant Shrimp at Southend for a start - whoever made the costume wasn’t actually informed at any point that they’re meant to be cartoon like and basically made a very realistic and life like eight foot tall prawn - a frightening sight to have coming towards you at Roots Hall after a few beers. The Gunnersaurus at Arsenal is another head scratcher. Some teams just don’t make the effort - I remember the Salford City Reds coming to the old Boulevard in Hull with a devil for a mascot. Actually it was just some thin man with his face painted red and plastic horns wearing a revealing black leather thong that personally I though was inappropriate for the purposes of entertaining young children in Hull.

Sadly I fear we may have one of our own in Spark the Tiger - unveiled to the QPR fans before the match on Saturday. I want to like him, really I do. Like I say I’m a sucker for mascots and I look at his happy smiling face and can’t separate the character and the pathetic tale of how he came to QPR that was printed in the programme from the fact that it’s essentially some bloke getting far too hot in a woollen suit. He waved at me and I waved back and the kids seemed to like him and that’s all that matters really but I prefer Jude. Christ I even feel guilty writing that here in case he’s reading it. Sorry Spark, maybe you’ll grow on me - I presume it’s the same bloke inside the new suit?

I liked Jude. If we really can’t have a black cat because of the whole Italian superstition thing then couldn’t we have dyed him blue or white or grey? It still would have been Jude and it would just be another chapter in the story of him. It’s got to be better than borrowing some suit Hull City had laying about hasn’t it?

The bring back Jude campaign starts here.

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As usual, a brilliant article. However, I have to correct you regarding the chanting at the Barnsley game - the chanting of Lee Camp's name was entirely appropriate - not because of Cerny's inability to catch so much as a cold but as a show of support for a guy who loves the club and must wonder what he has done wrong. And of course seconds after the chant, Cerny came over towards Ellerslie to collect the ball and was roundly applauded. All the nonsense before the game made it a disaster waiting to happen. And like you, the £600 PLUS that I forked out has left my belt very tight and my missus asking serious questions. But I love my team and after 38 years I reckon I am entitled to vent my feelings when I see someone like Agyemang not even breaking sweat. The atmosphere you describe however does not match my own recollection. We were frankly poor in all areas and if the long ball game that we saw is going to be the way of things then I will be making my feelings known again. It isn't even about unrealistic expectations - mine are that we don't struggle this season, that's all. But if we are going to get this Billy Big Potatoes from some (average) players then you will hear a whole lot worse before the end of April... - Jeff

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