QPR have started the campaign well, and responded with an unprecedented mid-season ticket price hike.

Hold them up by the ankles and see what falls out I say
It would be hilarious if it wasn't true. On Sunday morning I took a call from an Ipswich supporting friend of mine who now lives in North London. He and his flat mates were at a loose end and wanted to know if they could get tickets for the Southampton game for anything less than the £25 each (£75 for the three of them) they had been quoted by the box office. I had to be honest with him and tell him I was surprised he'd even managed to get them that cheap. So they didn't go. And once again QPR played out a home fixture in front of 5000 empty seats. Next week those tickets will cost £40. Some seats will cost £50.

It's hard to know where on earth to start with the frankly ludicrous decision by our club to raise the ticket prices again after only six matches of the season. Especially as the price rises inflicted on us in the summer were extortionate as it was. Fans have roundly criticised the suggestion that they will see an improved product this season - the catering is still hideous in both price and quality, the leg room still has you waking up on Sunday morning feeling like you've been for a night out with Danny Guthrie, the bar in the South Africa Road stand is gone and been replaced with two less than enthusiastic, thick as pig shit blokes with back packs that don't work. The name plates we were promised for our seats as season ticket holders are in fact strips of sellotape, you still can't get to the toilets or the refreshment kiosks at half time without leaving early or missing the start of the second half, you can't put a bet on and we have a goalkeeper that can't catch the ball. If you wanted to speak to the club during the summer you got put through to some thick oik in Manchester who wouldn't let you pay with the same cards QPR accept, whenever you buy anything you have to pay a frankly mean £3.50 booking fee and the noise from the club is still deafening - no fans' forums, no Q and A's, no nothing. Just terse and often clearly untrue statements on our official website.

For example after being told that season tickets were selling in record numbers (after only be on sale for an hour) we were then told they had sold out and that there was unprecedented demand for Barnsley tickets on day one. Hmmmm one wonders why Barnsley at home was played out in front of empty seats and hasn't made its way onto our record books as a highest ever attendance. They must think we came down the river on the last onion boat. Unprecedented demand?> Did 6000 people who bought tickets not turn up?

As our club only now speaks to us through the medium of spin, our official website is blocked on Alistair Campbell's PC as 'porn', allow me to engage in some truth telling. Queens Park Rangers have not sold out a home game yet this season and are not likely to do so any time soon. That's a fact. We've actually only exceeded 15,000 once. That's a fact. I could have bought a ticket for Liveprool v Man Utd last weekend for less than my seat would cost if you bought it for the Derby match. That's also a fact. I can actually buy a season ticket at Liverpool cheaper than the one I paid to watch QPR underperform against Barnsley. These are facts. Not unproveable nonsense spinning so fast it's hard to read it as it whizzes past.

That's without going into the immoral practise of increasing ticket prices mid season. People will have made a decision not to buy a season ticket on the basis of the matchday prices published in full at the start of the season - now not even two months in that's all out the window. And don't give me any nonsense about bronze tickets being available for £20 - you try and buy a ticket in a bronze area for that Derby match. There are next to none to be had.

I paid up in the summer for my season ticket but had I not I would not be paying £40 to watch us play Derby frickin County - a team so poor even their own fans can't help but laugh at their predicament and yet classed as a category A game. For the record our last two matches against those opponents have been played out infront of sub 13,000 attendances. Category A my arse as a wise scouser might have said.

Derby County, facing the prospect of telling their fans that it will cost them £40 to sit in one of the division's worst away ends, have posted a small story on their official website saying that they have withdrawn QPR tickets from sale because of a stock issue. There is a rumour going around that they're considering refusing the allocation at the ridiculous, scandalous, prices QPR are asking for. I'd would encourage them to do just that. Apologise to their supporters but state clearly why they are refusing the allocation. ITV are featuring the Derby game as their top Championship match that day and the sight of an empty away end in protest at this piss take will speak a thousand words - even more than the pathetic and frankly embarrassing sight of our club's precious W12 and C Club sitting almost totally empty in front of the Sky cameras at the weekend. That's the W12 and C Club that we were so desperate to have we moved season ticket holders from their long held and much treasured South Africa Road seats.

One wonders if the people making decisions at our club actually live in the ground, coming out only on matchdays to blink at the sunlight and watch Gavin Mahon and Mikele Leigertwood play together in midfield while Martin Rowlands sits on the bench. Surely if they were to step out onto the pavement, use the tube, or go anywhere else ever it can't have escaped their notice that nobody currently has any money. Pay rises are being capped if handed out at all, inflation is inflating, companies are folding. These are hard times. If they think in amongst all this people are going to pay £40 to sit in the outdated South Africa Road and Ellerslie Road stands and watch QPR v Derby County then I'm sorry but I fear for their mental stability.

The club need to be asked some serious questions very quickly. Firstly has this increase been planned at this point all along - if not why is it now necessary? Have we set ourselves an overly ambitious target? Has somebody not achieved the sales they were supposed to? Is the fact that our swanky new executive areas are completely empty at home something to do with it? If it is that should it really be the other fans paying for the club's laughably over optimistic idea that people will pay £10,000 for a season ticket to watch QPR play Doncaster bleedin Rovers?

I could go on but I won't. What's the point. We've been told by Briatore that people who turn up and pay £20 once a week (if only) will have no say in it. We've been lied to over ticket prices in the first place, doesn't Agag's suggestion that raises would be "10% or something normal" now have a hollow ring to it, and now they've gone up again. I hang my head in shame at the thought of away fans paying £40 to sit in the shitty School End. Remember what a fuss we kicked up when Palace charged is £30? In fact I'm thoroughly ashamed full stop. I'm ashamed of my club for this.

A closed mouth gathers no foot
Lord help me keep my big mouth shut. I’m not very often right, stop laughing at the back, but I am not sure I have ever been as spectacularly wrong as I was about England in this column last week. “Stick to writing about QPR Norf” – sound advice from the message board as always.

I expected several things last Wednesday night in Croatia – a 4-1 away win wasn’t one of them. I probably should have put more trust in the idea that when it really matters Capello tends to get it right because he and his team really shone.

The big thing for me is in the last two games England havce had very few players playing out of position. Previously we’ve seen centre halves at full back, two attacking players in the middle of the park, anybody and everybody shoe horned into the left wing role, two strikers the same trying to play together – square pegs for round holes.

Stuart Downing is clearly not good enough to play international football but he is at least a left winger playing left wing and while I don’t expect to see him in an England shirt again any time soon it was reassuring to see Cappello picking a left winger at left wing rather than trying to force a talented individual like Gerrard to play out of position out there just to get him in the team.

Downing was dropped in favour of Cole for the Croatia game, the result was the best balanced England team I’ve seen for some time. The effectiveness of Barry sitting and Lampard going forward from the middle of midfield, Fat Frank’s best game for England in a good four years I would say, must surely bring an end to the idea that Gerrard and Lampard should play together for the national team. It’s either or and as Gerrard decided to use the international weekend for a quick groin up it certainly shouldn’t be him. I fear one or two people will regret tossing the games last week off, Gerrard chief amongst them.

As good as England were Croatia were very poor. A side we’ve grown to fear in recent years looked over confident and under prepared – an attitude that stems from a manager who clearly expected David Beckham to play wide on the right and had nothing in his locker to cope with Walcott when that wasn’t the case and who once again spent a good portion of the pre-match build up talking about England’s short comings. The Croatian players and coach both looked and sounded like they expected to turn up and win quite easily and when that didn’t happen they became first niggly, then cynical and finally violent with Joe Cole picking up a head wound worthy of a Crimean war victim and Walcott and others enduring robust, off the ball challenges that could easily have brought greater punishment on another day.

Let’s not get carried away though. By the time the studio guests on Setanta had finished and the England fans been interviewed outside the ground we were already world champions – global domination by the end of the month or Cappello out I say. This is only one game, and like I say Croatia were very poor. There’s a long way to go in qualifying never mind the tournament itself. Even this game could have gone another way had any of David James’ or Ashley Cole’s horrendous mistakes in the first quarter of an hour resulted in a Croatian goal. There are still weak links in that England team and the goalkeeper is pretty close to the top of that list. There’s a dearth in quality goalkeepers world wide at the moment and certainly in this country – James is a super club goalkeeper but his regular rushes of blood and propensity to wonder off into the right back spot with alarming frequency make him a ticking timebomb.

The other thing I worry about is the fact that we don’t really have another taxing game for a good few months now – Kazakhstan up next, then Belarus and the Ukraine . Not easy, but certainly games you’d expect three wins from without too many scares. I worry that we may go away from what was so good about the Croatian game and not really realise we’re doing it. We may say Gerrard come back in with Lampard, Heskey moving aside, Barry being replaced by Hargreaves. None of these things would be good in my opinion but they might not affect the results straight away with the games winnable regardless of team selection.

I hope that Cappello sticks with the winning formula he’s found and makes those that missed out on Wednesday either through his team selection or their own pathetic injuries wait for another turn – even if that wait is measured in months and years rather than weeks.

Gezza returns
I was delighted to see Gerry Francis returning to football last week, albeit with our old nemesis Stoke City . I’m sure I don’t need to go into the tales of attacked goalkeepers, stoned buses containing away fans and supporters being pelted with rocks on the way back to their cars again but it’s fair to say that I’m not missing Stoke’s presence on our fixture list this season very much. Nevertheless I can’t help but wish Gerry every success in that part of the world.

Francis was in charge of QPR when got my first season ticket back in 1992. That was a really great QPR side to watch and as I said last week it really should have done better than fifth in the league and various cup disasters. The team was superb going forward with the likes of Sinton, Sinclair and of course Les Ferdinand but Gerry was always a very cautious manager, obsessed with clean sheets and constantly looking worried and terrified about what might be to come.

I once heard it said about Gerry that should he win the lottery he’d spend a week sitting in the kitchen looking at the ticket thinking about all the ways in which is life would change for the worst if he claimed the money. That was in relation to Kevin Gallen who many thought should have been given his debut in the first team sooner than he was. Gerry waited, and when he finally did get his chance Kevin was more than ready and had a terrific first season in the Premier League scoring 12 goals including one on his home debut v Sheffield Wednesday. It could be argued that had Gerry slung him in too soon he wouldn’t have done half as well.

With QPR forced to sell their best talent throughout Francis’ time with Rangers he was forced to bring kids out of the youth team on a regular basis and the set up the club had at that level at the time, with Des Bulpin overseeing the boys’ development, was about as good as it’s ever been. Certainly we haven’t produced as many first team players ourselves since Gerry’s departure. I gather Francis will be holding some sway over Stoke’s youth set up as part of his role which will only benefit the Potters I’m sure.

Of course Francis had a second spell with QPR that didn’t go quite so well. Again he found a quality youth teamer to boost a flagging side and only two serious knee injuries have prevented Richard Langley going on to have a really good career in the upper echelons of the league. Gerry’s last season in charge of QPR was a sad one, 2000/01. Poor signings like Karl Connolly and Christer Warren were added to a side full of players that didn’t really care. The non-league stars Gerry had unearthed to great effect the previous season, Jermaine Darlingotn and Stuart Wardley, didn’t do half as well second time around and a vitally important cog in the machine, Rob Steiner, retired through injury. Despite the discovery of Peter Crouch Rangers were relegated and deservedly so.

During Gerry’s second spell we lost my Dad after a reasonably short but never the less agonising battle with throat cancer. Gerry, despite all the problems he was having with the team at that point, met with me a couple of times and wrote to me and the family as well offering support. It meant a lot at the time and I’ve never forgotten it – I can’t imagine there are too many people in football that would have taken the time out he did, and gone out of his way to come and chat to me about how things were at home and offer his help in any way. It’s for that reason more than any other that I wish him every success, even at Stoke!

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Well done Clive on your article. It is spot on. I support your comments 100%. Brilliant read. -eamken

Superb Clive about the prices...you manage to express what a lot of us are feeling...total kick in the gonads,come on they've got 20% of my total annual expenditure (SERIOUSLY!)...how much more..what next? Love Sidelong-glancing Super 70's Sideburns Pigeon Gerry 'n' all. - Otuk

Hi there, I've never posted on a QPR website before despite reading yours and a few others most days. However, I've just read your article about the price hikes and just wanted to let you know how absolutely spot on it is. I contemplated buying a season ticket this year (I've had one in the past but haven' recently as I now a young family and have less time and money than I used to) but ultimately decided £600 just couldn't be justified. Instead, I bought the £36 (including booking fee and postage) membership. I did this purely because I was worried that due to the massive season ticket sales described by the club ,etc, I'd struggle to buy tickets. I certainly didn't buy it for the crappy free gifts such as oyster card holder I've still yet to recive a month later. My first planned game was Derby - and now I discover it will cost me 40 notes when 30 seemed steep in the first place. I live near Brighton, so including the fare I will be £70 lighter. I can take my wife to see Steve Coogan at the Brighton Centre and still have a few drinks afterwards for the same amount. What a joke. I'm seriously considering trying to get a refund on the membership - although bound to be a waste of time. Sorry, had to get that off my chest! Keep up the good work. - Simon

I usually manage 10-12 matches per season, split roughly half and half between home and away games. Not now. You may see me at the odd home game, and I'd intended going to the Derby one, but you're far more likely to see me at grounds like Brammall Lane where I paid £20 to see my team, rather than the £40 they're asking for the Derby game. -Kevin

Clive, as ever, an excellent article. It saddens me that with so much good happening at the club after so many dark years- the club continues to demonstrate a completely inability to understand the mood of the common fan, nor do they display any awareness of the broader economic climate. Other than for away ticket news I now barely read the offical website given the spin and half truths that consistently appear. -quilters

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