Frankie Sutherland, who recently signed a one-year contract extension at QPR, talks to LFW about recovering from the club’s signature knee injury and pressing his first team claims.
When QPR were drawn away at Everton in the FA Cup Third Round two seasons ago, even a good few of the club's die-hard supporters gave the game a miss.
Worn down by more than a decade of abysmal failures in the world's oldest knockout competition, the faithful had grown weary of cold January days and nights riddled with humiliation at the hands of Grimsby Town and Vauxhall Motors.
QPR were chasing promotion from the Championship and manager Harry Redknapp hadn't really given the impression he was that interested in even doing that over the course of the first half of the season so there was little to suggest he'd suddenly chuck stuff at a cup competition. Swindon Town had comprehensively outplayed Rangers in the League Cup back in September. Sure enough, Julio Cesar started in goal for the first time that season and the game was tossed aside 4-0.
But in the sparsely populated Lower Bullens in the side stand at Goodison Park, exposed to the elements and gentle mocking of the locals with only a handful of other QPR fans for company, Frankie Sutherland cared. Not in club tracksuit, nor part of the official travelling party, he sat in the away end with a friend and supported QPR as a fan.
It's inevitable that as a club like Rangers picks up teenagers from across the capital and further beyond, from a variety of families and backgrounds, that they're going to accumulate fans of many different clubs. Lots of them, whisper it quietly, will support Chelsea in exactly the same way and for exactly the same shallow reasons that they all supported Man Utd a decade ago.
Frankie Sutherland is a QPR fan who lives to play for QPR. A Ruislip-boy-made-good in waiting.
But that comes with its own curse, and I'm not referring to 15 years of FA Cup disasters. Sutherland was at Goodison Park that day, rather than out on the field, because he, like so many before him and since, had ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament playing in an earlier round of the competition for Leyton Orient.
LFW had spoken to Sutherland just before that move and he'd already been the victim of poor fortune when a loan move to Portsmouth quickly turned into prolonged bench-sitting when the club's new board changed policy and demanded local youngsters be picked ahead of loans. You could forgive an intelligent boy for wondering whether it just wasn't meant to be.
"It started well for me at Orient," he says. "I came in when they were top of the league. Russell Slade was really good, he said he didn't want to chuck me straight in but he got me to watch the first two games closely then gave me a start in the FA Cup against Southport. For the first half an hour I was buzzing and thought I started really well. Then from a throw in I went on a run with the ball and I felt a snap, and then excruciating pain. I was on the gas and air after that and it was just a blur."
Like Martin Rowlands, Alejandro Faurlin, Richard Langley and others before him… the scourge of QPR's creative midfielders had struck again.
"Ale and I doing our rehab together definitely helped," says Sutherland. "It was especially difficult for him to do it all again. I'd had a previous knee injury but nothing like the same pain levels. I had a week where I was down and gutted, then Harry Redknapp called me at home and said I was well liked at QPR which helped. Orient were brilliant, they welcomed me back a month later to see the lads again.
"I just got into the groove of heading back in here after the op. I worked hard, dedicated myself to it, gave everything I could to get back and made it sooner than was expected. Annoyingly, I got back at the end of the season, just as it was finishing, which was disappointing because I wanted to crack on.
"It probably took me two months to get my fitness and short sharp stuff back, now I feel as though I'm back to where I was. Early on there is a fear but when you get through games and training, certain things happen that you don't realise but they make you think 'my knee's strong, I don't have an issue now'."
Sutherland's attempt at third time lucky when it comes to loan deals came at Wimbledon in League Two last year and he made 11 appearances between October and January — scoring once, against Portsmouth in spectacular fashion, where he'd endured that previous disappointing temporary stint.
"I thoroughly enjoyed it," says Sutherland. "I was chucked in at the deep end, started straight away, and seeing that side of football really opens your eyes up. Obviously we were playing with Adebayo Akinfenwa, a big striker, and I was having to play different kinds of passes. In the U21s you're playing passes between the lines, there you go straight up to him — particularly away from home.
"Neil Ardley, the manager, was at Cardiff academy and while he understood you need to win and need three points he was also developing me for when I went back to QPR. I was picking things up all the time and I've taken things I learnt there and brought it back here.
"My first start was York away, cold and rainy, a waterlogged pitch, a wake up call., You come back here and realise how lucky you are to have fantastic facilities. Loftus Road isn't as big as some clubs but it's a fantastic stadium. The staff we have around… the size of the away followings… we're lucky here.
"Charlie Austin has seen the other side of it having come from non league and you can tell with his personality. He's a normal person. Any lads coming into the changing room for the first time, he'll talk to them about general stuff. That's good for the younger lads it makes you feel comfortable in the surroundings. Hearing stories about when he was out of the Football League, he just encourages you to keep going, whether it happens or not you can't control but keep going."
As he returned to Loftus Road, the glass ceiling he'd always been looking up at was smashed. Harry Redknapp out, Chris Ramsey in, quick-fire first team debuts for Darnell Furlong, Reece Grego-Cox and Michael Doughty. Sutherland has never waivered, at least outwardly, from his belief that his own hard work in training would bring its own reward, but he admits the change has renewed hope.
"It has become a fantastic opportunity for the young lads to develop and play for QPR for many years. Six months ago that wasn't the case. Now, if you work hard something might happen," he says. Subsequent to this interview, he made the bench for the first time in a senior league game at West Brom.
"For the 21s and youth teams below that, the message is play your own game. It's very much about dealing with your own position. Before, as a central midfielder, I was dropping in and covering round the centre halves. My first game with Chris he said 'I don't need you there.' I was trying to help the defenders but he said let them deal with that. Chris and Les have both said in the U21s I've been deeper and trying to get on the ball, they want to see me higher. I want to effect the game a lot more with goals and assists — a box to box number 8. I've already learnt a lot.
"There's light at the end of the tunnel here. You can see with Darnell and Reece, it wasn't a one time thing because they needed numbers. If you're doing well you have a chance. It's something I love to see, I know what I have to do, how hard I have to work. I want to play for QPR and I have to give everything I possibly have to get that opportunity."
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