This Week - welcome breaks, non league football and Ticketmaster adventures
Wednesday, 15th Oct 2008 19:08

QPR return to action after a fortnight off this Saturday, a chance for everybody to start over perhaps, meanwhile there's another insight into how I spend my time off - watching poor football and arguing with call centres mostly.

A clean slate
Have you ever enjoyed an international break so much? No, me neither.

After the nasty and oppressive atmosphere Loftus Road produced in the Derby and Blackpool matches and the lacklustre performance at Birmingham that promised much initially but eventually disappointed, for the team’s lack of ambition in the second half as much as anything, it was nice to kick back in a comfortable chair with a cold beer and watch football with no pressure at the weekend.

England may not have been that good against Borat's Travelling Circus but at least I managed to get through 90 minutes without fights and arguments erupting among my friends in the living room – I wish I could have said the same about the F Block in the Blackpool match. I trust you all enjoyed your week off as well, I am very much hoping that everybody from the tea lady up returns to Loftus Road this Saturday with a healthier attitude than was evident by the end of the last round of fixtures.

Firstly, us fans. Yes we pay our money, lots of it, and we are entitled to have a say but if anybody thinks that the atmosphere at the Derby and Blackpool games was conducive to the team playing well, expressing itself and winning they are sadly mistaken and at the end of the day surely that is what we all want? The booing at the end of halves has attracted the most attention but it is more the arguing amongst ourselves in the stand, the barrage of foul language that surpasses anything even I have shouted at football matches, and the abuse of players who are both playing well and trying hard – Damion Stewart and Dexter Blackstock the two immediate examples that spring to mind – that is more of a problem as far as I can see.

We all know why the atmosphere was poor in the Barnsley game on day one and then again a fortnight ago – it is because the board jacked the prices up massively before those games with no consultation or warning. This consequently bred an attitude amongst the support of “go on then, entertain me” and when supposedly lesser teams like Barnsley, Derby and Blackpool started to outplay us that turned into abuse of the team. Now I am as upset as the next man about the ticket price increases but any anger should be directed at the board rather than the players or each other. I don’t see a problem with chanting “40 quid you’re having a laugh” but I do see a problem with abusing Damion Stewart because he isn’t living up to your expectations because of a price increase he had nothing to do with. Players should be free to express themselves and not afraid that every little mistake they make is going to be lept upon - in the Blackpool game in particular the grief aimed at Daniel Parejo, who may have come from Real Madrid but is still just a young boy, was completely unacceptable.

Secondly, the players. My international break has been rudely interrupted twice by first Martin Rowlands and then Gareth Ainsworth asking for more support and noting the decline in positive feelings and atmosphere around Loftus Road. Fine, they’re right as I have said. However before penning such pieces again I would appreciate it if they could remember how much money supporters are paying to get into games at the moment, the sacrifices we have to make to do that, and the fact that we have been there every bloody week through the last 15 years of really bad times.

I would have hoped that somebody on the playing staff must have realised why everybody is so angry and irritable at the moment and at the same time as having a bit of a pop at the fans, which was deserved as I say, made representations to the club about the negative atmosphere their decisions are causing. Simply pointing a metaphorical finger at the fans and saying “pay your thirty quid, sit down, shut up and like it” is no more right than abusing Daniel Parejo for misplacing a pass.

I would also hope that the players realise that they are now among the best paid squads in the league and while the reaction of the crowd was not acceptable, neither in truth were any of the performances in our last three games. Players earning more than ten thousand pounds a week should be able to do the basics of the game a lot better than ours have just recently, so as well as turning to the people that have created the bad atmosphere and those fans that go over the top in their criticism I hope the players have had a bit of a look in the mirror session themselves during the last fortnight. Expectation levels have risen and they need to up their games as well.

Thirdly Iain Dowie. To an outsider looking in it seems very much to me like Dowie - with all sorts of pressures coming onto him from fans who chanted “4-4-2” for 20 minutes against Blackpool with all the experience of a lost youth on Championship Manager to back their claims, board members who seem to want the players they brought in and are paying well to play and his own thoughts and preferences – has tied himself in something of a selection knot.

It seems that Ledesma and particularly Parejo have to play more often than not but after the Sheff Utd debacle Dowie seems to think this leaves us too open so he feels Leigertwood and Mahon have to play. With Lee Cook as well that means a five man midfield except the fans want 4-4-2 despite that being much more negative and less effective than the 4-2-3-1 we were playing, especially with Mahon and Leigertwood still in place. And ten there’s Akos Buzsaky to think about.

Both Kaspars Gorkss and particularly Matt Connolly have been superb in recent matches but so has Damion Stewart and two of them have to sit out to accommodate Fitz Hall who will play whenever fit, regardless of form while Dowie is in charge. We are yet to keep the same starting eleven for consecutive matches. With the league maintaining their unreasonable stance and refusing to let us field 13 players it is easy to see where he got confused.

Again as an outsider who knows rock all about it looking in I would hope Dowie has cleared his head in these two weeks and is about to pick a settled side in a settled system for the next few games. If Dowie doesn’t think Ledesma and Parejo should be in the team then leave them out, if he thinks we are better with a five man midfield then he should keep it, if he wants to play Mahon and Leigertwood then he should – we may not like some of his decisions but he is paid to make them and if he fails doing it his way I would have a lot more time for him than if he ends up leaving after trying to accommodate too much of what everybody wants. From Saturday onwards I would hope Dowie knows his best starting eleven, and picks it every single match – no more chopping and changing of personnel and systems, no more bowing to pressure from fans and board, just eleven players who know each other well in a system they have trained and played with. If it fails then fine he gets fired, but he will walk away knowing he gave it his best shot and did it his way. Could he say that if he was sacked this afternoon?

Fourthly the board of directors. Good to see Amit Bhatia in amongst the away fans at Birmingham without any Mike Ashley style minders and he is coming across very well at the moment – keep that up. No more official website spin such as burying the league’s announcement on our mid season price rises in amongst a crass story about all the most expensive tickets selling out, no more different categories of match, just no more. From now on straight talking only – we may not like what you have to say, but we will respect you a lot more than we will if you sneak things like a new badge, mascot or ticket price rise on us with no warning or explanation.

This Saturday we face Nottingham Forest, bottom of the league and with five defeats from five away games played so far. Ancient Chinese proverb states that a team on such a run “rooks for QPR in fixture wrist” and we have over the years delighted in breaking the ducks of Dean Bowditch, Swindon Town, John Jensen and every other two bob outfit and useless nobody who has been on a bad run of form coming into games against us. QPR find it hard enough to win games in this league without beating themselves as they have done recently.

This Saturday could easily be another chapter in an ever lengthening disaster novel and to avoid that we need everybody at the club to treat this international break as a chance to wipe the slate clean – supporters support the team, team stop giving the ball away from throw ins all the bloody time, Iain Dowie pick your team and make it play your way in your preferred system, the board run the club with honesty and openness and leave Iain Dowie to get on with the football side of things and we move forward loud, proud and together as one QPR.

Plumbing the depths
One thing I have seen a lot of from QPR fans since the price increases is the assertion that they could see a product of equal quality to that offered at Loftus Road at their local non-league club for £7. I have been thinking about this a lot during the past ten days, don’t look at me like that please I do have a three hour commute every day with nothing other than mundane radio chatter and insane salesmen doing 105mph in the new Mondeo to keep me from thinking, and I can’t quite make my mind up whether it is true or not.

I have watched bits and pieces of non-league in my time and have seen plenty this week with no QPR to distract me – I used to live about a mile away from Hampton and Richmond Borough’s home ground and I went to see the Met Police every now and again as my Dad used to be involved down there. Since moving up north I have seen a fair bit of Matlock Town in the Unibond League as not only do I work in the town but a couple of my former Uni team mates played for them the season before last with terrific success.

It was interesting speaking to my friend Ian a while back who moved from Matlock to Mansfield last summer and said the first thing he noticed in the Football League was that when a long ball was played up to him for the first time he jumped and braced, waiting for the defender to come through the back with a clean out challenge only to find the defender ten yards behind him, calmly picking up his flick on and bringing the ball out of the defence. In the Unibond a striker receiving the ball with his back to goal is cleaned out from behind by his marker almost every single time, if only for having the cheek to try such a thing, while in the league referees are harsher and defenders cuter, in the none sexy way.

Certainly when watching football that low down the first thing that always strikes me is the physical nature of it. Referees allow you to get away with so much more than the players at QPR, or even Dagenham and Redbridge, can do. There is also far more emphasis on the ugly side of the game – clearing your lines, balls into the channels, turning opponents around and the like. It could be argued that you hear league managers talking this way, I’m not trying to get into an Ian Holloway debate here by the way, and our second half performance at Birmingham was based on these three things and these three things alone but the difference is where Peter Ramage has us reaching for our head with our hands when he turns and hammers and aimless ball down the line in non-league that gets a round of applause.

Matlock this season, probably by quirks in the local transfer markets rather than by design, have ended up with quite a small side. They lost Ian and another former Sheffield Uni man Tom Cahill to Mansfield and Rotherham and now have Simon Barraclough and Belper’s Ross Hannah up front – combined weight approximately nine stone. At the back James Lukic left for Gainsborough and that has left them short in every sense of the word back there as well. They are simply being bullied out of most games at the moment, whereas in the league that may not be such an issue. Still, here’s hoping they hang in there this season.

I was doing the live text feed for the work websites at Alfreton v Ilkeston in the FA Cup at the weekend and that was fairly dire stuff but I also treated myself to Eastbourne v Stevenage and Burton v Mansfield in the Conference on Setanta this week and I found both those games hugely entertaining and certainly not short on quality. By the same token MK Dons and Carlisle did little for me and Notts County v Brentford was abysmal, especially when compared directly with the Burton match which clashed therefore had me flicking between the two before eventually deciding that the atmosphere and quality was so much better in the Conference game that I would stick with it. If such tapes exist compare the Burton v Mansfield match on Monday with our game at Birmingham the previous Saturday – I know which one I think was more entertaining but see if you agree.

It depends what you go to football for I suppose. Of course we will see player of a far higher quality at Loftus Road on Saturday compared to the part timers who run out for Alfreton, Matlock and others at the same time. However if it’s a cold beer, a warm pie and football of fairly reasonable quality that can often produce some belting matches you want, and all for under a tenner, then your local non-league team may be a place you find yourself spending more and more Saturdays at as times get harder and league clubs get greadier.

What you get for your £3.50
One of the things that has grated on QPR fans the most so far this season, and in a way come to symbolise the attitude of the club towards its supporters under the new owners, is the idea that for every purchase you make from the box office you have to pay a £3.50 “booking fee”. You may remember in the past the club charging something similar to this, and this website moaning about it then and asking the club to consider dropping it, but then it was only 50p or a pound and far from drop it the club hiked it 350% in the summer.

Booking fees and handling charges by their very definition annoy the hell out of me because they are like a stealth tax – how can you say something costs £20 when it costs you an extra £3.50 to buy it? It costs £23.50 there’s no two ways about it. My ticket for the Man Utd cup tie is not £40, it is even more extortionate than that – it’s £43.50.

I have never really understood why companies insist on aging on this extra charge and recently when trainline.co.uk started not only charging a booking fee but also a “collection charge” for you to get the tickets out of their machines at the station I stopped using the site altogether. I was grateful therefore to message board regular E17 Hoop’s detailed definition of just why companies feel the need to charge you money essentially for the privilege of you giving them money – imagine the scenario in a shop for instance, it’s absurd. Anyway without delving back into E17’s knowledge of the subject what the cost covers essentially is the bank fee for a credit or debit card transaction and the time taken by a box office staff member or call centre worker on whatever wage they’re on.

You may, like me, think that if you’re paying £40 for a ticket to a Carling Cup tie between a reserve team and a midtable Championship outfit in Manchester on a Tuesday night in November they could perhaps take the cost of two minutes of the call centre monkey’s time and the card handling fee out of that but it seems not. Anyway you would be wrong, thanks to our club’s continued persistence with Ticketmaster (see previous rants) allow me to demonstrate just what a high quality, professional service your £3.50 is paying for.

Ticketmaster Thankyou for calling the Queens Park Rangers ticket line. Tickets for the home game with Nottingham Forest and the away game at Swansea City are now on sale. Tickets for the Carling Cup tie with Queens Park Rangers on November 11 are also on sale to season ticket holders.

Ticketmaster Good afternoon, Queens Park Rangers.

LFW Hi, I’d like two adult tickets for the Man Utd game.

There follows a 30 second exchange where it took the guy three attempts to get my reference number down correctly but you don’t need to hear that and I don’t want you to know my reference number in case you book a job lot of tickets for Plymouth away in December on it and clock up a load of loyalty points I don’t deserve – I know what you’re all like, anyway I digress.

Ticketmaster Would you like to pay £4.45 to have the tickets sent out recorded delivery?

LFW No I most certainly would not, first class postage is fine for me.

Ticketmaster Ok sir that’s £83.50 in total and how will you be paying…

Though my card number would be worth roughly -£78 to anybody foolish enough to target me in any identity theft ways I still don’t want you to know it and it’s not really important to the demonstration so…

Ticketmaster – Ok sir that has all gone through for you at £87.95

LFW But you just said £83.50?

Ticketmaster Ah yeh, what’s happened there is it (never did quite get to the bottom of what ‘it’ was) has added the postage charge. I unticked it when you said, but it’s ticked again now.

LFW Well take it off again.

Ticketmaster I can’t do that. What you’ll have to do is ring QPR, wait a moment while I get you the number, and get the postage charge refunded.

LFW So you can take it, but you can’t put it back?

Ticketmaster That’s right sir.

For the record that refund has yet to be made, the £87.95 has however been taken very promptly.

Best £3.50 I ever spent.