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Nice piece from Giles Coren in The Times today - will resonate with many...
I took my five-year-old son Sam to Loftus Road on Friday night to watch Queens Park Rangers play Watford in the fifth round of the FA Cup. To keep him real.
Sam is a football nut and an Arsenal fan, a situation I engineered because after 45 years of heartache, boredom and irrelevance supporting QPR, I felt I owed him the chance to follow a team that has lots of other supporters, a handful of famous players, a massive modern stadium and occasionally wins things.
But when Rangers beat Portsmouth to reach the fifth round of the FA Cup for the first time in 22 years, making it pretty much our biggest game for a quarter of a century, I thought Sam might as well get a glimpse of his dad’s ropey old first love, from poky folding seats where even he would struggle for leg room, in a rusty old sardine tin of a ground, just to get a bit of perspective.
On the way, I explained that, no, we have never won a major trophy. Except a League Cup once upon a time, when dinosaurs walked the Earth. This year, in the league, we haven’t even won a match. On the night, in typical fashion, we played better than Watford but went a goal down just before half time to their first attack of the match and were knocked out of the cup. Season over.
One detail I’d forgotten about Loftus Road was the terrible sightlines created by the stanchions holding up the roof. From where we sat, one goal was completely obscured so that as play moved, the crowd around us swayed from side to side, like the front row on Top of the Pops, trying to get a better view. Next to me was an old season-ticket holder who has watched QPR from the same spot for the past 43 years.
“But it’s a terrible seat,” I said. “You can’t see a thing. Why have you never moved?”
“Can’t move,” he replied. “It’s my lucky seat.”
“Lucky?” I laughed. “We’ve had the worst 43 years of any club in world football!”
“That’s not my fault,” he replied glumly. “It’s all these other bleeders sitting in the unlucky seats.”
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QPR - A proper football team on 14:31 - Feb 19 with 1310 views
QPR - A proper football team on 14:14 - Feb 19 by kingsburyR
If you ask me having to bare (bare) a season or two or pure shite in the Prem is so worth it if the means you got there was the playoff final.
Give me the Championship any day of the week but that day at Wembley......... Oh what a day at Wembley it was!!!
Absolutely - that day at Wembley and the build-up to it was amazing. Never thought I'd see us play at Wembley, never mind win there on a lovely sunny day.
Fulham FC: It's the taking part that counts
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QPR - A proper football team on 15:23 - Feb 19 with 1231 views
QPR - A proper football team on 14:31 - Feb 19 by Konk
Absolutely - that day at Wembley and the build-up to it was amazing. Never thought I'd see us play at Wembley, never mind win there on a lovely sunny day.
I put our current predicament down to karmic payback for winning that play off final.
Although, frankly I couldn't care less. Fvck you karma.