A poor performance and comprehensive defeat for QPR in Sheffield on Saturday, Tracy Stent looks back on a long day for the travelling support.

1 – The Match
The score was a more than fair reflection on the match itself. In the second minute a long ball into our area wasn’t dealt with by Connolly which allowed Billy Sharp space to turn and head home. After that, it was all the home, especially in the first half, and within 13 minutes we found ourselves two goals down. Faffing about in the midfield area allowed Sharp to break away and with Gorkss desperately trying to keep up with him, and failing miserably, all the ex Scunnie striker had to do was slot the ball home past Cerny who decided to stay on his line. This he did with ease and there was Sharp celebrating his brace in front of the 1000 or so R’s fans that had made the journey up to South Yorkshire.

At the start of the second half that man Sharp scored his third goal of the afternoon to put the Blades 3-0 up which effectively meant game over. To be honest he was fully deserving of his hat trick and when he was replaced by Blackwell a bit later on he went off to a standing ovation. The home side kind of slacked off once they had made the game safe which allowed us to start to play a bit and we hit the post from a Ledesma free kick but for all our pieces of neat play during that period in the second half there really had only ever been one team in it from the start and the home side would have left Bramall Lane feeling very satisfied with themselves in basically teaching our players a lesson over basics.

For a home supporter it would have been a great game. From our perspective it was a rather embarrassing game and result. I’ve rated the game itself as a six as have to be fair to Sheffield United and their players!
6/10

2 – Rangers’ Performance
Oh dear. A fellow R’s fan at work asked me how poor our performance had been on the Monday afterwards and I told him from a rating out of ten then no more than a three, especially in that first half. Our defence looked slow and disorganised, which was a disappointment. The midfield in the centre lacked toughness, though Leggy to be fair to him did improve as the game went on and ended up being my man of the match. The forward line was anonymous in the first half but during the second half I thought Blackstock looked much improved, especially when he started to link up with Cook properly. This wasn’t happening in the first half because mainly Cook seemed to be drifting towards the centre of the park and I wasn’t too sure what all that was about. Ledesma showed some glimpses of quality but his antics towards the end of the game were exasperating and it was good to see Delaney have a word with him about this. Hopefully, this performance, and especially the manner of it, was a one off but it was disappointing nonetheless.
3/10

3 – Travelling Support
There was around 1000 R’s fans there I would say. Perhaps because of the win at Swindon in the League Cup earlier on in the week, it seemed that expectations were higher than normal and when we went a goal down in the second half our end went rather quiet. After 15 minutes, finding ourselves two goals down, the support actually started to turn quite nasty in parts. There were altercations going on (one which involved Cookie’s family which we were unaware of who they were until afterwards) and threats to fellow fans going on throughout the game. Not good and if this kind of thing continues much on our travels then we’re going to be in big trouble and I don’t just mean on the pitch. What was needed to get it going was some real hearty Rangers chants but singing/chant wise it wasn’t very vocal and when one group of fans started to sing a Ledesma song (something about him being from Argentina) a few others started having a go at them. Sort it out lads. Like I say, a good turn out but rubbish support vocal wise and all the stand off’s going on around us means I have rated this very low.
3/10

4 – The Ground
I have always liked Bramall Lane as a ground, and this time was no exception. It’s a real traditional old fashioned type of ground but has been upgraded over the years and is a fine one to visit. There’s plenty of space downstairs in the concourse; facilities are good; and the seated areas of the stadium offer good views, though the upper tier is probably better, this time we were in the lower tier.
8/10

5 – Atmosphere
I’ve already touched upon the atmosphere in our end (which had a real ugly feel to it at times) so this section I will talk about the atmosphere from the home crowd. I would guess that expectations are quite high again this time around at Bramall Lane; they’ve got a more than decent squad, their manager may not be everyone’s cup of tea but he has experience under his belt, and they have a good solid foundation as a club. All of these factors you could almost feel as kick off approached and as the home fans sang their usual Northern rendition of Annie’s Song, it’s fair to say it was very noisy. One young lad behind us was in tears and holding his ears so perhaps he found it quite intimidating at first, but thankfully, a packet of sweets later and he seemed fine. Fair play to the home support in that respect and if they keep those kind of levels up throughout the season, then I can’t see too many teams going to Bramall Lane and coming away with much. Rating on the home atmosphere only here.
7/10

6 – Pre Match
Due to a lengthy and tiring journey across country A roads, we just wanted to go straight into the ground once we arrived and so come 1.45pm, as the turnstiles opened, we went into the ground early. Surprisingly there were quite a few entering early too and the first thing I did with a certain amount of glee was to place my normal £1 bet on a Rangers 2-1 win due to a Ladbrokes bookmaker being open in the concourse (Rangers take note please, we want our bookies back, that’s one of the things that will personally improve our product!). Oh, and for info, a 3-0 win for Sheffield United was 22/1.

Leon and Emma had both had a full English breakfast back at the guesthouse where we’d stayed the previous night and so weren’t hungry and so I decided to try one of the pies once the catering bar opened and to my delight it was wonderfully hot. A cup of tea to wash it down and I was more than happy. For those that like an alcoholic drink prior to kick off, there were bottles of Carling on sale for £3.50 (how much?!) and VK vodka mix drink bottles for £3.

One thing we were disappointed about is that there were no big screens down in the concourse. We had been hoping to catch a bit of the Arsenal v WBA game beforehand so they lose a couple of points for that. It was good to catch up with a few people downstairs mind and after putting the Rangers board to rights, it was time for us to go and find our seats.
7/10

7 - The Journey
The day before on the Friday we’d dropped younger daughter off to her friend’s at Lowestoft where she’s staying for a week or so. So rather than go back to London in the evening, and then back in the car early in the morning for the long trip up to Sheffield, we opted to stay over at nearby Gorleston. A nice evening out at Great Yarmouth on the Friday and then we were ready to make the trek across in the morning. We’d looked up the route beforehand on the AA routemaster site and Leon didn’t believe that their route estimated it would take us 4 hours to get to Sheffield and that it was 180+ miles. What he had not considered was that the majority of the journey across would be via poxy little A roads, with hundreds of caravans holding things up. So after leaving Gorleston just before 9am, with him making those immortal words “come on then AA, prove me wrong” we arrived in Sheffield at 1.15pm…184 miles the worse on the clock. Still, at least we found somewhere right near to the ground to park.
5/10

8 – Police and Stewards
There’s something about Sheffield stewards. No matter what, they always seem to be picky about something or other. Our seats were for at the back of the stand, and when we entered we asked if we had to go to where the seats said on our tickets. The steward we asked said yes, wait until kick off if you want to move etc. Fair enough. As kick off approached there were oodles of empty seats around especially towards the front, which is where we prefer to sit so off we went to position ourselves in seats down the front to the right of the goal. A couple of minutes into the game and a steward approached us and asked if we had tickets for the seats we were sitting in. I said no, but were told we could move nearer to kick off. He then asked could we go back to our seats and I said no, because they’re at the back and me and my daughter don’t like being stuck at the back and that there were hundreds of empty seats in the area where we were now seating which were begging for bums to sit on them.

“Well can you move a few seats over to your left then?” he asked. All rather bizarre but we did as he asked and then some time later this same steward was heading up to the altercation occurring at the back of us, poking his nose in there. I don’t know how others found the stewards there (a pain in the arse – ed) though to be fair they would have been required to have stepped in when some of the nonsense was occurring between R’s fans.
5/10
Total – 44/80

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One user has commented on this article. Click here to add your thoughts:

Got to say mate your poins about our fans are absolutely right i was embaressed about some of our fans behaviour and i had my 8 yr old boy with me whilst undersatnding the language and banter at football grounds i had never witnessed such venom coming from our fans before , was horrible and left thinking i shouldnt be bringing my boy along, quite a few of our "fans" were a disgrace that day - GH

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