A QPR side with just one win so far this season comes to Cardiff City Stadium tomorrow without a win in their last dozen league games and sitting at the bottom of the table – if City were to win, we would be eight points clear of them.
However, there are plenty of reasons to believe that it will be far from straightforward for City tomorrow. Leaving our last three, pretty miserable, performances to one side for now, QPR have a very good record on our ground in the twenty first century – off the top of my head, I can only think of four matches since 1999 that we’ve won in Cardiff against them and one of those was at the Millennium Stadium.
QPR’s away record is not what you’d expect from a bottom of the table team – they’ve won at Luton, are the only opposing team to score a league goal at Sheffield United this season as they came back from 2-0 down to draw despite being down to ten men, they also drew on their other visit to Sheffield for the season and there’s a goalless stalemate at Burnley for them as well.
An away draw when none of your team can be said to have played well is a great outcome for any side, but, even in the most abject display, there are usually one or two out of the eleven who were able to put in a good shift. We didn’t have that at Sheffield Wednesday – for me, there were a few “okay” performances, but no one turned in a display that demanded inclusion tomorrow.
I hope I’m wrong, but it’s beginning to look as if all of the uncertainty and dither from those in charge at the club is filtering down to the dressing room. Given the inaction since Omer Riza visited Vincent Tan in Malaysia around a fortnight ago, it’s looking increasingly clear, that Tan and co don’t want to give the manager’s job to the man senior players were saying they wanted in charge permanently, so is it too much of a leap to imagine that this has something to do with why we’re starting to look like the team of August and September again?
Moving on to the quiz, here’s seven questions on QPR players from the past and present – I’ll post the answers on here on Thursday.
60s. I suppose I can understand why this Leeds born forward might want to change his surname, but you would have thought that he wouldn’t have waited until after his playing days ended to do it as the name he was born with would have made him a target for opposition fans I would have thought. His original surname is unique in football since I’ve been a fan I believe, even if it isn’t in, very, popular, late twentieth, early twenty first century literature. All of his career was spent in the lower divisions, but he came very close to helping his first club, QPR, into the Second Division in one of his seven years with them, during which he finished top scorer three times. He was never as settled again after his time at Loftus Road ended, his first move took him closer to his birthplace to play for the poor relations in a city with a unique type of name. Next he returned to London, but to the other side of the river. He was only to play ten times for this third club before he moved along the river and up a bit to sign for a team that were still getting used to their new, loftier, surroundings. This was the only time in his league career where he didn’t play in a kit that featured white pretty predominantly, but he was back in that familiar colour when he moved to an inland club in Essex where he was able to take the number of league goals he scored over the century mark. From there, it was on to non League football and Scarborough where he settled after his playing days, becoming a hairdresser and getting used to his new surname, but who is he?
70s. Spurs would have been the closest club to this forward’s birthplace I would think, but it was QPR who signed him as a teenager. Despite his goals coming at a decent rate, he never really established himself at his first club, making just twenty two league appearances (one of which was in a losing cause at Ninian Park while under the Doctor). He then moved what must have been twenty four hours surely to play for an uncouth team from across the Atlantic before a return to London to play in the lower leagues for a team who have tended to spend their time in the top two divisions in recent times. His goalscoring record was impressive during his four years with this team and he was chosen as their Player of the Year during a City promotion season when his team were beaten by an aggregate of 7-0 in their meetings with us. His final league club was a place where fans of his previous team may well have gone for a day by the seaside and he finished his playing days in non league football with Martyrs that play in black and white stripes, but aren’t from south Wales, can you name him?
80s. Fred’s denial not initially worth much, but eventually it nets QPR £6 million! (3,9)
90s. Damage cider not from the traditional source?
00s. He was a matchwinner for QPR against us during this decade having scored a hat trick for another club against us in a Quarter Final about two and a half years earlier, who?
10s. River relatives?
20s. He’s played for us and QPR during this decade and is currently with a team that is second in one of the EFL Divisions, who is he?
