The first part of our comprehensive look back at the 2008/09 season as a QPR fan. QPR failed to score on 23 occasions but off the pitch things have been anything other than dull with two permanent managers and two spells under caretaker charge.

QPR ended the 2007/08 season in reasonably decent shape. The final two games of the season brought comprehensive defeats against Norwich and West Brom however the scorelines masked the circumstances and both results owed much to decisions made by match officials. Most Rangers fans were able to look past those results and congratulate the team and management on an excellent second half to the season.

After taking over from caretaker boss Mick Harford with Rangers deep in relegation trouble Luigi De Canio oversaw a remarkable turn around in both performance level and personnel. By the end of the campaign QPR were playing some excellent football at home although still often looked vulnerable on the road.Aalthough a push for the play offs was always unlikely consdering the position we were in when John Gregory left Crystal Palace accomplished it and ultimately Rangers were left to lament several blown leads and late concessions. Overall though De Canio was seen as a success and most were looking forward to the new campaign with some degree of optimism.

Summer 2008
While speculation had circulated in the press at the end of the season it was still a surprise when the news broke that Luigi De Canio was leaving the club. Only very recently, with criticism over the sacking of Paulo Sousa mounting, has the club said anything about De Canio’s departure and even now it is only that he “was not sacked” which, as the club insists Sousa wasn’t sacked either, doesn’t hold a great deal of water. Rumours of homesickness, family problems and struggles with the language barrier all did the rounds, some said he had only ever been brought in as a troubleshooter to keep us up and that was it. For the first time criticism of Flavio Briatore started to ripple around the supporters. Ultimately nobody seemed very sure what was going on.

De Canio’s replacement arrived within a fortnight. Iain Dowie was the favourite from the start amid more fanciful stories about Zidane and Figo coming to W12 and sure enough got the job prior to the start of pre-season training. Dowie had been a player coach at QPR before starting his managerial career with Oldham. At various points over the years it had been suggested that QPR made a mistake not appointing Dowie when first Harford and then Francis left the club – in the end Dowie achieved success with Oldham and Palace, failure with Charlton and a little of both with Coventry. However with circumstances changing at Rangers many were disappointed with Dowie’s return having hoped for a bigger and perhaps more exotic name.

Personally I wasn’t totally against the idea of Dowie coming in. He had been promoted from the Championship with Crystal Palace and achieved notable success in cup competitions with Coventry. His time at Charlton was cut very short and he had a tough task taking over from Alan Curbishley anyway. Dowie’s teams have always been fit, competitive and hard to beat – three things Rangers had lacked amongst all the silky football of the De Canio reign. I thought if Dowie could marry up his strengths with the positive things De Canio had brought in then we could have been on to a real winner. I also thought the appointment reflected well on Flavio Briatore – he had clearly taken advice on Championship managers with records of promotion and having appointed a manager with a record of helping teams survive against the odds with great success in De Canio this was a clear step towards moving forward in his plan for QPR.

The pre-season campaign was undermined by poor performances and lacklustre defeats at Falkirk and Kilmarnock and at home to Italian side Chievo. There was also the drawn out saga of Kaspars Gorkss’ move from Blackpool. Pool Chairman Karl Oyston accused QPR of making an illegal approach to the player by making it clear what wages would be on offer before Blackpool had given QPR permission to do so. Blackpool reported QPR to the Football League but were ultimately placated by the movement of Zesh Rehman and Danny Nardiello in the opposite direction. That worked out quite well for QPR in the end, getting their man and offloading some dead wood at the same time, but not for Gorkss who was robbed of a thorough pre-season and started the campaign in shaky form.

Lee Cook returned to the club from Fulham while Peter Ramage and Radek Cerny were signed from Premiership sides Newcastle and Spurs.

Fans pointed to the lack of a striker in the squad and although Briatore paraded the signings of Genoa’s Emmanuel Ledesma, Fiorentina’s Sam Di Carmine and most of all Real Madrid’s Danny Parejo there was still concern mixed in with supporter optimism. Rumours of early fallings out between Dowie and Briatore also emerged – over that lack of a striker and the choice of goalkeeper, Lee Camp was Dowie’s favoured option for day one but the owner said new arrival Radek Cerny should take the jersey.

Off the pitch fans fumed at massive hikes in season ticket prices. Having previously been assured at supporter meetings that rises would be “10% or something normal” many fans were left to swallow hikes far in excess of that. Prices were released very late, with only a short time frame available for renewal, and throughout the summer the club ignored complaints and anger in favour of spin from the official site – even going so far as to claim record sales within two hours of them going on sale. CEO Ali Russell was sent to meet with QPR 1st and others but could only promise to take comments and criticisms back to the board – come September it would become clear that they either didn’t listen, or didn’t care very much.

Dowie’s fifteen matches of fame
Iain Dowie was never the right appointment for QPR. Now you may well point to my comment in the previous section about us being onto a winner and the appointment reflecting well on Flavio Briatore and call me a hypocrite but let me explain. Had Iain Dowie been appointed and left to it for 12 months I think QPR may have made the top six, they certainly wouldn’t have done any worse than they ended up doing and would almost certainly in my opinion have done better.

Dowie was not appointed and left to it though. Even on the day of his appointment Dowie was telling the media that he thought nothing of his ‘head coach’ title and that he would be in charge and be the manager, while on the other side of the same room Flavio Briatore was saying that Dowie would be coaching the players and he didn’t get rich allowing other people to spend his money. Rumours of clashes emerged almost immediately – Clinton Morrison and Ben Watson both turned down contracts at Crystal Palace because a deal at QPR was supposedly on offer, neither arrived and instead Dowie was presented with Ledesma, Di Carmine and Parejo. Dowie claimed he’d scouted and wanted all three, but barely convinced himself that this was the case. Before the season kicked off Briatore by his own admission fell out with his manager because Dowie wanted to pick Lee Camp in goal and the owner wanted Radek Cerny between the sticks.

Flavio points to Cerny’s performances this season as justification for that, and he’s right, but it misses the point. To appoint a British manager used to total control over transfer and team then take one away from him and try and influence him in the other was a recipe for disaster from the very start. If Dowie knew this arrangement was to be in place when he signed and signed anyway either for the money or because his ego told him he would be able to influence the arrangement to his own advantage then more fool him but his initial interviews at Rangers suggested this was not the case.

The season under Dowie began with a home game against Barnsley. The new QPR manager couldn’t really have asked for a more awkward start. The spin and nonsense over ticket sales continued with the club trotting out a line about “unprecedented demand” for tickets for the game only to then announce a crowd of little over 14,000 – some way off capacity. Nevertheless there was an expectant air of anticipation around the newly painted Loftus Road as Rangers were led onto the field by a combination of air stewardesses from new sponsors Gulf Air, a man in a Hull City Tiger outfit and mascots dodging the pyrotechnics.

Barnsley were seen by many as sacrificial lambs to get our promotion campaign underway in much the same way Blackpool had been in 2003/04. Problem is Barnsley are a reasonable side, and with £1.2m summer signing Iain Hume in their line up they had one thing conspicuous by its absence in the QPR team – a striker, a good one. It took Hume less than ten minutes to open his account at the Loft End, and Barnsley could have had two more besides. Radek Cerny was berated by his own fans as calls for Lee Camp’s immediate reinstatement went up around the ground.

I didn’t expect us to be promoted this season – I said as much in this site’s preview of the Championship season. However I did shell out £600 for a season ticket and I had sat quietly while being bombarded with spin and bullshit about ‘improved product’, ‘improved matchday experience’, ‘record season ticket sales’, ‘unprecedented demand’ and I had kept quiet while the self proclaimed in the know brigade told us all to “get your money on Rangers this season” and “Ledesma is going to be very special.” Expectations were raised across the board and even I, who like I say was under no illusions about our promotion chances, found myself berating my own players during the first half against Barnsley. I felt thoroughly ashamed afterwards and it was almost an uncontrollable reaction to spending a lot of money I couldn’t afford to watch a team go behind to Barnsley. I obviously wasn’t alone – the atmosphere at Loftus Road on day one was abysmal, like a collection of spoilt children all throwing their toys towards the pitch at the same time. Ultimately Fitz Hall scored twice, the second an absolute belter, but the narrow victory was far from convincing.

Rangers went to Swindon that Tuesday night and won in the first round of the League Cup to raise expectations and optimism still further but everything was brought crashing down to earth on the second Saturday with a reality check at Sheffield United. The foolhardiness of relying on loaned foreign teenagers in a physical English league, and the premature proclamation of Cook, Ledesma, Parejo, Rowlands and Buzsaky as “the best midfield in the world” was laid bare in alarming fashion by a physical, workmanlike and solid Sheffield United side. Billy Sharp, a striker who has consistently struggled to score goals at this level since leaving Scunthorpe, scored a hat trick amidst defensive chaos between Gorkss and Hall. Parejo and Ledesma were completely ineffective and, at times, disinterested against a physical Blades midfield and Radek Cerny’s mistake for the third goal was embarrassing.

Things settled down after that opening week of extremes. Rangers were helped by a kind fixture list that brought first Doncaster and then Carlisle to Loftus Road – the former struggling to adapt to a new level after promotion, the latter suffering a play off defeat hangover from the previous season that would ultimately only see them miss relegation from League One by a single point. QPR scored six times in those two games without reply, Emmanuel Ledesma got four of them and in this modern world in which we live where everything is instant and judgments of players and managers are made within a game or two he was declared a world beater. T-shirts to mark the occasion were produced.

Ledesma was playing well to be fair, very well indeed. He was sent off in a draw at Bristol City though, robbing him of a chance to turn it on live on Sky against Southampton the following week. The Saints won many friends with their style of play but had Lancashire harshly sent off and conceded some shocking goals as the R’s won 4-1. QPR found themselves down to ten at Norwich the following Wednesday after two rare moments of rashness from Matt Connolly but turned in a magnificent display that saw them score one and miss two other very presentable chances before half time and then stand firm through the second to claim all three points. Dowie and his assistant Tim Flowers saluted the fans on the pitch at the end, the players and fans celebrated as if lifting a cup – the outpouring of celebration at the end of that game at Carrow Road was one of the highlights of the season for me.

A week later the R’s were at it again – a magnificent defensive display with Damion Stewart to the fore saw them progress further in the League Cup at the expense of Premiership side Aston Villa. A number of QPR players had their best ever games for the club on the night, including Parejo as part of an attacking midfield trio, but Stewart took the headlines with a magnificent marking job on John Carew and thumping header to win the game right in front of the travelling thousands from QPR. Having won at the same stage of the competition at Man Utd with Coventry the season before Dowie would, or so he thought at the time of the draw, take Rangers to Old Trafford in the next round. QPR were brilliant that night, were unlucky to lose at Coventry the weekend before and had been superb at Norwich – “we could be the real deal this season” I said in the report afterwards. It was all downhill from that point, maybe I should accept responsibility.

The mood around the club was improving. Everybody seemed sure the team was heading in the right direction, the results were hugely impressive, we had a big cup night at the European champions to come, the feel good factor was slowly returning. And then the board blew it all apart.

With two home games in three days against Derby and Blackpool representing, on paper at least, a chance to cement a play off place the club decided to introduce a new ticketing policy that priced QPR games on the extortionate side of expensive and underlined just how pointless the summer meetings with Ali Russell had been. To go with the season ticket rises despised by most fans, the gold, silver and bronze system that seemed to have been put together by somebody who had never set foot inside Loftus Road the club then decided to introduce a category A to C system for games. Category A games would see matchday prices rise to £50 in the middle of South Africa Road for one adult, £40 in my seat and £30 elsewhere. Too fucking expensive basically. Lo and behold the first category A match would be that very weekend against Derby County. The Rams took one look at the tickets they had been sent, some £10 more expensive than Southampton fans had to pay a fortnight before, laughed and sent them back.

The league ruled in Derby’s favour, Rangers were forced to back down, but the damage had been done – the negative media coverage portrayed QPR and the board as a greedy rich club, an image the board had tried so hard to shed previously, and the strained trust between owners and supporters at Loftus Road was shattered. The atmosphere at the Derby match was every bit as bad as it had been against Barnsley, the improvements on and off the pitch over the previous few weeks had gone, Derby won 2-0.

Things weren’t much better on Tuesday night when Blackpool, another one of those teams that lazy supporters and journalists see as a walkover because of the size of their budget and stadium, turned up and took the lead. Rather than support the team the QPR fans decided to demand Dowie change to a 4-4-2 formation. The fact that the 4-2-3-1 formation previously employed suited the players Dowie had at his disposal, the players he had been presented with by those buying them, was missed. QPR did improve marginally in the second half in a 4-4-2 formation, and equalized when Blackstock converted as Buzsaky’s free kick came back off the bar, but in the same formation at Birmingham that weekend they looked limp and lost comfortably.

The tide turns quickly against a manager that loses a game in front of Flavio Briatore and his rich friends at a home match. That Derby game, the negative publicity surrounding it, the defeat and poor performance suddenly put Dowie in trouble. When QPR then played equally poorly against Blackpool on the Tuesday as Flavio invited OK Magazine and a string of d-list celebrities in for the opening of his C Club he was a dead man walking. Dowie was told in no uncertain terms that Flavio did not come to Loftus Road to see one up front – again missing the point that 4-2-3-1 suited our players better and made us more attacking than we ever could be in 4-4-2.

A narrow home win against Nottingham Forest, sealed with two goals from long throws, did little to help Dowie’s cause and things came to a head that following week. On their first ever visit to Swansea’s Liberty Stadium QPR turned in a performance so miserable it had fans attempting suicide in the bogs. A nasty challenge from Martin Rowlands for which he was fortunate not to be sent off meant Swansea had to play for an hour with no goalkeeper but during that time not one QPR player managed to test defender Alan Tate with a shot. Dowie wasn’t sacked immediately after that goalless draw, although Briatore has since justified the decision by saying that performance was unacceptable.

Dowie was allowed to continue through to the Friday when another dispute over team selection ahead of the Sky match at Reading saw him dismissed and Gareth Ainsworth placed in caretaker charge. Fifteen matches, eight wins and three draws, twenty one goals – thanks but no thanks. Dowie’s football was pretty dull, relying increasingly on knocking long balls into the channels to try and turn teams around and win free kicks, corners and throw ins from which we could score and by the time he left Rangers hadn’t scored a league goal in open play for eleven matches. However the results, and the goals scored, spoke for themselves and QPR would not put such a run of form or goal scoring again for the rest of the season. As I said at the time – never the right appointment but sacked for completely the wrong reasons.

Gareth Ainsworth Part One
Gareth Ainsworth could actually make a very good career out of being a caretaker manager. Well liked by fans and team mates alike Ainsworth gave 100 per cent every time he went on a football pitch and seems to be well aware at all times of just how privileged he is to lead the life he does. He has also been at QPR a long time so where some players may have sulked following Dowie’s departure, or tossed it off until the new man arrived, Ainsworth demanded the same effort and commitment from his players and such is the respect he is held in by the other players he got it in spades during his first spell in caretaker charge.

He started at Reading, live on Sky four days after the Swansea debacle. Rumours that Dowie’s final act as manager was to defy Flavio’s preferred team selection at the Madejski Stadium were hardly cooled by the team that took the field – Sam Di Carmine came in for a rare start up front alongside Dan Parejo, Damiano Tommasi made the bench for the first time just days after Iain Dowie had said Briatore’s first really big name signing was not yet fit for the rigours of Championship football.

Rangers defended resolutely, the first team to prevent Reading from scoring on their own patch, but wouldn’t have scored a goal had they stayed for a week and so another goalless draw was the result – although the reaction was somewhat more positive than it had been in Swansea.

Ainsworth’s first home game in charge was against table toppers Birmingham City on a Tuesday night and a collision of circumstances made it one of those special nights in W12. Ainsworth started with Tommasi in midfield this time, and in all his years in the game I doubt he’d ever played in conditions like those we experienced that night. By the time the second half began the icy cold evening was producing heavy snow, whipping in off the roof of the South Africa Road stand and making it difficult to even pick out Radek Cerny at the far end of the field. The FA, in their wisdom, had appointed hapless young official Stuart Attwell to the game just weeks after he had controversially awarded Reading a goal at Watford that hadn’t actually crossed the line, or indeed gone within ten feet of the goal. Attwell inflicted his incompetence on the game early, dismissing Mikele Leigertwood for a mistimed, but little more than that, challenge on halfway. Faced with a second half a man light, without a manager, against the best side in the division at that time, in farcical weather conditions QPR faced a clear choice between rolling over and dying or rolling up their sleeves and playing for the badge on their chests. They chose the latter.

Ainsworth showed great positivity at half time by leaving his attacking options on the field where convention may have suggested one should be removed for an extra defensive body. The crowd responded, creating an electric atmosphere that bubbled along for ten minutes and then blew the roof off Loftus Road when Sam Di Carmine turned inside Ridgewell on the edge of the box and ripped the net off the back of the posts with a ferocious shot that carried such power it knocked the Italian off his feet as he hit it. A spirited half hour of rearguard action set to a wall of noise from the home crowd looked like it had all been for nothing when, in the final seconds of stoppage time, Kevin Phillips emerged through the driving snow and gloom to slot home an equaliser, luckily an equally hard to spot linesman had long since raised his flag to rule the goal out.

That was a terrific night, the best there has been at Loftus Road for some time. It was a performance and result that epitomised the caretaker manager and put to the back of minds, for a few days at least, the managerial situation and talk of boardroom interference. It also set Gareth Ainsworth up as a contender for the job permanently. Briatore’s brisk comment to Sky Sports before the Reading match that “we have the players, we have the coach, we have everything we need” portrayed unbelievable arrogance at the time but with two decent results, and a victory against Cardiff picked up the other side of a poor performance and defeat at Ipswich, Ainsworth was a genuine contender by the time QPR walked out at Old Trafford for the League Cup game.

I hated that night in Manchester. The sight of QPR fans I haven’t seen at games since we played Chelsea the season before, all taking photographs at ‘The Theatre of Dreams’ like we were on some tourist trip was sickening – but maybe that’s because I still just about remember when this was a regular league fixture. QPR defended almost constantly for 80 minutes at which point they succumbed to the traditional late Old Trafford penalty which I thought was pretty nailed on at the time but have since changed my mind after watching replays. Tevez scored which brought Rangers out of themselves for the final ten minutes, Di Carmine had a header disallowed and Ledesma put a late chance past the post.

That was about the best I had hoped for before the match, a Championship team with no attacking threat whatsoever shorn of Buzsaky in the first half with a knee injury that would end his season was never going to go and play Man Utd off the pitch with a display of attacking flair and verve and had we tried to do so the scoreline could have been so much worse. The idea to hold them out as long as we could and either play for extra time and pens or push for a winner late in the day was the only sensible way to approach the game in my opinion and yet the following few days were dominated by fans moaning that they hadn’t paid all that money and gone all that way to see QPR try and hold out at 0-0. My advice for future games of that nature would be don’t bother going if that’s the case because that’s all you’re likely to get. The claim that people would rather see us go for it and lose 4-0 than lose 1-0 in the way we did is laughable to me – watching those smug glory hunting bastards celebrate once was hard enough, four times would have been too much to bear.

Ultimately Ainsworth was not given the job. In front of Briatore and his friends at Loftus Road (alarm bells should immediately sound in the head of any QPR manager when that lot turn up) QPR were comprehensively outplayed and beaten by a Burnley side that was easily the best to play at Loftus Road last season in my opinion. The tide turns quickly against managers who fail to impress Briatore at a home match and sure enough having spoken about giving Ainsworth a chance in the same way he had done in motor racing with Fabio Alonso Briatore suddenly pulled a rabbit from the hat before an away game at Watford by appointing former Portuguese national midfielder Paulo Sousa as the new manager of Queens Park Rangers.

Photo: Action Images

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