Club Factoid...Gulf Weekly Adopts Hoops and Profiles Dowie...Flashback "Foreign Investors Step in to Keep QPR in Business"...Hollins/Clarke Birthdays

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Second Update: Club's Right; QPR Report is wrong. The club included in its figure of 24 first team victories over Chelsea, games played in WWI, WWII and WWII Cup games. (League WW1 -3; League WW2-4; Cups WW2 - 4) Lesson learned: Don't question with QPR's statiticians1


Update: Wrong Club Factoid today on the club's Official Site Daily Countdown?: "24 - the number of First Team victories over West London rivals Chelsea." It would be nice, but I don't believe so-QPR Official [In fact, according to Soccerbase stats, it's 11 QPR League wins, 1 FA Cup Win, 1 League Cup win (and from memory that appears to be about right) Head to Head Stats


Hold The Front News -Deputy editor swaps Bedfordshire for Bahrain
"... Bedfordshire on Sunday's deputy editor Liz O'Reilly, left, recently answered an advert on HoldtheFrontPage for a job working for the biggest-selling English-language newspaper in Bahrain. The upshot was that she will be joining editor Stan Szecowka as deputy of Gulf Weekly next week...
Since Stan took over as editor of Gulf Weekly in January 2007, the glossy newspaper has increased pagination to 48 pages, increased sales in Bahrain by nine per cent year on year and doubled the number of hits to its sister website gulfweekly.com to more than 430,000 a month...
He claims Gulf Weekly is the only newspaper in the world to boast a hooped masthead – which celebrates national carrier Gulf Air's recent three-year shirt sponsorship of English Championship side Queens Park Rangers... " Hold The Front Page


Gulf Weekly Profiling Ian Dowie - We’ve got Bouncebackability
COLOURFUL Queens Park Rangers manager Iain Dowie has called on Bahraini football lovers to get behind the Super Hoops in the club’s quest for promotion to the English Premiership.
The former Northern Ireland international is thrilled by the Championship side’s link up with the kingdom following Gulf Air’s three-year shirt sponsorship deal.
And Dowie, pictured left, can call on a touch of “bouncebackability” – the inspirational word he invented and brought into the English dictionary – to turn the dream into reality.
It conveys the sort of diehard spirit which helped ignite the special relationship between the club’s owners – Formula One’s Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecklestone and multi-millionaire Lakshmi Mittal – and the airline’s chief executive officer Björn Näf, who said: “Like QPR, Gulf Air is building a phenomenal success story and with it a powerful brand with a class-leading product.”
Both parties have a flight path to the same destination and aim to bounce back to the top after years in the doldrums.
And Dowie – the man who has to deliver on the footballing side – had this message to GulfWeekly readers: “Like all QPR fans, I am very excited about our new partnership with Gulf Air and especially our links with the Middle East, and Bahrain in particular.
“The Middle East is an area I know and love. I lived in Abu Dhabi for three years in the late 70s, and I’ve holidayed in the region for the past 16 years. I love the people.
“It’s an emerging area and they love their sport and football is very popular with the locals.”
“The airline industry itself is of great interest to me too. I trained as an aeronautical engineer and my father was an airline engineer. My brother actually worked for Gulf Air, so this new relationship is of particular interest to me, personally.
“We’d love the support of the Bahraini people and rest assured; we’re doing everything within our powers to achieve the goals of the club and our worldwide fan-base.
“These are very exciting times for QPR and the supporters in particular, and we want our fans all over the world to embrace the new era and be with us every step of the way.”
Dowie, 43, well known in the Gulf as a television football pundit, went to the University of Hertfordshire to study for a Master’s Degree in Engineering. On completion he became an employee of British Aerospace, playing football at non-league level for Cheshunt alongside his brother, Bob.
But it was whilst playing for non-league Hendon that he was spotted by Luton Town who snapped him up. An old-fashioned centre-forward, he then moved in quick succession to Fulham and West Ham United.
He then moved to Southampton, where he made more than 100 appearances. He then moved back to London with Crystal Palace in January 1995, which after they were relegated led to another spell at West Ham, and finally Queens Park Rangers, where he ended his days playing in defence, and being player-manager of QPR’s reserve side.
Dowie also had a brief spell as caretaker manager of QPR in the autumn of 1998.
After retirement from playing, Dowie became assistant manager of Oldham, then manager and led the club into the Division Two play-offs.
In 2003 he was appointed manager of Crystal Palace, inheriting a squad with low morale and occupying 19th place in Division One. However, under his leadership, the club went on an impressive run that included 17 wins from 23 games after he took over, until the end of the season, enabling the club to finish in sixth place in Division One, just scraping into the Division One play-off places.
This feat was attributed to a complete change in the atmosphere and training regime at the club, including a tougher disciplinary regime, introduced by Dowie. After beating Sunderland in the semi-final, on penalties, the club beat Dowie’s former club West Ham by a single goal in the final for a place in the Premiership.
In 2004, when discussing Crystal Palace’s start to the Premiership season, he coined the word “bouncebackability” in discussing their ability to bounce back from adversity during their Division One season and the side’s habit of conceding early goals.
This word gained cult popularity within the footballing world and particularly with the Sky Sports TV programme Soccer AM. In 2005, it was included in the Collins Dictionary and has subsequently been used in a promotional campaign for child fostering in the UK.
Dowie went on to manage Charlton Athletic, Coventry City and this May QPR appointed him as their new first team coach following the departure of Luigi de Canio.
The club’s partnership with Gulf Air will include a football community scouting programme based in the region and various community-based initiatives in Bahrain and London. The country’s flagship airline is also likely to extend its sponsorship of the Formula One Grand Prix at the Bahrain International Circuit." Gulf Weekly


Flashback - Four Years Ago- Mihir Bose -Daily Telegraph July 15, 2004 - Foreign investors step in to keep QPR in business

Queens Park Rangers are being rescued by a Monaco-based company of unnamed Italian and French investors who are putting in money to make sure the west London club survive. In a series of dramatic recent developments at the club, who came out of administration only two years ago, the chairman, chief executive, and one other director have resigned and a new board have taken over.

The accounts for the season just concluded, in which QPR won promotion to the newly named Coca-Cola Championship, are not yet available. The club have only just finished preparing audited accounts for the year to May 2003, which covers the 2002-2003 season. However, these accounts have some information on the latest cash crisis.

The Daily Telegraph has seen a copy and in it the directors confess that if new money is not made available the club would have to be wound up.The directors' report says: "The directors have reviewed the group's budget for the current year and outline projections for the subsequent year including cash flows and forecasts of headroom available against current borrowing facilities, together with other likely sources of cash generation."

Following this review, the directors have formed a judgment that, at the time of approval of the financial statements, the group does not have sufficient resources to continue operating in the foreseeable future without raising additional working capital. For this reason, the directors are actively seeking to raise further capital to meet the shortfall."

QPR were a casualty of the football recession even before the collapse of ITV Digital but their main problem is that they were never properly rescued. They went into administration with debts of £10 million and instead of coming out with no debts, as clubs that go into administration seek to do, came out with a long-term loan of £10 million. This is to a Panama-based company on which the club pay a crippling 10 per cent interest.

Since QPR came out of administration, the board have been seeking new money and all sorts of schemes have been floated, but none has worked. QPR's ground-sharing with Fulham for two years was largely unsuccessful. Fulham paid £1 million a year as rent but QPR had to pick up the bill for all the extra match-day costs and made very little money. One source said: "It would have been much better if we had got [Mohamed] Fayed to pay us £15,000 a match to hire the ground and they met all the other bills."

Several people have been offering to find money. One of them, Tim Krause, an American who owns the United States team Milwaukee Wave, had various discussions with the club in the last few years. Bill Power, who is the new QPR chairman and provided £200,000 as a loan for the club, said: "In the end we found he was acting as an agent and it was not his own money he was investing. Why use an agent to find money when we can do it ourselves?"

It was a failure to find investors and disagreements about the way the club was run, leading to the horrendous cash situation, that forced the three directors to go: David Davies, the chief executive who was paid a salary of £135,000, Ross Jones, the chairman of the plc, and Nick Blackburn, the chairman of the football club.

The Monaco-based investors were introduced to the club by Gianni Paladini, the husband of Olga Paladini, who, through Moorbound Ltd, is a major shareholder with 22 per cent.The new investors will buy new shares that QPR are issuing. This will give them 29.9 per cent of the club. Since they are buying new shares and not shares from another director, it will mean the £1.8 million they are investing will go directly into the club. Chris Wright, the former owner with 14 million shares, and Moorbound with 18 million shares, will remain the other main shareholders.

Although the latest available accounts are a year out of date, they give an indication of QPR's predicament. The accounts show that in the 2002-03 season, while income rose from £5.6 million to £7.3 million, the loss increased 10 times from £413,000 to £4.3 million.

The accounts for the season just gone are expected to be much worse. But by the time they are revealed to the world the Monaco-based Italian-French alliance will be on board. The deal is expected to be done in the next few days.Power would not disclose who they are but said: "They are football fans."

[Originally Posted here and here ]


Former QPR Player, Coach & Acting Manager, John Hollins, Turns 62!
Born July 16, 1946
Signed from Chelsea by Dave Sexton in June 1975, Hollins was an integral part of QPR's 1975/76 "Championship" Winning Team (primarily alternating a position between himself and Mick Leach). And the following three seasons, Hollins moving between midfield with some games as central defender.
After QPR's relegation, Hollins was set to stay at QPR and then changed his mind and joined Arsenal...and then subsequently Chelsea as player coach.
In the mid-1980s, QPR attempted to take Hollins from Chelsea to manage them. That failed... A few years, back Hollins was coach at QPR and became Acting manager. See Hollins Profile and Hollins/Wikipedia
QPRNetQ&A With Hollins (In response to some of Hollins comments, Nick Blackburn responded to QPRNet)


And yesterday: Former QPR forward, Frank Clarke turned 66
Born July 15, 1942, Clarke joined QPR from Shrewsbury for 35,000 pounds, in February 1968 to boost our promotion hopes (after QPR failed to agree terms with another forward, John O'Rourke (who anyway joined QPR a few years later).
Clarke spent tw0 years at QPR, before we sold him to First Division Ipswich for 38,000 pounds in March 1970 after our promotion hopes faded. In the 1969/1970 season, Clarke formed part of a dynamic forward line of Clarke, Barry Bridges and Rdney Marsh.
In the 1967/1968 season, Clarke scored 3 goals in 13 games. In QPR's (terrible) First Division season, he scored 5 goals in 23 games. And in the 1969/1970 season he got 9 goals in 31 games + some great cup goals, including two in QPR's "Shock win' In the League cup against Wolves at Loftus Road (in October 1969)
(Clarke is the brother of Walsall/Fulham/Leicester, Leeds and England Forward Alan Clarke)

The Australian - Bad boy Bosnich to make A-League July 16, 2008
FORMER Australia goalkeeper Mark Bosnich is making a tentative return to football in a two-week trial with the Central Coast Mariners
Former Chelsea goalkeeper Mark Bosnich is to spend two weeks on trial with the Central Coast Mariners. Picture: Fox Sports
The playing career of Bosnich, 36, controversially ended in September 2002 when he failed a drugs test and was subsequently sacked by Chelsea and banned from football for nine months.
Bosnich, who has 22 international caps and represented Australia at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, will begin training with the Mariners on Thursday, the club said.
“We're delighted to offer one of the true trailblazers of Australian football the chance to experience the Mariners and the A-League,” said club chairman Lyall Gorman.
Although no contract has been signed, Bosnich has been invited to train with the side “to further his aspirations to return to top-flight football, if not with the Mariners, then with another club in Australia or abroad,” Gorman said.
“Mark's vast and impressive professional experience, his very presence at training will be an inspiration for our younger players ahead of the regular season,” the chairman added.....
He last played a professional match in 2002 but trained with London club Queens Park Rangers last year.
Bosnich reportedly spoke with Mariners officials when he attended the FIFA Congress in Sydney last May.
The Mariners are without their regular goalkeeper Danny Vukovic, who is suspended for the first seven games of the new A-League season, kicking off next month." The Australian