QPR Report Tuesday: QPR "We Shall Return..."We are no failures; no has beens; and no write-offs...QPR-#India...How QPR Spending Bought Failure...5 Year Flashback: Great Article re State of QPR

-

- QPR History in Photos: From the 1880s to the 21st Century - The Bushman QPR Photo Archives

- The Main QPR REPORT MESSAGEBOARD

- Follow QPR REPORT on TWITTER!
______________________________________

- 5 Year Flashback to a great article - A Fanzine Look at QPR


- 4 Years Ago: QPR Looking for a Manager (Ho-Hum!) - Various Names


- Sporting Intelligence looks at Rankings of PRemier League Club Social Media Followers (including QPR)



QPR REPORT -"We Shall Return"

    44 Years ago, QPR were coming to the end of a truly- humiliating and abysmal season.  A season in which the club had gone through four managers (one of them, Tommy Docherty - "The Doc," staying for just 28 Days before walking out on the club.) The number of managers equalled the number of wins the club achieved that season: 4 out of 42 - none of those wins away.  The season points total of 18 was then a record low (subsequently "beaten" by Stoke!)

   But despite all of this, 1968/1969 was one of the most momentous and unforgettable seasons for QPR fans, with memories seared into their consciousness. From the home opener in which "Little QPR" played their-first-ever game in the FIRST Division (with an unfinished new stand) at home to Leicester, to the humiliation at Old Trafford. The awe of playing Liverpool and Leeds; Manchester City and Manchester United; Arsenal and Tottenham. And finally, in the same division as QPR's arch-rivals: Chelsea!

  As the sad season came to anBut neither Club nor Fans  gave in or gave up. As the Club posted in their home last game programme (against Stoke - which QPR won!)
As that final programme editorial said:
 "....We are no failures; no has beens; and no write-offs and those who believe that Rangers' brief spark of glory is extinguished are in for a rude awakening next season...   "We have lost the campaign of the First Divison but we go down with colours flying, bayonets fixed; and of course drums beating. We prefer to think that this is no inglorious retreat but a startegic withdrawal to consolidate our forces for the next assault upon the First Division. And in the words of General Macarthur "'We Shall Return!'"

   

    As the rather-famous son of one of QPR's early Patrons once said: "Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."  Winton Churchill "Never Give In"

    As an addendum, it might be noted out that four years after this humiliation, QPR were back in the First Division playing "Total Football," with a team which included six future England Internationals, including the future England Captain...and were couple a years off from being the best team in the country.  So, one step back; two steps forward and then...onwards and upwards!

                  

And a Flashback to The Season Opener (vs Leicester) -
                                               

                    

- QPR's 1968/1969 Season in Photos (from the Bushman Archives)

                     
  Yesterday: QPR FC ‏@OfficialQPR  ON THIS DAY 1967: #QPR clinch the Division Three title after an away win against @OfficialOAFC pic.twitter.com/Ji4gszCW01 See Bushman's Photo History of 1966-1967



Richard Jolly/The National

Queens Park Rangers have bought only failure in their survival spending spree

Richard Jolly
Apr 15, 2013


It is the phrase that has been deployed to deny three of the five clubs, Blackburn Rovers, Chelsea and Manchester City, to win the Premier League much credit. It is likely to be heard again when big spenders like Paris Saint Germain or Anzhi Makhachkala prosper. They have bought success, their critics will say.


Queens Park Rangers have done something else altogether. They have bought failure: abject, embarrassing, expensive failure.

With a wage bill that must rank among the top seven in the Premier League and despite spending more than £20 million (Dh112.5m) in transfer fees in January alone, they are 10 points from safety with five games to go. They cannot admit it publicly, but they are down.

Money was supposed to propel them upwards. Instead, it is an ever-present issue in their ignominious fall. Manager Harry Redknapp admitted on Saturday that QPR could struggle to sell many of their players. Quite simply, they are paid too much for anyone else to take them.

Along with QPR's lamentable results this season, it highlights their awful record in the transfer market, particularly under Mark Hughes.

Above and beyond that, however, it shows that while handing out overly-generous contracts with misplaced largesse, a seemingly cash-rich club attempted to construct a team with a bankrupt philosophy.

Because football is still about identity. Clubs have an identity, rooted in community, history and their unique characteristics - something Sunderland overlooked when they appointed Paolo Di Canio - but so do teams.

In the days when it is rarer that 11 local lads run out to represent their boyhood club, the challenge is for managers to find common denominators and motivating factors in a group of disparate individuals.

It is easiest at the challengers, where some combination of the finest players, managers and facilities, the biggest fanbases and pay packets and the chance to win honours gives them an obvious appeal. Look across the rest of the Premier League, however, and there are plenty of policies at work.

Aston Villa's young players may hail from Vienna and Kinshasa as well as Birmingham, but they are bound to the club by the opportunity Paul Lambert has afforded them, giving a generation a chance.

With his former employers, Norwich City, Lambert also enabled his players to reach territory they had never charted before. Lower-league footballers were given a shot at the Premier League, just as they have been at Swansea, Southampton and Reading over the past couple of years.

Most, even in Reagin's relegation campaign, have responded.

Managers such as Brendan Rodgers, Michael Laudrup and Roberto Martinez appeal to the ideals with passing philosophies. Others prioritise team spirit, looking for a tight-knit group whose character is an insurance policy; Everton are a prime example.

Sometimes the unifying factor is language, whether for Wigan Athletic's Spanish speakers or Newcastle United's French connection; at others, it is a charismatic or caring leader, one who inspires loyalty: think of Martin O'Neill at his peak.

Now and again a manager thrives by giving a creative talent complete freedom and persuading the rest of the team to work for him, as Fulham have for Dimitar Berbatov.

Yet none apply at QPR. They are united only in their bulging bank balances.

QPR enjoyed the reflected glory of signing players from glamorous clubs with silverware-studded CVs. They ignored the reality that, in differing cases, their pace, stamina and drive are in decline. There are reasons why their recruits no longer breathe the more rarefied air of the elite. They signed the wrong players. The players joined for the wrong motives: money.

The sadder tales are of those whose careers seemed on the up. Liverpool, Everton and Newcastle expressed an interest in Junior Hoilett. He chose the best payers, QPR, which should be a salutary warning to other emerging players in similar situations.

But, more often than not, however, QPR simply signed the most famous player available. Not for them the expert scouting of canny buyers like Swansea and West Bromwich Albion, who often take footballers to new heights.

Perhaps the club's decision-makers were blinded by stardust but many of their fans were not. The notion supporters want big names is often incorrect. The one QPR player celebrated in song in Saturday's defeat at Everton was Andros Townsend, the 21-year-old winger, borrowed from Tottenham Hotspur and probably the worst-paid player in the team.

A real crowd favourite is Jamie Mackie, bought from Plymouth Argyle and a wholehearted trier who gives the impression that he understands QPR - the old QPR, anyway - and is grateful to be there. There is real appreciation for Shaun Derry and Clint Hill, those other veterans of their promotion campaign. Neither is a superstar. Both are grounded characters.

Amid the influx of the supposedly illustrious, QPR actually needed more Mackies, Derrys and Hills. Instead, they thought the short cut to success lay with Park Ji-sung, Jose Bosingwa and Julio Cesar.

They approached English Premier League football with tactics more suited to Indian Premier League cricket, assuming celebrity was a guarantee of performance and ignoring the identity of the team Neil Warnock took up. And so QPR will be rebranded again, as a Championship club with a colossal wage bill and a group of costly failures
http://www.thenational.ae/sport/football....spending-spr ee

Five from Mumbai to train with QPR

Times of India

Five Mumbai boys to train at Queens Park Rangers facility
PTI | Apr 15, 2013, 06.23 PM IST
.
MUMBAI: Five south Mumbai school boys would undergo a 21-day coaching stint with English Premier League team Queens Park Rangers in London from next week.

Rudolf D'Souza (13), Arfat Ansari (15), Tanaay Shah (15), Uzair Ansari (15) and Praful Kumar (16) were selected after their display in the Milind Deora soccer championships by the club's coaches for next week's stint at QPR.

"This is the second set of winners that we are sending to the QPR's specialised training facility in London. These five boys are from our last three editions. We did this programme on a pilot basis in 2009 and at that time we had sent two boys to train and one of them, Shaun Fernandes, plays for India under-19," Deora told reporters.

"Through this exercise, we are able to inculcate global football skills in our local talent. Through the years I have witnessed a lot of passion for football in Mumbai's youngsters.

"And this initiative is able to give them a first step in the right direction. I am hopeful that we would soon witness a national player arise from this grassroots football championship," added the Minister of State for shipping, communications and information technology.

Deora further said during their first edition, nearly 1,350 children had participated and during their last one held in October, over 4,000 children had participated.

"The Queens Park Rangers coaches have been impressed with some of the Indian talent. They said that the children are of a different build compared to those in England. But they have the passion and are eager to learn. They feel some of them have the potential to be international players," Deora said.

"It is a dream come true for me. I watch players of English Premier League play for their teams and have always wondered if I would get to play like this. Now through the Milind Deora Soccer Championship, I have a chance at not just meeting them but training like them. I am looking forward to the next three weeks and hope to learn a lot," said D'souza who, at 13, is the youngest of the lot.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sport....ow/19560350.cms