QPR: Day of Destiny

There is a coach on the M4 at the moment carrying a team of players and a manager who may be about to transform Shepherd's Bush. I put it in that context because if QPR do get promoted today it will not just be a footballing matter - it will fundamentally change the character of W12 for at least a year and quite probably for ever.

Those of us who've been around Loftus Road for the last few years have seen two sorts of things happen recently. One, a chain of events so bizarre and shocking that you would think they'd been written by some coked out novelist on speed, and the other a sudden upsurge in interest in the club from new fans attracted by the prospect of premiership football - every successful club has their groupies!

For the bizarre and shocking think this incident when the then Chairman was threatened with a gun during a board meeting. Or when the manager, someone called "mad dog" first head-butted and then expelled the clubs star striker from the changing rooms to wander forlornly around the pitch. And who can forget the strange twins of Briatore and Ecclestone - the latter declaring his love for Adolf Hitler.

For the groupies, well they started arriving in numbers when the club started winning, and winning and winning - and they're very welcome. But my worry is that they'll be the only ones who can afford the ticket prices when they get jacked up to new stratospheric heights if and when the club enter the top flight.

But for all that I know many of us will be glued to our radios this afternoon in a hot Shepherd's Bush - all those years have been for this - and just to whet your appetite here's my match report from when Cardiff, todays opponents, visited Loftus Road last year. It was a sensational end-end affair - and I suspect today will be no different.

2200 UPDATE - well, what a game. Much has been said about the twists and turns of the match, which was nailbiting stuff, but the simple fact is that QPR can finally grab promotion on Monday against Hull at Loftus Road. We shall see. In the meantime I have to give the final word to the increasingly bizarre Dave Jones, manager of Cardiff City. Of QPR's talisman Adel Taraabt, who saved QPR's game with two goals to haul them back from behind twice, he says this: 

"He did nothing but score two goals, absolutely nothing". 

Er...


Midnight UPDATE: Silly me - there was I thinking that the lunacy of the past at our club was in the past. The Mirror has other ideas and is predicting Warnock will be sacked during the summer in favour of a larger profile manager. It's easy to dismiss this as froth but it is written by Paul Smith, who is a respected correspondent and in a way that tells me this has been clearly and deliberately briefed by sources that the journalist obviously regards as strong. And if this has even a scintilla of truth it is deeply worrying.