I must admit that the description of some mundane game of little interest to anyone else in the football world as “huge” or “massive” irks me somewhat – especially when it’s being played less than a week after one of the sides’ first competitive game of the season!
So, tomorrow’s home game with QPR (why are they beginning their league season with away games on successive weekends?) is not huge or massive, but I will concede that it is one which will go a great deal of the way to making my mind up upon whether the Erol Bulut era will go as well as some in Wales Online and on whatever Twitter is called these days would have us believe.
Last October, QPR went to the top of the Championship when they beat us 3-0 at Loftus Road, but since then their results have probably been the worst of any team in the Championship and their eventual survival was greatly reliant on a freakish win at Turf Moor against Champions Burnley which was completely at odds with anything else the team has produced for close to a full Championship season.
QPR were beaten 5-0 at League One team Oxford United a fortnight ago in their final warm up match and were 4-0 down in their opening Championship match at Watford by half time (there was no scoring in the second half). Nearly all of the pundits’ opinions I’ve come across have QPR as one of very few sides likely to finish below us this season with the feeling being that manager Gareth Ainsworth is trying to force a style of play onto a squad he inherited that is not suited to it.
This is exactly the type of game City should be winning if we are to improve on the teams of the last two seasons, but the fact of the matter is that I’d be more confident of our chances if the match was being played in west London tomorrow instead of Cardiff City Stadium because the evidence of the last three season suggests an away win by 1-0 with a goal scored sometime in he first half an hour or so I’m afraid.
Nearly all of the QPR sides I’ll be basing my questions on in this seven decades quiz on were better than the current one, but will that make any difference to a City side which has been so awful on their own pitch in their recent history?
We’ll know in thirty six hours time and my views on what happened will be posted on here on Sunday morning – I’ll put the answers to these questions on here at the same time.
60s. Born in a valley full of plants which prefer the shade, not the town north of London his name suggests, his stats make it obvious what position he played in and QPR benefitted more than any one else from his talent. He crossed the Atlantic to play for some top dogs for a while and he also was involved with old Iron for a season or so, but, apart from that, all of his career was spent in the south east of England really.
Besides QPR, he turned out for five different teams from that part of the country, with the last one being Bexley United. Someone with a record like his in the current game would surely have earned some international recognition somewhere along the line, but there was nothing at all in that regard for him through a career of about four hundred games spread over thirteen years. Who am I describing?
70s. With a middle name of Sandison, which member of what is generally regarded to be QPR’s best ever team was voted one of his other club’s best ever player, as well as having a lounge named after him at their stadium. He also played for a team called Bulova and was a one time manager of vivid flowers, who is he?
80s. Deny a once record signing for eastern birds? (4,5)
90s. Dull underwear?
00s.. “Tree of life” and creeper hybrid?
10s. Gwent roofer, by the sound of it, who makes very occasional appearances for QPR, and Newport County, before returning to his, adopted, home.
20s. Which member of the current QPR playing staff shares a name with someone who once was a member of the Best, has been married five times, ran for the Presidency of the USA in 1980 and the Vice Presidency in 1992?
Answers:
60s. Ferndale born Brian Bedford had a prolific goalscoring record (161 goals in 258 league games) for QPR between 1959 and 1965. The most he played for any other club was Bournemouth with 75 league appearances, but whether it was for those two sides or Reading, Southampton, Bournemouth, Brentford or the Atlantic Chiefs, he goals tended to come at a rate of one every other game or better.
70s. Dan Sandison Masson was an important member of the QPR team which finished as runners up in the old First Division in 75/76. He was voted as Notts County’s best ever player and had a spell in charge of Kettering Town (the poppies) at the end of his playing career.
80s. Dean Coney was signed by Norwich from QPR in 1989 for what was a club record fee at the time.
90s. Matt Brazier.
00s. Rowan Vine.
10s. Tyler Blackwood was born in London, but made his first impact in football while at the University of Tampa where his goalscoring bought him to the attention of QPR who gave him a one year contract for the 15/16 season. He made one league appearance for Rangers and three for Newport County where he scored the only goal in a game against Carlisle while on loan to them before returning to America at the end of the season.
20s. Joe Walsh is a young goalkeeper for QPR, while his namesake, best known for his time with the Eagles, was later in a “supergroup” called the Best (which included John Entwhistle and Keith Emerson among others). The Eagles’ Joe Walsh was also a candidate in the 1980 American Presidential election , even though he was too young for office at the time if he had won, and for the Vice Presidency twelve years later.