The Price You Pay as a QPR Fan

An excellent blog that many of us fans can resonate with.

I feel sorry for some of the younger generation. Obsessed with Sky, Xbox and celebrity footballers, they call themselves Chelsea, United or Liverpool fans without having ever known what true fandom means.

“He’s a CDM. He’s got 97 pace”. What does that mean? For crying out loud. I even got into a spat with a 13-year-old over Paolo Maldini. I said “one of the best left-backs ever”. The teenager said, “no. He’s a centre back on Fifa”. Oh dear.

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard: “why do you support QPR? They’re rubbish”. And sometimes, we are. And that’s the point, isn’t it?

Supporting the Rs is a full-on sensory experience for me and us. It goes so deep into me as a person that it’s hard to describe.

I can smell the shit of the police horses on the South Africa Road. I can hear the murmur around the programme sellers. I can feel the grease on my programme from the chips from the South Africa Road Fish Bar. I can see a glimpse of the floodlights looking left from the car as we leave the Fullers roundabout. I can sense the anticipation at 2.55 pm.

Those are irreplaceable sensations built up over decades. And it doesn’t matter if we win or lose or draw on a Saturday, those feelings – buried deep in me – can never go away. I’ll always go back because, at some indeterminable point, the roots of the QPR tree and my roots became intertwined. It’s a very long time since I had a choice in the matter.

We pay a price as QPR fans. We buy our tickets, we turn up whatever, we shout, we complain, and we sing. We suffer and we worry. League 1 or the Premier League, we pay and we suffer.

But it’s worth it. Because every true fan knows that you pay with your nil-nils against Preston and your defeats at Grimsby for your day in the sun. I’ve had many days in the sun. Highbury, Anfield, Old Trafford, Wembley. And I’ll keep paying.

To all youngsters out there: never feel embarrassed to be a QPR fan. We have a superb history, a bright future, and more days in the sun to come.