QPR v Rotherham United (Coca Cola Championship: 7 Aug) [R]

[QPR Kevin H]

Thought I'd start off the thread for Saturday's match (albeit with some frustrating news)

From official site...
http://www.qpr.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10373~547421,00.html

DEVLIN ON ROTHERHAM TICKETS

QPR Chief Executive Mark Devlin has spoken about the suspension of tickets for the Rotherham game on Saturday afternoon.

Problems relating to the bedding in of CES, QPR's new stadium security**company,**have led to this course of action and Devlin has sought to explain the background to this situation.

He said:****"The authorities are waiting for certain guarantees that there will be enough trained staff available to deal with a near capacity fixture this Saturday.

"At the moment, because those assurances have not been supplied we have had to suspend sales,**as we will not be allowed a full capacity on Saturday.

"The Club and CES are working hard to provide the relevant paperwork and copies of training certificates, so we can go back on sale again as quickly as possible.

"I would like to assure supporters that we are doing everything we can at this late stage to pull everything out of the bag.

"If necessary we will look at alternative stewarding arrangements, although**we have**signed an agreement with CES who are incredibly keen to make this happen and we are doing all we can to have as large a crowd here as possible at the weekend.

"This is a nightmare that should never have happened and, with proper planning, could have been avoided. But it is now our priority to rectify the situation as soon as possible."

Really dissapointing and rediculous situation. We got rid of our old, incompetant security firm (Goldrange) and bring in these new muppets (CES). It was plain to see from the Ajax match that these people had no clue of what they were doing at a football match, its no surprise they don't have their house in order with paperwork and certificates. Now we won't be allowed by the authorities to have to lucrative, packed house the team deserves, unless the security arrangements are met. Not only does this effect the regular home areas, but the club were probably hoping to get some of the School End for extra home fans as well. Grrr

Over to Atouk for his usual pre-match thread.

[Atouk]

"This is a nightmare that should never have happened and, with proper planning, could have been avoided. But it is now our priority to rectify the situation as soon as possible."
Both of those sentences are true. At least they're admitting it's a mistake they could have and should have avoided. They've only known that the season would open on 7 August since the last season ended on 8 May.

I know people had some problems with how Goldrange ran things, but I'm guessing that the reason for the change to CES is because they cost less. Hopefully this move won't cost the club more both in cash and in good will.

[Atouk]

I just watched the interview with CEO Mark Devlin on QPR World. He's just been on the job for a couple of days and has to deal with this mess.

About the switch from Goldrange to CES, he said "I think that was partly due to costs, partly due to feedback that had come from supporters." As he understands it, the decision was made around June (before the changeover in the front office).

Current sales (including just around 700-800 from Rotherham) total 15,500-16,000 tickets. I guess the good news is that the place will mostly be full, as a pretty full house with a nice away crowd is usually under 18,000, and with Rotherham selling as few as they have, that means the home sections are mostly sold out by now. I know they there were no more online sales for Rotherham several days ago (although they still had tickets on sale through the box office).

As reported in the press release, the authorities don't want to see more tickets sold beyond the current number until CES provides copies of certificates of training for a sufficient number of stewards, etc.

While there were problems with CES at the Ajax game, Devlin thought they made "considerable improvement" for the Palace game, sufficient to where they think we can have full capacity for Saturday.

For those who already have tickets, "those tickets will be honored, there's no chance of them being turned away at the gates on Saturday."

More from Devlin: "It's, frankly, a nightmare that should never have happened, and I'd like to make sure it never ever gets to this stage again. This is something that proper planning could have avoided. There has obviously been a change over in regimes. One regime made the decision to change. Nothing wrong with the decision to change, but obviously while Boards of Directors have changed and there's been a little bit of change in the management of the company, things have fallen through the gaps."

Looks like there's blame to go around and the new CEO is on the case. Hope this gets worked out soon.

[Atouk]

QPR (Last Season -- Division 2: 2nd Place, 22-17-7)
Rotherham United (Last Season -- Division 1: 17th Place, 13-15-18)
------
7 August 2004
Loftus Road
------

Rangers News:

According to the official site (http://www.qpr.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10373~547771,00.html), Jamie Cureton will miss the first two matches with the injury picked up against Crystal Palace (our second match is on Monday at Watford). Also, Marc Bircham's ankle is healing slower than hoped and he too will miss the first two matches. The story says Marcus Bean is likely to start in his place (presumably alongside Richard Johnson in the middle). Cureton and Birch are targeting a return for our third match (at Sunderland). Dan Sh!ttu and Nick Culkin are still both nursing long-term injuries.

Lee Cook is making good progress and should be available to play on Saturday. Likewise, Matthew Rose is over a slight back problem and will challenge for a starting place. Everyone else is healthy and available.

As reported yesterday (http://www.qpr.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10373~547316,00.html), ticket sales are currently suspended while the new stewarding company provides documentation to the football authorities that it has enough trained staff to handle a capacity crowd. QPR CEO Mark Devlin estimated that 15,500-16,000 have already been sold.

The Opponent:

Rotherham has injury problems of its own (http://www.qpr.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10373~547826,00.html). Martin McIntosh, Martin Butler, Andy Monkhouse and Paul McLaren are all out, while Chris Sedgwick missed their last friendly, but is now expected to play. Their website reports (http://www.themillers.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10360~547848,00.html) that they will be signing an as-yet-unnamed player on loan ("a front player who can play in a number of different roles") to cover for Butler -- player to be announced tomorrow.

FYI, Rotherham's away form last season: 5 wins, 7 draws, 11 losses.

The Series:

Rangers trail 3-3-4 overall. The teams have met just 10 times in total and have not faced each other since 1983. The teams played six times in two seasons, 81/82 and 82/83 when both were in this division and they played a couple of League Cup ties. Other than that, it's two meetings in 67/68 and two in 51/52.

In league play, the series is even, with each team winning three times and two matches resulting in a draw. Rotherham leads in the League Cup, with one draw and one win.

The Referee:

Paul Armstrong will referee the season opener. Last year, he worked in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd divisions, including QPR's 2-2 away draw at Colchester early in the season (2 yellows to each team, including Bean and Gnohere). He also worked our 2-1 away win at Cardiff in 02/03. Overall last season, he issued 89 yellows and 6 reds in 30 matches.

[Atouk]

The Opponent:

Their website reports (http://www.themillers.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10360~547848,00.html) that they will be signing an as-yet-unnamed player on loan ("a front player who can play in a number of different roles") to cover for Butler -- player to be announced tomorrow.Rotherham has acquired Sheffield United striker Paul Shaw (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/r/rotherham_utd/3538328.stm) on a three-month loan with the view of a permanent move of the 30-year-old striker who has fallen out of the Blades' plans. Shaw is expected to make his Millers debut against the R's on Saturday.

[Atouk]

Tickets are back on sale for this match. (http://www.qpr.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10373~548408,00.html) Don't know how close to capacity they'll let us go, but the official site says an additional 800 tickets in South Africa Road and Ellerslie Road are on sale, while the Upper Loft, Lower Loft, and Paddocks were already sold out. It's now all-ticket, with no tickets sold after 5 p.m. on Friday.

[Atouk]

If you don't have QPR World yet, let me again highly recommend it. There's a two-part nearly 24-minute preview that includes interviews with Holloway, Power, Ainsworth, Edghill, and previews of our first two opponents with chief scout Mel Johnson.

Even if you've got a slow connection, get the commentary-only option (20 pounds, I believe), but I'd highly recommend the full QPR World (you can download the features, so you can watch them even a slow connection).

[Atouk]

The BBC's short match preview can be found here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_div_1/3942113.stm). No new news, but includes a list of the injured for both sides.

[Atouk]

The Sky Sports match preview is now online at this link. (http://skysports.planetfootball.com/list.asp?hlid=218256)

[Atouk]

5 minutes in and Gareth Ainsworth scores on a header from a cross by Richard Johnson.

But... 15 minutes in and Rotherham gets one back on an unchallenged header from 2 yards -- bad marking accordinging to the commentary.

QPR 1-1 Rotherham

[Atouk]

Starting lineup for the R's:

Day; Bignot, Gnohere, Rose, Padula; Ainsworth, Johnson, Bean, Rowlands; Gallen, Furlong

Bench:

Santos, Thorpe, Edghill, McLeod, Cole

[Atouk]

We are closing for 10 minutes (it's 11 AM eastern right now) to upgrade software. Thanks for your patience."Well, I first got that message at 10:50, not 11, and was able to access the site again at 12:12. Couldn't have done this at 7 a.m. on a Thursday morning or something, could they?

Anyway......

QPR 1-1 Rotherham United
FULL TIME

The R's had the better of the chances in the second half, but looked to have trouble defending set pieces. In the 81st/82nd minute, we brought on Santos, Thorpe, and McLeod for Bignot, Bean, and Rowlands. Thorpe almost got the winner for us.

Even with the ticketing troubles (and the small crowd brought by Rotherham), today's attendance was 14,547.

Frankly, the result is a bit disappointing and, in a way, it's not. In the long run, if we're going to stay up, we've got to get 3 points at home against the teams picked behind us, as well as getting 3 against a good few of the teams picked ahead of us, and today we didn't. That said, it was our first day in the division and we looked up to the task of playing with, and beating, the teams in the lower half.

I was hoping for 4 points out of our first two games. 2 won't be terribly disappointing, but 1 will. Let's go get a result on Monday.

[Atouk]

The early game:
Leeds 1-0 Derby

The 3 p.m. games:
QPR 1-1 Rotherham
Reading 3-2 Brighton
Wigan 1-1 Forest
Burnley 1-1 Sheffield United
Crewe 2-2 Cardiff City
Ipswich 2-1 Gillingham
Leicester 0-0 West Ham
Plymouth 0-0 Millwall
Preston 2-1 Watford

So, six draws from the first ten games.

In action now:
Coventry 0-0 Sunderland

Tomorrow:
Stoke v. Wolves

[Wide Boy]

Well, as the Premiership hasn't started yet, I went to today's game at Loftus Road.

Attendance was around 14.5k - I would be surprised if Rotherham had even 500 there.

The game was absolutely awful. For the sake of supporters of both clubs, I hope it was due to the heat. If not, I have to say that both looked very poor teams on today's performance.

Both teams had one tactic; long angled crosses to the far post. Both goals came from this, so did virtually the only other piece of excitement in the game - a very good save by Pollitt (Rotherham) about 5 minutes from time.

[HiJazzey]

solid enough start to our maiden "championship" (what a silly name) season. Now let's get some points tomorrow against Watford

[Atouk]

The game was absolutely awful. For the sake of supporters of both clubs, I hope it was due to the heat. If not, I have to say that both looked very poor teams on today's performance.

Both teams had one tactic; long angled crosses to the far post. Both goals came from this, so did virtually the only other piece of excitement in the game - a very good save by Pollitt (Rotherham) about 5 minutes from time.Thanks for your report on the match. From the sound of it, we couldn't get Martin Rowlands (#14, last year's Player of the Year) into the game and even when we did, he didn't perform that well. The commentators seemed to think he was leary of challenging the player marking him (Stockwell?) and manager Ian Holloway pretty much (but nicely) said in his post-match interview that Rowlands didn't have a good game.

With Marc Bircham not starting (we started two even more defensive-minded central midfielders) and Rowlands off his game, we were going to struggle to be as creative as we can be.

We still won't have Birch for tonight's game against Watford, so hopefully Rowlands will put his stamp on the match.

[Atouk]

This Telegraph story (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/sport/2004/08/08/sfgqpr08.xml) attempts to make an interesting read of what seems to have been a less-than-interesting match.

Sporting Life has two stories, the first (http://www.sportinglife.com/football/live/reports/story_get.dor?STORY_NAME=soccer/04/08/07/SOCCER_Rotherham.html) provides a match recap and the second (http://www.sportinglife.com/football/nationwide1/news/story_get.dor?STORY_NAME=soccer/04/08/07/SOCCER_QPR_2nd_Nightlead.html) focuses mostly on the managers' post-match comments.

[Atouk]

The early game:
Leeds 1-0 DerbyOf note, Lee Camp started in goal (http://www.dcfc.premiumtv.co.uk/page/TeamNews/0,,10270~549252,00.html) for Derby ahead of Lee Grant! No wonder they wouldn't sell him!

Also, Clarke Carlisle neither played nor was he on the bench for Leeds. I didn't read anything about an injury and the pre-match press said (http://www.sportinglife.com/football/cc_championship/news/story_get.dor?STORY_NAME=nonwire_soccer/04/08/06/manual_100242.html) he was one of four players fighting to start in partnership with Paul Butler in central defense.

[art]

If you don't have QPR World yet, let me again highly recommend it.

I just got World Extra, basically it's the normal World except you have access to all 76 clubs who have world sites, and...holy ********. I havent stopped watching it. I'm in genuine trouble with my partner at the moment, we only have one computer in our apartment right now and there's only one thing it's being used for at the moment, I have not seen her so pissed in quite a while, I think shes afraid I have a new thing.

And I do.

Just watched the Bobby Convey stuff over at Reading World.

Good stuff. Only a little bit more than World.