retired_blondie_524

Friday March 25th 2005 - that was the date that changed all our lives.
That was the night of our monthly investment club meeting.
That was the night our treasurer, Michael, was late.

Michael burst in fifteen minutes into our meeting which always started at 9 O'clock sharp in the back room of ' La Casa Del Inglese'.
Michael was babbling on uncontrollably, which was unusual for Michael as he had been a banker before he joined our gang of ex-pats.
When we had calmed him down we sat waiting patiently for him to explain his out of character behavior.

"We've only gone and won the Euro Millions jackpot.....THE JACKPOT, THE BLOODY JACKPOT!!

We just sat there looking at him. None of us was short of a bob or two anyway. We'd all bought houses down in Cosenza in Southern Italy as holiday homes and slowly one by one moved there permanently. Jeff had bought a bar and we all started meeting there. None of us really worked so we spent a lot of time in 'La Casa Del Inglese' talking and one day about two years ago we decided to set up this investment club.
We all paid into this club, Jeff was chairman and Michael was treasurer. We bought shares and we played several countries lotteries.

So now we sat here waiting for Michael to continue, trying to come to terms with what he meant - if Michael was that unhinged it must be some amount.

" I've checked the numbers, twice, three times, even more. The numbers are the right ones - the announcer said it was worth €170M."

There was a really sharp intake of breath, €170,000,000 divided by 12, that was some amount.

retired_blondie_524

So after we won all that money some of us took the money and left to follow the dream but there was still seven of us that couldn’t see anything better than just drinking and hanging out at the ‘La Casa del Inglese’.
One night we were having an argument about the state of football while watching the Sky Sports Prem. Plus broadcast. Dave was arguing that all you had to do was through money at the Premiership or indeed any league and you would walk them whereas I was saying that you had to have an intelligent manager as well. If you had the brains you could win it or at least go very close without the money. It’s all right having a Chelski but without Mourinho you would go nowhere.

“********!” Says Dave “prove it”

So full of beer I says “Piece of **** mate, I think with my knowledge and ideas I could even take one of these Premiership yo-yo clubs and keep them up with no money!”

The rest of our lot were egging us on and it soon degenerated into a typical male stag butting occasion with lots of drunken “Oh Yea?” until Everton scored and we forgot all about it in our cheering. Or so we thought!

retired_blondie_524

When we got in the bar next afternoon Jeff had paperwork spread all over the bar top.
“I’ve been doing some research on your bet”! He says. “ There’s 19 clubs that in theory qualify for the bet?”

What bet’s this? We inquired, don’t remember any thing about a bet?

As the others arrived they assured us in our state yesterday I had bet Dave that without any particular money I could take a club into the Premiership and keep them there. They showed us the set of rules we’d scrawled across a beer mat.

1. Each person to put up €5M for the pot, if Sam keeps the decided club up in the Premiership for two years he takes the pot otherwise Dave does.
2. Club must be ex-premier at current moment.
3. Transfer funds to be £100,000.

“So how we gonna to this” says Dave. “Simple” says Jeff “The rest of the investment club that’s left have got together and said they’ll buy the club, You’ll do the rest starting season 2005/06!”

Jeff went on to explain that he’d looked into it and found that since the premier league had started in 1992/93 there was only 19 clubs that had been relegated from the league and were not currently back in the Premier. He’d eliminated Wimbledon as defunct, four of them; Leeds, Watford, Norwich and Wolves had owners that he didn’t think would sell that easy. Three more, Barnsley, Oldham and Swindon he eliminated as being to small for the modern day premier and anyway they didn’t want to spent loads and years just getting to the premier. That left 10 and he eliminated there more, Palace, Forrest and Leicester as having been relegated too many times. “We want to give you some chance Sam!” He said with a twinkle in his eye.

That leaves us with seven possible clubs – Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Ipswich, QPR, Bradford, Derby and Coventry. Dave argued about the inclusion of Bradford. “They’re in League One, we’ll all have drunk ourselves to death by the time they get to the Premier!”

We agreed to scratch them, leaving six. Jeff wrote the names on scraps of paper and put them in a pint pot.

“Go on Sam, you’ve got to manage them …. You draw the team!”

I stepped up to the bar, crossed my fingers, prayed for a particular club and grabbed a folded paper out of the pot. I opened it and held it up to the assembled throng.

QUEENS PARK RANGERS

retired_nicolemdalton

Nice start, interesting intro to the story I like it. QPR seems the team of choice at the moment. Good luck with them

retired_lizm5285

aye they do,i would of thought most people would choose Leeds

retired_freelander88

I would have thought that most challengers would have gone for the top clubs too (not that QPR are a crap club ) but nobody has really gone for any of the recently relegated club: Palace, Southampton, Norwich, etc, but instead the marjority seem to be picking up clubs such as Swindon, Barnsley and Mk Dons.

Good luck anyway

By the way maverick now that you're fairly well off i'll be collecting my challenge writing fee of two million, a cheque will be fine.

retired_blondie_524

I've picked QPR as I've supported them for 25 years. I usually try to shy away from managing them as I'm too close to them but since I've moved to Leeds, I've been looking for a good excuse to do a game with them

retired_blondie_524

With the choice decided the rest fell in place quite quickly. Paladini was only too happy to sell out for a more than generous price. He might have put a brave face on things in public but no one likes having a gun shoved up your nostrils. The FA were pleased to approve the sale to the group of us who could demonstrate we had money backing us so it was late in June that I headed for the airport to fly to Heathrow.

On the plane I went over my thoughts. I was more than happy the choice came out as QPR, the club I’d supported since the early 80’s. Of course I hadn’t let the lads in on this, they all thought I was a Leeds supporter because that was where I lived before I’d moved to Italy.
I thought we already had the basis of a good Championship side, I hoped I could introduce the tactics and the right players to take the final step back to the Premiership. The real problem areas as I saw it was a solid keeper, a central defense partner of Shittu and some reliable offence.

In the goalkeepers department we’d finally signed Simon Royce after a couple of loan spells with us. He was acceptable but unspectacular and I felt we could find better. Jake Cole was our U18 / reserve keeper, he was going to be a star but right now I felt he was maybe a year away from his destiny.

In defense Danny Shittu was first name on the sheet, big and lumbering he might seem but not much got past him on the ground or in the air Trouble was after that we had problems, new signing Ian Evatt from Chesterfield might prove the answer but he had suffered a number of injuries in the past. Milan Milanese was an experienced back who would do the job in the Championship but was too old to be a long-term solution. Marcus Bignot was solid at the other full back spot for this season but that was about it. Mathew Rose had been solid over the years since his transfer from Arsenal but he had suffered from being a jack of all trades master of none, capable of doing a job in midfield or anywhere along the back line he was useful on the bench. We had three good prospects in Dominic Shimmin, Pat Kanyuka and Ugochukweu Ukah but they were all not ready yet.

Midfield was quite a logjam of solid reliable players who wouldn’t let the R’s down but they might not have enough in the locker to win promotion. Lee Cook was a nippy little winger, Rangers through and through but slight of statue, easily knocked off the ball and prone to disappearing when it got tough. Aaron Brown was a tryout hopeful we’d first agreed to sign when his Bristol contract ran out but a broken leg had delayed that. We stood by him but he had a lot to do to convince me. Marc Bircham bled blue and white and was a Canadian international but was prone to long distance blasts that hit corner flags. Marcus Bean, Adam Miller, Stefan Bailey and Scott Donnelly were promising but just that. Kevin Gallen had started his career as a forward, he and Danielle Dichio had hit 96 goals between them in a season of U18’s, but these days had ended up in midfield. On his day he could be a real team leader although those were getting fewer and fewer now, would probably still end up my Captain. The right side was a real conundrum. Gareth Answorth and Martin Rowlands could destroy defenses with killer balls and incisive runs but were so inconsistent and the real enigma was Richard Langley. When he burst into the first team squad he was god, Hoddle, Maradona and Gerry Francis all rolled into one but a cruciate ligament injury robbed him of a year and he never seemed the same. Back from a big money move that went wrong at Cardiff he’ll have to worked harder than he ever has to stay at Loftus Road.

The forwards were a real mixture, Paul Furlong was a star with Chelsea long before they were superhuman but although he is the clubs top scorer, at 37 he is on the way out. Stefan Moore looks to be a good capture at the end of last season from Aston Villa reserves while Dean Sturridge and Marc Nygaard are trying to rebuild promising early careers that have faulted. 17 year old Shabazz Baidoo has the whole club excited but again he is probably a season away from fulfilling his potential.

My assistant manager, Tim Breaker is a former West Ham player that came over to us in the Trevor Sinclair transfer while Coaches Gary Waddock and Gary Penrice were both combative midfielders for us in their day, Joe Gallen is the uncle of Kevin. They’ll all keep their jobs and I’ll be advertising for some help for them as I feel specialist coaches for each activity is the way to go.

retired_blondie_524

Pre Season notes

The fans were very upset that such a legend as Ian Holloway had been replaced by such an unknown as Sam Smith but thankfully there was no more gun totting incidents just a stack of hate mail and demonstrations.
The adverts for new coaches went well and eight of the best candidates were given contracts. The most notable of these was the world class Polish coach, Jozef Mlynarczyk, who left Widzew Lodz to join us, he had won 45 caps for Poland during his playing career. Former Danish captain Brian Laudrup and England player Luther Blissett were also welcomed aboard.

The scouts were hard at work and I was able to recruit five players initially. Marcel Mahouve, a 32 year old Cameroon international defender was signed on a free, he has played for five clubs in France most notably Montpellier and spent last year on loan at Hamilton of Scottish Division One.

Mathieu Robail cost £45,000 from French Ligue 1 side Lille. He’s a 20-year-old who can play on both wings, he spent last year at Wasquehal where he scored 3 in 17 appearances.

25 year old Italian Francesco Ciullo arrived on a free after previously yo-yoing between Serie A and B, scored 18 goals in 34 appearances on loan to Pavia last season.

Stijn De Smet a 20 year old Belgian striker joined us on a season’s loan deal from Cercle Brugge where he scored four times in 27 appearances in 2004/05. Also from Bruge on a season long loan was 22 year old Belgian midfielder Kevin Roelandts. He came from their other club, Club Brugge where he has yet to make the breakthrough with just 20 appearances in two seasons.

I was still no nearer the solution to the goalkeeping problems though having been turned down by several Premiership clubs for their backups on loan and not being able to find one that offered more than I’d already got on my limited budget. I also offered round Paul Furlong for a knockdown £5,000 but got no takers.

Oxford took 18 year old defenders Mathew Hislop and Pat Kanyuka on six month loan deals to give them first team experience.

The preseason games went well. A visit to Scunthorpe saw the home side take a 33 minute lead before Stefan Moore scored a 57th minute equaliser. Local non-league side Hayes were run over 6-0 by a largely reserve side. Shabazz Baidoo showed his potential by scoring twice in the opening three minutes, Brown, Gallen (2) and Ainsworth rounded out the scoring. Jake Cole played well in the nets and kept his place for a 2-0 win at Bristol Rovers. Mathieu Robail and Stefan Moore scoring. A bizarre game at Yeovil saw a poor performance turn into a 3-0 win in the final minutes. Sturridge scored what looked to be the game’s only goal with five minutes left before the home goalie came up for a 90th minute corner which the R’s cleared up to Sturridge who scored in the empty net from 45 yards. Ciullo added a third deep into injury time when their keeper made a right hash of taking a free kick out on the touchline and it fell to the Italian to sidefoot home from 18 yards into another empty net.

The final week before the season saw two prestige home friendlies and the solution to the goalkeeping problem. Paul Lancaster agreed to join us on a seasons loan from Liverpool U18’s on Monday.
On Saturday 9,987 turned up for the visit of CSKA Moscow. The Russians scored following a defensive mix-up between Cole and Rose in the first minute but a powerful header from Moore in the 13th minute looked to have grabbed a draw. The visitors sealed a 2-1 win though when Pravosud scored with 18 minutes left.

Evening Standard, Tuesday 2nd August 2005

RANGERS KICK SOME GERMAN BUTT

The European nights returned to Loftus Road as Bayern Munich stepped out on the West London turf, the stars were all there, Kahn, Ze Roberto, Sagnol, Ballack, Scholl and Maakay to name a few. The last German side to play there, Schalke 04 way back in 1976 got their come upance and so did Bayern tonight.
In the 19th minute a sublime reverse ball by Ciullo sent Bignot away down the wing, he flick found Roelandts and he passed across the face of the 18 yard area to Gallen. The Loft End exploded as Kevin rolled back the years and drove a rocket into the roof of the net. The somewhat sparse crowd of 12,260 sounded like twice that when Ciullo’s curling cross in the 36th minute evaded everyone except Robail arriving late at the far post to power the ball deep into the gaping net. Debutante Lancaster was superb as he repelled wave after wave of German attacks and the R’s really should have added a third with five minutes left in the game. Substitute strikers Baidoo and De Smet had a two on nought break on Oliver Kahn but somehow contrived to mess it up. Paul Lancaster’s only mistake of the game was punished in the 92nd minute when he came for a cross that was nowhere near his and Stegmayer beat him to it. Danny Shittu was a deserved man of the match, he was dominant in the air and marshaled the Rangers defense with brilliance.
Queens Park Rangers 2-1 Bayern Munich

retired_jgirl87

Good luck with the challenge, Mav. I've had a soft spot for QPR since their early Division One days way back in the 1970's. :thup: