| Semi-final match report of sorts: the view from Bogotá, Colombia 07:53 - May 13 with 3095 views | ColombiR |
11pm. El Correo De La Noche - or the night mail as they call it - brings me 12 cans of Club Colombia. All praise Colombia's chronic laziness and consequent ability to order takeaway alcohol. Impromptu Monday drinking session in flat. They look down on that kind of thing on a weekday in Colombia. (nb Colombia, not Columbia… subject for another day)
Salsa on loud. Bass p*ssing off the neighbours. Me legs moving like a maniac's (at a pace Legs 'o' wood ne'er manag'd). Several beers in. Several more now. U RRRS. Time for the outpouring.
(Clears throat)
11.45am (17.45 in Shepherd's Bush). Colombian girlfriends are definitely worth keeping: so accept quick (it'd better be) lunch invitation and help with weekly shop on condition of uninterrupted to access to her high-speed internet. Charge into taxi at 1.40pm (five minutes before kick-off) and am turning on laptop as game starts. Stream fantastic, best of the season. Surely a good sign?
Work? Sorta put that aside for the afternoon. What's the point of being a freelance journalist if you can't "work" by sending emails while jumping up and down in your girlfriend's living room.
Am not in block EL, didn't get the tube from Hanger Lane, didn't miss kick-off, but no matter, whatsapp is doing the job for now. Fellow Ranger, school friend, is in Boston in my situation. We're both living the atmosphere via fellow school friend, our best mate, in EL with all his family. All three of us were there at Vauxhall Motors. All three p*ssed away a December bank holiday to watch Clive Platt sh*t all over us at Notts County. Fill the Loftus Road void by uploading a video onto Facebook of a tuneful chorus of EEEEERIC SAAAABIN, I'll never forget when he hit the net that time at Grimsby (WE WAS THERE), taken on my work trip to Boston which included a heartfelt Rangers reunion with other above-mentioned expat.
0-1. FFS Rangers. Standard. Pisspoor defending. Where's Ravel? Should be in England squad and can't get in our team. This season's Taarabt, agrees Whatsapp, people forget how good he is.
Clattenburg MOTM so far. I can't look as McClean goes over Green. Clattenburg, the guardian angel of Loftus Road 2003 and 2011 and Hillsborough 2004, spots the dive just after I've sunk my head into hands, convinced the game is over. Greatest referee ever.
But what's this? Niko's playing like he's not had McDonalds for dinner, Junior Hoilett must think he's wearing a Blackburn shirt again, "Gaz" O'Neill (does anyone call him Gaz outside of Twitter ffs?) is the new Gennaro Gattuso. it appears we are actually trying to break down the opposition.
Anger, real anger. Where on earth has this tempo been all season? Awoken from this apathy. How in the name of God (popular as He is, here in Colombia) have Hoillett, Austin, Krancjar (Niko Krancjar for crying out loud), Barton, Morisson, Traore, Benayoun, Doyle, Assou-Ekotto (even him) not cr*pped all over this division and taken the time afforded them by wrapping up the championship in March to take a victory lap through the streets of Bogotá? Why are we being taken for mugs yet again?
Still, electric atmosphere at LR. Stay positive. Reassure each other via the internet. Got to keep saying we're going to do this. Not going to be the one to admit to the group chat that he's sh*tting it, that we've left it too late, that I'm just annoyed we didn't play with this urgency this all season. Breaks my heart: so much potential for success, Ollie would have married that bird he got in the taxi and had breakfast with (am I remembering his analogy correctly?) for the chance to work with this budget at Rangers.
No. We're the favourites. We're better than them. We're Rangers, we're under the lights, we allow ourselves these rare pleasures. We are QPR.
Clattenburg returns to the fray. Clear penalty. Massive penalty. Definite. Stonewall.
It's impossible for a QPR fan to really believe we're gonna score here. Even King Kev was useless at penalties. Brave losers, us. But this is a new era, we can't buy spirit or blue and white hair but we can buy Charlie Austin. And he's the best striker in the division. Real quality. Really cares. 1-1. No worries.
Want to complain. Force of habit. Why are we letting up the intensity now? Why let Wigan back into the game? But I can't find the will. Just got to submit to the monster that is supporting a football team, that ruins your life and your ability for rational thought, but brings out your ability to find beauty in your fellow human's emotion, in any kind of sense of community and shared experience. I love you blue and white hoops. I love you girlfriend who can't even pronounce QPR but paints her nails blue and white hoops as a gesture of solidarity. Sometimes the sun will shine on us, and my atheist mind will say God's a superhoop, like we used to claim at North Ealing primary. Sky's blue and white you see.
Coffee offered to me around 85 minutes: if my heart wasn't exploding already, it's just beaten itself into smithereens with the caffeine boost.
Extra time. Can't remember much about the game any more. Charlie scored, cos he's a Ranger. Bobby Zamora, in Matt Rose's pocket since circa 2002, escapes to put himself about and all of a sudden we're good. 2-1.
Blur of images as 24 further minutes go on and on but I don't remember a single chance. We only bloody did it.
Hug and kiss my girlfriend. Scream and shout. Girlfriend's daughter looks scared.
Yes, we're really a shambles of a club in many ways. Yes we've probably underachieved for our budget.
And yes, I probably chose the right time - the second half of the Mark Hughes era - to leave the country. But still it hurts not to be there. Another but: it would have hurt more to lose. Whether in Latin America or down the road from the BBC, from White City Station, from the abomination of a pub that is the Walkabout, Shepherd's Bush. We did it. We are QPR. We won a huge game. This is why football beats us up - in spite of B league proposals from ex-BBC directors, in spite of Steve Claridge, in spite of Jose Bosingwa, in spite of tripling ticket prices as the average wage stalls - and this is why we love it. Morons, but happy, fulfilled, united morons. And let in on a secret beauty unknown to those who've never had a six hour coach journey to let a shoddy 3-0 away defeat to Tranmere sink in.
I love you Harry, you crook, still calling us "them", Niko you mercenary, Barton's ego, Zamora's dislike of football how does that even work, and I love you Junior aren't you ashamed of how little you've achieved with your talent you should have been ripping up the Premiership by now?. I love all of you. You're Rangers tonight. You've seen what we are. Now you know us. Even Tony, I won't call you Uncle but I'll say well done, you've chosen our little club, you've chosen to make it something it's not, but I'll forgive you, you're a Ranger tonight. United. Chairman, manager, players, Kevin Bond and Joe Jordan what do these boys even do on training pitch, as the refrain goes, a little less politely… you'll all come and go but we supporters are Rangers, we always will be. And you are tonight. That's good enough for us.
Oldham at home. QPR circa 2001 are better than Arsenal because we beat Stockport County who beat York City who beat Man U 3-0 in the 1995/96 League Cup, and Man U beat Arsenal to the league. Definitive proof. You heard me, armchair Gunner from my year 9 history class.
He believed us, the hilarious bastard.
This sensation. Love, only love. The world, a better place.
There's only one Rob Wilson (& family). He sat through last season when one of us was in Boston, the other in Colombia. He deserves this somehow probably more than us. My distress at missing tonight assuages my guilt at not having been there week-in, week-out, as I envisaged I would be as a 16-year old, without another life. Is it just that his passion, running, let him stay in London? Whereas ours - speaking and living in Spanish, and having a go at actually football at a higher level - led us away from this great island, referred to by Pete Doherty as Albion. (I hope Pete's happy tonight, teenage years hero). We're now Rangers through Rob. There's only one Dan Highfield, of Ealing, there's only one Michael Beeson of Boston, Massachusetts. There's only one Darryl 'Dave' Shave of Drayton Manor High School, Hanwell and Langley, Berkshire, who drew us terrible diagrams of the USA in history lessons but came with us to Notts Forest away while we were in Year 12. And who left all of us for good in 2009, tragically, just before he got to see Adel tear up Preston from the sideline on halfway. Before he saw the year of Clint, Shaun Derry My Lord, and Ale Faurlin - the Ranger I love even more irrationally than everyone else because in an imaginary world I could meet him one day and speak his language, even put on a porteño (Buenos Aires) accent.
There's only one Clive Wittingham, greatest sports journalist on the planet, with a obsessive following that would probably make him feel a little uncomfortable if they manifested it in person. This is for him and his ability to have to write and think about how fundamentally f*cked up so much about QPR is without it damaging his loyalty.
A strange part of me thinks Adel smiled for us tonight. He probably didn't but I don't blame him. Become the best player in the world, lad, you owe us nothing. Still love you.
I think, for the first time, that my girlfriend, from a supposed football-loving but in reality twisted nation where even league-deciding matches can't fill stadiums but gangs will happily begin knife fights in a provincial town over El Puto Clásico between Real Madrid and Barcelona (a real derby would be Atleti-Real, Barca-Espanyol, you tw*ts) in the country on the other side of the ocean that bloody colonialised them, finally understands what I say when I say I'm a Rangers fan (way above what I feel for her beloved Once Caldas, always will be, though I love the fact this small mountain village in Colombia won the Libertadores in 2004).
AND NOW THE DILEMMA.
Can I afford to change my trip back home to May 23rd.
Probably not, to be fair. Quick calculations of airline charges at such a late date. Possibly could but should I? That's without mentioning girlfriend's cousin's wedding, which we've been looking forward to for months. Either decision would feel like a betrayal. Scrambling for a way round all this…
A question for another day.
I love you, Queens Park Rangers.
Funny thing about football, we could lose at Wembley, and I'll be more heartbroken than I would've been today. Derby should beat us, probably will, but I know I'll think we're favourites, somehow. I just have to.
However, nothing (not even Andy Campbell), nothing will take away Furlong v Oldham 2003, and nothing will take away Austin v Wigan 2014.
Nothing.
And I wasn't even there. |  | | |  |
| Semi-final match report of sorts: the view from Bogotá, Colombia on 08:40 - May 13 with 3022 views | Red_Ranger |
Quality. I love you ColombiR. | | | |
| Semi-final match report of sorts: the view from Bogotá, Colombia on 09:39 - May 13 with 2949 views | ColombiR |
| Semi-final match report of sorts: the view from Bogotá, Colombia on 08:40 - May 13 by Red_Ranger |
Quality. I love you ColombiR. |
Muchas gracias   | | | |
| Semi-final match report of sorts: the view from Bogotá, Colombia on 20:35 - May 13 with 2856 views | ColombiR |
Very little recollection of writing this post.
U RRRRS | | | |
| Semi-final match report of sorts: the view from Bogotá, Colombia on 20:51 - May 13 with 2828 views | BklynRanger |
Highly entertaining stuff. I could almost sense the cerveza coursing through your brain. |  | | |
| Semi-final match report of sorts: the view from Bogotá, Colombia on 21:31 - May 13 with 2795 views | connell10 |
brilliant! |  |
| AND WHEN I DREAM , I DREAM ABOUT YOU AND WHEN I SCREAM I SCREAM ABOUT YOU!!!!! | | Poll: | best number 10 ever? |
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| Semi-final match report of sorts: the view from Bogotá, Colombia on 06:43 - May 14 with 2573 views | TearsOfaClown |
Excellent report . . . . please tell us more about "Colombian girlfriends are definitely worth keeping" in the next one. |  | | |
| Semi-final match report of sorts: the view from Bogotá, Colombia on 09:04 - May 14 with 2520 views | toboboly |
| Semi-final match report of sorts: the view from Bogotá, Colombia on 20:35 - May 13 by ColombiR |
Very little recollection of writing this post.
U RRRRS |
Brilliant stuff none-the-less. |  |
| Sexy Asian dwarves wanted. |
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| Semi-final match report of sorts: the view from Bogotá, Colombia on 09:22 - May 14 with 2511 views | simmo |
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| ask Beavis I get nothing Butthead |
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| Semi-final match report of sorts: the view from Bogotá, Colombia on 16:43 - May 14 with 2447 views | ColombiR |
| Semi-final match report of sorts: the view from Bogotá, Colombia on 06:43 - May 14 by TearsOfaClown |
Excellent report . . . . please tell us more about "Colombian girlfriends are definitely worth keeping" in the next one. |
TearsOfaClown: of the many reasons - some of which probably need no explanation - include unqualified support for a) QPR and b) my ludicrous ambitions to help set up and play for Colombia's national cricket team...
Exhibit a) she took it seriously when I said she should paint her nails blue and white for the semi-final
Glad I could provide some entertainment... what a night! | | | |
| Semi-final match report of sorts: the view from Bogotá, Colombia on 17:50 - May 14 with 2424 views | Aunt_Nelly |
Quality. |  | | |
| Semi-final match report of sorts: the view from Bogotá, Colombia on 02:09 - May 19 with 2319 views | qprmick |
Great read, can't wait for the next instalment. | |
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