Martin Rowlands took the big prize at the annual Player of the Year dinner and dance, Tracy Stent has kindly provided LFW with an account of the evening.

Ok, now that the snooker final is over (congrats to Ronnie) I’ve got a bit of time to write about yesterday. Regarding the game, I predicted a 2-0 win to West Brom beforehand and when I looked at the betting slip saw I could have got 7-1 on that score. However, it goes against the grain to put money on the opposing side and the thing was, before our sending off the game had been evenly matched, in fact we were the side creating more, but once that happened it was effectively game over which was a real shame.

Another thing that was a shame was the PA balls up before the match when the mic packed up just as Flavio was just about to address the crowd. Didn’t happen with Fergie at Old Trafford when he told the fans there to enjoy Moscow after their game with the hammers and it was just so typical Rangers really that with all the press and media watching, Flavio’s big moment turned into a Norman Collier one. I wonder if we’ll ever find out what he was going to say? And if any of Les, Gerry etc were going to say a few words?

My man of the match was Ainsworth but Delaney and Zesh did well too. Well done to West Brom but I thought they over egged it a bit but then that’s possibly because we wanted to get away quick but refused to leave until we saw our players come out to do their final walk around the ground.

Onto the evening part of the day. The Player of the Year event was due to get underway from around 7pm but after a panic at home, we didn’t get there until nearly quarter to eight which had one fan sweating as I had his and his mate’s tickets The meal was really poor….the starter was fit only for rabbits, I like my vegetables but that was ridiculous…..the main wasn’t much better…..and the dessert included what was supposed to be some champagne jelly but what was three tiny little blobs on the plate which if you didn’t look properly you would have missed. We all had to be very careful we didn’t get too drunk on that. The coffee was stone cold so good job none of us were there for the meal as such.

The PA system at the hotel was so poor. The hosts were Phil Parry and Clive Walker but we couldn’t hear a word of what they were saying and when they were calling out the winners of the prize draw (they were charging a tenner for one ticket so we passed on that…why not a normal couple of quid for a strip etc?) and then doing the prize auction, it was a farce because we couldn’t make head or tail out of what was going on. Also, nowhere was it written anywhere as to what the proceeds were going towards and I didn’t hear anything mentioned on the night on stage. I’m not one to moan but that part of the proceedings was poor.

Then it picked up when the awards were being announced. The first award went to Vic Stephenson for supporter of the year (our rowdy lot were chanting how he never buys a round when he went up to collect his gift) and then Andy Evans from the football in the community department went on stage to announce the winner of the club’s special community award. Andy said that the winner of this award was a player that had shown such commitment to the cause…..that he had never in all his football years come across someone for a player so willing to do so much for the local kids/community and when he announced Zesh Rehman it was so lovely to hear him getting such warm applause (along with a couple of catcalls from three or so of his female fans ahem) because I can vouch also about him being a top bloke away from the pitch.

The next presentation was made to Gianni Paladini. There’s a bit of a story to this, so just to explain a bit….
A while back, a few of us thought it would be a nice touch to present him with something by way of recognition to him for the way he worked during the summer months of last year in bringing the new owners to this club.

So we thought a montage containing photos of himself (during his 4/5 years at this club) and quotes, some about the club from the past, and some from, and regarding GP, more recently. So half a dozen or so of us came up with ideas etc and the final result was presented to him in a frame last night as a surprise to him. Special mention must go to Funky because he worked on the design/cartoon character.

Then, on the night, two of us were going to present it to him, whilst one of us (yours truly) was going to say a few words. What happened was the club also did a presentation to GP from the staff and players etc, which was introduced by Gareth Ainsworth. He did a great speech and when GP went onto the stage to collect his presentation from Gareth, he received a really good reception. I was then called up to present him with something from the fans and because it all happened so quickly (the lady there was already trying to urge me to present it to GP) that I had to quickly call up the other two fans (Pat from the supporters club, and Spencer from friends of QPR) to ensure they too handed the gift to him as originally planned, but there was no time to give a few words to explain what it was about. We didn't mind as Gareth had already given a nice speech and we were just glad to be given the chance to present our gesture of thanks to him.

We’ve managed to upload an image of the montage onto our photos site which is available for viewing to show those what it looked like. It’s very big on the site but we have left it like that so as everyone interested can read the quotes used (didn’t know how to downsize it to include the quotes) and can be viewed by clicking here.

I was told later that there were copies of the cartoon character floating around and that GP was signing them.

Next up was the award for goal of the season and Akos Buzsaky was presented with this (from Flavio) for his goal against Blackpool and then came the most poignant moment of the whole day.

Gareth Ainsworth went back on stage to present the Ray Jones, players’ player of the year. He gave a speech saying how there are certain moments in a player’s life that he will never forget such as first game, first goal etc and he went on to say how all of the players in our squad will never forget the day/what they were doing when they heard the sad news about Ray Jones. He then said how his mum, Lorraine, was there and asked her to join him on stage to watch a video with everyone else commemorating some of Ray’s greatest moments during his short career.

It was incredibly sad seeing all his goals again, him speaking, mucking about etc, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one in the room to wipe a tear or two away whilst watching it, and then afterwards he presented Ray’s mum with the trophy for players’ player of the year to Ray. It must have been so hard for her to have spoken on that stage but she was so brave and said how proud her son would have been and that he only ever had one club and she would always be grateful for that. Mind you, just as she started speaking there was a sudden blasting of music coming from the speakers which was soon turned off but again, the poxy PA system was an embarrassment. Still, her son would have probably been laughing about it on looking down last night.

After such a heartbreaking, yet lovely presentation, it was nice for the next one to be given to another future star, this was to Michael Mancienne as young player of the year. He got up to accept it to chants of sign him up. And the final award went to Martin Rowlands who won the much coveted player of the year. And fully deserved too (Lee Camp was runner up).

After that, it was time for everyone to let their hair down, the disco started, and we took ourselves off in search of our heroes and to get snapping away with photos. Some of the players to our disappointment had already taken themselves off (heard a tale about Dexter being drunk early on so perhaps is just as well he departed early!) and we also heard how some of them were going off to some exclusive night club which I personally felt was out of order considering that fans had spent a lot of money purely just to try and grab two minutes with their heroes (it’s one night only folks). Anyway, the ones that we did manage to catch we had photos taken with and when hubby gets a chance he’ll upload them all onto the photos site in the week for interest.

Players I was most impressed with on the night were Gareth, Lee Camp, Zesh Rehman and our new signing. Poor young Matteo Alberti, he didn’t have a clue what was going on but when I spoke to Gianni in the outside bar bit, and he pointed out our new prodigy to me (we naturally had a photo taken with him) I asked GP what should I say to him and he just laughed and said just shake his hand and say welcome.

According to him, Alberti is a real prospect, will be playing on the right, and is very hopeful of getting Lee Cook back too. We shall see. Cerny has signed or is about to, can’t remember which. And hopefully Cranie will be coming back in the summer. I also pleaded with Michael Mancienne to sign for us and he laughed and said he couldn’t say anything (my gut feeling is that this time he is going back to Chelsea for good).

I didn’t get a chance to speak/say thank you to Gigi but did manage a few words with his coaching boys, one of whom was very complimentary about English people and the country in general and who both when asked launched into that Italian song (can’t remember how it goes) and we joined in with the arm waving. Their grasp of the language was pretty good actually so I can’t see the language barrier at the training ground being too much of a problem if I’m honest.

Flavio Biatore turned up around an hour/hour and half into proceedings and ended up getting mobbed. I actually found him quite rude but then in his position I suppose it doesn’t matter if people like you or not, in stark contrast to Gianni and Alejandro Agag and Amit Bhatia (sp?) who when I spotted the latter two together as they were making their way out, I made Amit laugh when I called them the boardroom boys and asked for a photograph with him. Boardroom he laughed, we’re all fans.

One fan I was chatting with said about Amit how when he was chatting with him he mentioned how they came in with their business heads and that already their hearts were involved.

The dancefloor was very hot but some of us milked it and it was a really enjoyable night because in the end it didn’t matter a jot that the players had departed as we spent the rest of it in some top company.

I suppose we got in around 1.45am and had a quick look on the internet before collapsing into bed and the last thing I read was about the Leicester City official message board being closed temporarily due to high volume of abusive messages. And that kind of made me a bit sad before dropping off as I couldn’t help remembering how we were all feeling on that day in Hillsborough following our promotion and yet four years later our then manager had suffered the ignominy of relegation with his new club. A new dawn at our club and all that but I couldn’t help giving Olly a little thought last night.

Anyway, hope you have enjoyed the little report from yesterday’s shenanigans. I didn’t get to hear too much gossip as the girls were more interested in getting photos and I kept getting told off if I stopped to chat to people.

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