35 years ago today...

I began with home games only in 1966 but by the following year I had a few away days under my belt including that marvellous day at Villa Park when we reached the heady heights of Division One for the first time ever. I never missed a home game in the seventies and took in quite a few aways and the 80's and 90's were enjoying all the home games and a very high number of aways including a season of every match we played. The passion never left me when I went out to work in the US in the late 90'sbut I was only able to afford to get back to two or three games in the season and when I returned I ended up landing a job which meant a lot of overseas travel and very fw games each season watching QPR and very little of those were away games. This trait persisted right through the 'noughties' with me only getting to see a handful of games and, I have to admit, the attraction faded a bit as we dropped divisions, swapped managers like underwear and generally struggled. I retired from work and was very lucky to be offered a season ticket in SAR for the start of the 2010-11 seasn. What a time to be alive!!! The passion came flooding back, a lot of away games were back on the agenda and it was like I was a teenager again. I still have my season ticket but now in the Upper Loft and since the death of my step daughter I no longer go to away games but I still feel the passion of watching the R's live and will renew my season ticket every season until I am no longer able to drive my car from North Oxford and back. QPR has brought me through the full gamut of emotions from delerium to despair but mostly it has brought me a QPR family of around 250 fellow fans and that has shown itself to be far more important than a good or bad result.