Football Days

Loftus Road - Queens Park Rangers FC

Queens Park Rangers 3-0 Walsall

28/08/12 - League Cup 2nd Round

Att: 6,129

With a trip to Newcastle a matter of days away funds are running quite low and as a result I couldn't justify shelling out £60+ for travel and ticket for Villa's cup tie with Tranmere, so I looked to a game closer to home and traveled to Loftus Road to see my guilty pleasure, Walsall. It was also a nice opportunity to visit a Premier League ground and not have to part with silly money for the experience, with tickets for this one at just £15.

Getting to grounds in London is always pretty easy from where I live and having been to Loftus Road before to see Celtic in a pre-season friendly in 2007, I already knew the route on the underground. I got the fast train from Farnborough, taking around half an hour to reach Waterloo. As I had plenty of time on my hands I headed to Upton Park to grab a few pics for the site that I didn't manage to get when I was there a couple of weeks back. Once that was done I just sat on the Hammersmith & City line and it took me straight to Wood Lane, just a short walk from the ground.

I took a walk around and took some pictures of the outside while waiting for the coaches from Walsall to arrive. Once they did I met up with my mate Dan and we went off in search of a pub. Unfortunately, my directional skills are useless and the search didn't go too well. With kick off approaching, we abandoned the search and headed towards the ground. We then failed to find the turnstiles, which it turns out were on the South Africa Road, by the club shop.

Loftus Road was first built in 1904 and was originally home to Shepherd's Bush FC who were dissolved in 1915, the same year that QPR's ground at Park Royal was commandeered by the army and by 1917 it was home to The R's and has been ever since. The oldest part of the current ground is the South Africa Road Stand, which was constructed in 1968. Since then there's been executive boxes and seats installed to the two-tiered stand, which also houses the press box and the players' tunnel. Opposite that is the Ellerslie Road Stand, which was opened in 1972. It's a steep one tiered stand with pillars supporting the roof, which would impact on the view from that stand. The School End was built at one end of the ground in 1980 and a year later The Loftus Road End was built to complete the current ground. Both end stands are similar in size and design, both consisting of two tiers and all four stands come together to create a very tight, compact, snug venue for football. In 1994 the ground was made all seated, reducing the capacity to 18,360 - The smallest in the Premier League.

After several years of managerial changes and general madness of having Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone in charge, QPR returned to the top flight in 2011 after Neil Warnock guided them to the Championship title. Despite bringing Premier League football back to Loftus Road for the first time since 1996, Warnock was sacked by new owner Tony Fernandes and Mark Hughes was hired in his place. Despite spending big money on new players, safety wasn't assured until the last day of the season when Rangers survived despite a last gasp 3-2 defeat at Manchester City. This summer has seen more arrivals, with Park Ji-Sung, Rob Green and Junior Hoilett joining the club and rumours rife that Brazilian 'keeper Julio Cesar is on his way. Despite this, QPR got off to a nightmare start when they crashed to a 5-0 opening day defeat to Swansea.

In recent season's QPR have struggled in the cups, with Rochdale and Port Vale dumping The R's out of the League Cup in recent times. With this in mind it was possible that there would be an upset here, with League One Walsall making a reasonable start to the season, having picked up 4 points from their opening 3 games, including a 1-0 win at Notts County last time out. Mark Hughes said in his programme notes that he was taking the competition seriously and this was evident in his team sheet as he named a very strong line up for the match. It would seem that a strong line up and cheap tickets weren't enough to wet the appetite of the home supporters, as a disappointing crowd of just over 6,000 turned out for the game, with over 400 of those travelling from the West Midlands.

As the teams entered the pitch there was a good atmosphere being created by the Walsall supporters, who were housed in the School End Lower. With the Loftus Road End upper tier and the whole Ellerslie Road Stand closed, there was a strange feeling inside the ground and not much enthusiasm from the home supporters. It was a fairly even contest from the kick off, with Walsall enjoying some good spells of possession, without really creating many clear cut chances. QPR should have taken the lead when Andy Johnson had a free header, but he somehow managed to put it wide. Walsall's resistance was broken after half an hour when Shaun Wright-Phillips got on to the end of Zamora's pass to slide the ball under Grof, who might have done a bit better.

It was 1-0 at the break and in the second half Walsall went looking in search of an equaliser and they very nearly got it when Will Grigg's header cannoned off the cross bar, the ball then somehow stayed out during the goal mouth scramble that followed. Despite this scare QPR doubled their lead in the 66th minute when Bobby Zamora's superb chip left Grof helpless as the game was all but wrapped up. Bowerman almost got the visitors back into the game late on, but Jose Bosingwa found the back of the net in the 84th minute to complete the scoring.

While QPR were worthy of their win, I felt the 3-0 scoreline was slightly harsh on Walsall who got the ball down and played some really nice stuff against their Premier League opponents. They certainly gave a very good account of themselves and if they can find a cutting edge in front of goal I think they'll prove many "experts" wrong who had them down as relegation certainties. As for QPR, they did what they needed to do and avoided an upset. After a well earned draw at Carrow Road and with further signings in the pipeline, I'm sure they'll look to do better than last season, despite Walsall fans taunting the hosts with chants of "You're going down with the Villa!" I've never heard of anything so absurd, I think QPR will be fine... Villa, on the other hand...

Due to the low crowd there was no problem getting a train back and I was back in Waterloo in good time. There was a 20 minute wait for the connection back to Farnborough, but it was a fast train and I was home just after 11pm. It had been an enjoyable evening, I really like Loftus Road with it's neat layout, tightness and character. It was a good game, with both sides playing football on the ground and I'm looking forward to returning with Villa on 1st December.