the end of the beginning of the end?

For the fans of most clubs whose new season opens with a home fixture, excitement must  surely be among the feelings felt when making the familiar journey to the ground. That excitement, of course, should be all the greater when the new season comes in the wake of a successful promotion campaign. In the case of promotion to English football's top flight, though, these feelings are likely to be mixed with some degree of nervousness about the months ahead because the difference in quality between the top division and the Championship is famously perceived to be a huge one. It does seem, too, that supporters of newly promoted sides have solid grounds for fearing a swift exit back from whence they came.

Matthew Wood is a regular contributor to the Montreal Gazette, Seattle's Real Change and to various soccer football and cricket blogs and sites. Perhaps a Brit living somewhere in the Pacific Northwest? On Friday, his own blog, Balanced Sports, carried an interesting analysis of the survival rates of teams promoted to Premier League since the 2000-01 season. This analysis, Wood asserts, "tells a stark tale". Put simply, it seems to be getting harder and harder for promoted clubs to establish a long term presence in the top division - and, as Wood points out, some clubs that have managed to remain at the top table for several years have done so only with the support of benefactors seemingly unfazed by incurring significant and ever-growing financial losses.

Even in the context of encouraging off-season transfer activity on the part of QPR, then, it would have been understandable if some of the fifteen thousand faces in yesterday's Loftus Road crowd had been wearing expressions reflecting nervousness as well as excitement about the prospect of top flight football for the first time in a one-and-a-half decades.

The summer break, though, has not brought QPR supporters many reasons to feel wildly optimistic about their team making a smooth transition to football played at a higher level. The transfer activity has not been terribly encouraging. Of the new additions to the squad, only one required a transfer fee - and a modest one at that. Of the others, two come to the club with poor injury records, notably  the talented Kieron Dyer who, true to form, was stretchered off the pitch under seven minutes into yesterday's tie with a fit, well-organised Bolton Wanderers side.

Once heavy defeat was assured for the home team, sections of the crowd turned their anger towards the padded seats of the directors' box. Those around me in the X Block focused this ire on the perma-tanned owner of (I believe) a 1% stake in the club, Flavio Briatore - he of the conviction for fraud, he of the indefinite ban from the 'sport' of Formula 1, he of the arrogantly dismissive attitude towards the lifelong supporters who follow QPR through thick and, more often, thin. As the angry chants were getting underway, Briatore scampered away from his seat and into the fabled luxury of the tarted up VIP spaces inside the South Africa Road stand. These chants made reference both to the chanters' low opinion of the Italian tycoon and to the fact that so little has been invested in upgrading the squad. Reference was also made to the greatly increased price of match tickets at the ageing west London ground.

Personally, I am more affronted by the latter than by the very restrained spending on players. I would  be happy enough to watch a side only modestly improved were I watching from  a more sensibly priced seat.

When I hear about the supporters of more prominent clubs 'demanding' success or feeling  that they 'deserve' it, the emotions described are quite unfamiliar to me. As I've previously explained at some length here at this is my england, my love of QPR is much more to do with roots and identity than it is about the outcomes of particular matches or seasons. When especially good games pop up, the pleasure is all the sweeter for its rarity. When a whole season unfolds as satisfyingly as 2010-11 campaign, then that pleasure is sweeter still for being more sustained and for its building towards a really memorable climax. It's sometimes been very clear to me, though, that supporters of some of the bigger clubs just don't get to enjoy themselves in quite that way.

For example, towards the end of the 1992-93 season, I found myself watching QPR in one of the home areas of Highbury. It was a culture shock. The Arsenal fans around us were grumbling and groaning about the way the season had turned out. Their team had already beaten Sheffield Wednesday to win the League Cup and was scheduled to face the same opponents in the FA Cup Final. My heart bled. What a shitty time of it they must have been having. While Arsenal's league form had indeed been patchy, one cup was in the bag and they were looking good to win another. I found their supporters' response to this to be peevish and joyless. It struck me then that silverware must have similar addictive qualities to a stimulant like cocaine - a fucking blast at first, but with an ever-diminishing reward for the pleasure centres of the brain. In more recent times, Chelsea's sugar daddy Roman Abramovich seems to have been suffering from this syndrome, obsessively craving the ultimate high of winning the Champions League. In fact, I have a hunch about what could happen should our friends from SW6 finally prevail in Europe's top club competition. I can imagine Abramovich turning his back on the boys in blue and seeking the next level in billionaire's thrill-seeking. Perhaps that would be throwing endless money at the infrastructure of the game in his native country, doing anything it takes to see the World Cup paraded around Red Square.

Back to QPR. Last season, the usually intense enjoyment of a promotion season seemed for quite a while to be in doubt, despite the team's commanding form. Paperwork fuck-ups (and clumsy attempts to cover them up) on the part of Gianni Paladini, our club's clownish Chairman, could have led to a promotion-denying points deduction. So far, we have heard nothing to suggest that Paladini was asked to pay the resulting £875,000 fine (seen by some as a mere 'slap on the wrist') out of his own pocket.

Promotion notwithstanding, any QPR fan inclined to have a moan can pick from a list of personalities and problems to have that moan about. My own pet peeve happens to be Paladini. Hence my recently created item of leisure wear:

When Briatore left his seat and bolted out of sight, one man who apparently remained in the directors' box was a certain Tony Fernandes, the Malaysian principal of Formula 1's Team Lotus and the man responsible for reviving the fortunes of the previously ailing Air Asia.

According to yesterday's Guardian, Fernandes "could be announced as the new owner of Queens Park Rangers on Monday in a deal that would mean the Asian businessman taking control of the club from Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore, in partnership with Lakshmi Mittal, who already owns 33%."

If the numerous QPR internet messageboards provide an accurate reading of supporters' sentiments, it seems that many would welcome the club being taken from the hands of Ecclestone and his orange-skinned sidekick. Rumours are flying around to the effect that Mr. Fernandes will hand QPR's excellent manager Neil Warnock the funds needed to strengthen the team more significantly. Where this stuff comes from, I don't know. 'Sources', I guess. Perhaps even 'sources' a little more reliable than the ones who had convinced seedy tabloid hacks (such as the Sun's Shaun Custis) that the Rangers were definitely going to docked points for Paladini's fuck-ups last season.

But something worries me about the prospect of a Fernandes 'takeover' - his links to Formula 1. How are we to know that this would really be new money? How would we be sure that this is not some complicated way of the current owners keeping a stake in our club while a pal of theirs takes flak from pesky supporters? Also, consider some numbers being bandied around: the £100 million valuation that Ecclestone has apparently put on the club; the £300 million that's supposed to be the net worth of Tony Fernandes. If these numbers are accurate, wouldn't the purchase of the of a controlling stake in a football club of that value tie up a lot of his money? Something doesn't feel right. I hope I'm wrong. Let's see.

Well, maybe this imminent supposed takeover is beginning of the end of the brash, vulgarian Ecclestone-Briatore era at Loftus Road. Or just the end of the beginning of the end. Or maybe not. Either way, I just hope they SACK PALADINI NOW. Does anyone want a t-shirt?