Another month, another manager. Just when we thought things had started to settle down at QPR, the managerial merry-go-round has started up again. The club finds itself looking for a new manager only four months after appointing the last one.
For many of us the sight of our manager leaving the club rather than the other way round is a novel one. We usually fire our managers rather than see them poached by somebody else.
The decision by Michael Beale to return to Ibrox has angered many Loftus Road regulars. But the approach by Glasgow Rangers to Beale was not the first.
QPR's early run of good form had obviously alerted a lot of clubs to his undoubted talents as a coach and motivator. A few weeks earlier and after only 14 games in charge at Loftus Road, he turned down the chance to move to the Midlands and manage Premier League Wolves. Though at the time it was reported as a done deal, I had a feeling he wouldn't go.
If nothing else, Beale is obviously a very hard-headed realist with few illusions about the football business. If the move to Wolves had gone wrong – and Wolves are still in serious danger of relegation – he would have been fired by them and left with little on his CV to show for it. But the Glasgow job was obviously different. He has very strong emotional ties to the club. It was a unique offer from a football-crazy city unlikely to be repeated. So I for one don't blame him for taking it.
Football management is a cruel and brutal business. QPR have now hit a sorry patch of form with one point from our last five games. He would have known full well that if we had lost say three more games those very same fans who are bemoaning his lack of loyalty would have been calling for him to be sacked in the morning.
But Beale did make one big unforgivable mistake. After turning down the Wolves job, he gave an interview in which he said he was staying at QPR because 'integrity and loyalty are big things for me'; he had persuaded so many others to come, 'I can't be the first person to run away from the ship'. You can't very publicly pledge your loyalty to a club one week and walk out the next. Even in a game notorious for its insincerity, there's only so much hypocrisy us supporters can take.
So where do QPR go from here? The hunt for a new manager has already started with several names mentioned but no clear favourite yet.
The incoming manager will have to work for a club that is losing thousands of pounds weekly and which is seriously hamstrung by the League Fair Play rules. The new manager will inherit a team appreciably stronger than last season but with several key players here only because they were persuaded to come by Beale. They will also inherit a stadium of supporters who had begun to dream after the early season romp up the table; there will be pressure from the stands if results continue to flag.
But we have made some progress. The new model of finding a younger, relatively unknown, up-and-coming coach does look a much better bet than just bringing in the next available pundit from the Sky studio roster. And despite the setbacks of the last few weeks we are still on the edge of the playoffs. So for the wild eyed optimists among us – and you have to be one of those to be at Loftus Road in the first place – there is still all to play for this season.
Phil Harding is a journalist and writer. He lives in Hammersmith, is a season ticket holder at QPR and has supported the team since the early 70s.
The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and unless specifically stated are not necessarily those of Hammersmith & Fulham Council.
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