Lloydy goes Plymouth..

Vår man på plats rapporterar från fjärde raka

I tried to come up with a title for this piece but you try rhyming something with Pacquette that actually makes any sense. We are fortunate that headline writing though is not our business and nor that of the young forward. A brilliantly taken goal by the lad had around 1500 QPR fans going completely mad some 230 miles away from London.

Of course the match was not the start of the weekend for the Rangers faithful who had to negotiate what must be one of the longest trips in the season and not long after Christmas. It is unfortunately rare that we get any of the ‘seaside’ games when the weather is good though Blackpool away does fall just after Easter this year so I would expect a large following at that one especially if we are still in the hunt for promotion.

After Saturdays game of that there would seem to be no doubt, 2003 has started very brightly with 4 wins in 4 games and no goals conceded. Whilst the previous few matches have been against very poor teams Plymouth were a great improvement on Stockport or Barnsley and as a result Rangers played much better.

You have though all read various reports of the match already and don’t need me to go through another one. My weekend started on Friday when it was off to Portishead (yes, named after the band!), a small town near Bristol and about half way to Bristol.

Why mention Portishead, well apart from warming up for 90 minutes of hooped action by watching the impressive Sheffield United win the local derby against Sheffield Wednesday on TV with a die hard United fan it was off out on the town to see what the South West has to offer.

Now I don’t know how many of you have ventured to that part of the UK but the views were stunning, now bearing in mind it was dark outside and I was in a pub I don’t think you need me to finish that sentence…

I was then awoken at 8:30am Saturday morning by Kevin Hastings who was over from Washington DC (not all travelling fans are Swedish!!) to find out what time I was going to be in Plymouth as he was already heading down that way himself. I could have done with not being woken quite that early but it got me up and about and so I got in the car and headed across Somerset and Devon to the South Coast to the final destination of Plymouth.

First up was to find the hotel and whilst maps are great they don’t really explain the bizarre one-way street systems and so I drove round Plymouth a couple of times before finding the hotel and Kevin called to say he was in a pub just behind the hotel where he had come across some other QPR fans. Not only that he had just witnessed the team wandering the sights of Plymouth in some sort of Holloway inspired pre-match preparation which must have worked as we were to discover.

For a team in the 2nd Division it is amazing how you can just wonder into a pub the other side of the country and find QPR fans outnumbering the locals and so it was straight into the ‘Yardarm’ for a few pints before getting a cab to the ground.

Plymouth have a very impressive almost finished stadium and if they can attract some better quality players will certainly be looking to challenge for promotion to the 1st in the next couple of years.

Fortunately food was on offer in the ground though as usual they managed to underestimate the size of the away following and so had run out during half time.

The match ended with a scuffle around the tunnel and then the whole team came back out onto the pitch to applaud the fans, which was great to see, confidence has obviously returned to the side that was so obviously missing before Christmas.

After the match it was back to the hotel to check in and we discovered that dinner was included in the price so we arranged to eat at seven and it was back to the pub for a couple more pints first with the Stonebridge R’s and ‘Flatfoot’ who was waiting for a train back to Bristol.

After dinner, time to change and off into town. Plymouth is unfortunately not the best town I have been to on my travels but there were a lot of familiar faces around town and the beer was reasonable priced. We did our best to explore the best places to drink but the weather was against us and so we ended up soaked but warmed by alcohol until closing time and then it was back to the hotel bar for a couple more beers before crashing out to sleep it off before the long trip home.

The trip back was fairly uneventful but the lack of other cars on the road meant we were back to West London in about 4 hours. The only interesting thing Sunday was running into an old chap from just outside London who for his 70th Birthday was treated to seeing Plymouth for the first time in 25 years only for the to get beaten – well I should feel sorry for him but…err…I don’t.

Early news for next weekend is that Langley may well be rested for another week rather than overstretch his knee, Thomson is back in training as is Padula after he limped off on Saturday and as yet Angell’s future is undecided but Furlong will return from suspension so it may well be that Gallen will continue in midfield.

Of course Saturdays match may be nothing to do with the players but more to do with me having kept to my new found New Year ritual of a cup of Bovril at half-time but I’ll think on that for next time…