Super Hoops In Excelsis (Or, Club Owned By World’s 7th Richest Man Described As “Minnows”)

Pending next Friday’s Football Association hearing to determine whether or not Queens Park Rangers’ fielding Alejandro Faurlin while the Argentine’s contract was held by a third party is deserving of a mild slap on the wrists or a 15 point deduction, QPR have clinched the 2010-2012 Npower Championship after this afternoon’s 2-0 win at Watford.  As a former QPR season ticket holder whose tenure included relegation to what used to be called Division Three, the ‘R’s (possible) return to England’s top flight is as surreal as it is long-awaited, an opinion perhaps held by the Sydney Morning Herald’s Richard Hinds, who attempts to rationalize his far-flung obsession with the W12 club that’s long been in the shadow of Chelsea. “There is something trainspotterishly satisfying about supporting a relatively obscure foreign team,” gushes Hinds (“for the Portland Trail Blazers fan in Wagga Wagga or the Grasshopper Zurich supporter in Ipswich”),  though he’s surely more satisfied when the team is actually winning something.

Brian Moore and the pounding theme to The Big Match. A George Best-ian character in the QPR hoops called Stan Bowles, complete with muttonchop sideburns, a multitude of antisocial habits and exquisite skills. A highly exotic (in rural Australian terms) ”QPR Is Magic” scarf brought home by a family friend. Pilgrimages to Loftus Road – OK, not exactly the Westminster Abbey of sport – during London days. The basis of a lifelong addiction. Now, the anguished attempts to follow the misfortunes of QPR have become compelling. At least more so than usual during the 17 long years since the ”Super Hoops” bestowed upon the Premier League their gifts of mid-table mediocrity, bloody managerial executions and a capacity for financial mismanagement that can make the Global Financial Crisis seem like a slight misunderstanding about the receipts at a primary school fete.