Over the years, Grimsby Town FC has succeeded in establishing a network of unhappy hunting grounds all over this green and sometimes pleasant land and in his third article for www.gtst.net, Chris Smith journies south to QPR where we have achieved great things...when it comes to losing.

I was having a scribble about the good old days the other night (but don’t tell the employer) and QPR came to mind. Funny team, QPR. Until very recently, whenever we met they were normally in the ascendancy and whilst our record at Loftus Road was execrable to say the least, they were no great shakes at our ground either.

The first time I remember us playing them was in the1980/1 season around April. We were actually looking set for a third consecutive promotion but went down 1-0 and then blew out next week at home to West Ham, who won 5-1. We’d only let in four at home all season until then but an injury to Bob Cumming when we had used our only substitute meant that the walkaway champions got a somewhat skewed scoreline. It was the QPR game that broke the winning momentum however and the game was significant in that respect. We finished 7^th with QPR just below, if I remember correctly, having drawn at home 0-0 earlier in the season at a time when we couldn’t buy a goal. Does that sound familiar?

It was a complete turnaround the next season. QPR were having a blinding season and Town decided to struggle for a change. Rangers had also installed their controversial plastic pitch so we have something to blame our defeats on. Town played a league game around February and were unlucky to lose only 1-0 so hopes were high for the following week when we were due to play them in the fifth round of the FA Cup having despatched Millwall and Newcastle away 6-1 and 2-1 respectively. Those were the days eh? Automatically through to Round Three.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. Despite the backing of thousands of fans, we lost 3-1, scoring a consolation late on in the game, which sparked a pitch invasion by our feistier fans. The game was marred by outbreaks of violence and, it has to be said, mainly by our travelling support. This received a good deal of press coverage and didn’t endear me to my QPR supporting teacher of Quantitative Methods at University, a subject I already struggled woefully in. You see, it was all their fault (remember that song at Chesterfield last season-stolen from Brentford) that I got a lower classification degree and Thatcher’s for destroying the economy at the same time. Nothing to do with my bar attending, which is what I thought BA stood for.

QPR, managed by Terry Venables, went on to take Spurs to a replay in the Final and their efforts in this competition cost them promotion to Division 1. Town stayed up with a game to spare in a campaign of fixture backlogs caused by one of our last real winters. Oddly enough, the second half of the season was enjoyable as we remembered how to score goals and the 2006/7 season reminded me of this where the latter games dispelled the memory of the earlier struggles. We scored more than in our promotion near miss in 1980/1, but our defence was a bit awry. We did beat them 2-1 early in the season at home, which was to prove our last home win for six months.

The 1982/3 season saw QPR mount a successful promotion campaign. Town carried on where they had left off in the first half of the previous campaign. In scenes reminiscent of the early part of this season, our normally spot on keeper, Nigel Batch, was having a mixed time and this was due in no small part to the non-existent defence. We bowed out 4-0 at Loftus Road at a time when we weren’t badly placed in the table having drawn our first game and then won six. This gave us an artificial fourth place in February, after which we then failed to win another game. This defeat could be added to two 4-0 defeats by Fulham, 3-0 at Wolves, 5-2 at Chelsea (when we were top). I can’t go on. There were plenty more of that magnitude, suffice to say. We needed a point from the last game of the season and got it in a 1-1 draw with the champions, QPR.

QPR then enjoyed a sustained run in Division 1, which later became the Premier League. And they had still never won at Blundell Park! I moved into West London in 1989 and QPR became one of the nearest teams to me. However, as I lived in Hounslow rather than Hammersmith and was even then showing a preponderance to support lower league teams, I followed Brentford as a second team. However, hard though it is to believe, QPR were one of the top teams in the capital and had finished above all other comers there, including Arsenal. Had it not been for some awful starts to some seasons, they could have finished even higher.

I went along occasionally where finances meant a trip up North was out of the question as a lad from work followed them. They also played some Monday and Wednesday games, which meant it didn’t tend to interfere with any of our midweek games. I have to say that I am inclined to agree with the Rangers fans that refer to Sir Les. It was a pleasure watching him. He also helped out my local non-league team, Hayes, who got a £500,000 sell on fee when he moved to Newcastle. Unlike many fans, I enjoy watching a game as a neutral and treating myself to watching a higher standard of football than I am normally used to.

Anyway, at about this time, we drew QPR in a two legged affair in the League Cup or whatever it was called in those days.  We were doing well in Division 2, although it was now Division 1 with the advent of the Premier League. A good number of fans travelled down to see the first leg which we narrowly lost 2-1. The Mariners fans were in good voice and the tie was still anyone’s. I now have a confession to make. The London Mariners, suitably lubricated (that’s the only reason we drank, to improve our singing voices) were singing the theme to “It Aint Half Hot Mum”. You know the one that starts “meet the gang ‘cos the boys are here….”

The London Mariners liked this song, but alas it didn’t catch on with the rest of the Town fans. We were belting it out at Barnet away last season for old time’s sake. I lifted this tune from Simon Mayo on Radio 1 who I accidentally listened to now and again (when they played music) and I think he used it for his roadshows. I thought it was catchy and thought no more about it until I read When Saturday Comes some time later. Don’t get me wrong as I buy this magazine every month, but I think it has had a sense of humour failure for quite some time. Anyway, in a feature about c**p football chants it mentioned this ditty, how Simon Mayo had hijacked it from us and how the song was so execrable (I really like this word) that fans spontaneously vomited when they heard it. I like to think that the entire ground can hear us when a dozen of us are singing but I think that was stretching it, so there was a bit of editorial hype there. What was really funny was that Simon Mayo got somewhat offended, saying that he hadn’t stolen it etc etc... It was all quite emotional and as I read this whilst quaffing another cider down my local, I thought that I had better clear it up. Then I thought, nah mate. So, if Mr Mayo has seen the light and is now a Town fan, you now know the truth and sorry for the distress. But the distress will set you up for following us!

We won the second leg 2-1, but lost out on penalties which is about as close as we get to emulating England. A good couple of performances in what would turn out to be a good season, with us finishing ninth.

Our paths didn’t then cross again until the 1996/7 season. I have to confess I looked up the home score on the Cod Almighty website as, for once, I couldn’t remember it. Unfortunately, I missed what turns out to have been a 2-0 win over a newly relegated QPR. In fact, I was unable to travel to many home games at all in this period due to serious illness, which has also resulted in a long term memory loss. I’ll leave it to you to work it out from my previous accounts. So, if you are reading this at home kids, don’t try it. However, in the second half of the season, I felt sufficiently recovered to travel to more away games and one of these was at Loftus Road in April 1997 when we were sliding towards relegation.

This game was memorable for the fact that we had Jason Lee playing for us and what a mullet he had. He was the inspiration for the “He’s got a pineapple on his head” ditty which I understand he didn’t like. I think if you are a footballer, you have to be cautious as to your appearance as after all, fans don’t miss much. A pineapple was being passed around the away end to the tune of “Oh lucky lucky lucky lucky lucky pineapple” and he must have wondered what he had let himself in for when he caught sight of the fans. The best bit of the game for me was when we clocked some mouthy QPR fan giving it large when we let a goal in. He was reminded of his follicly challenged stature and his lack of sartorial elegance to the tune of “Stand up if you hate Scunthorpe” but with the words “Bald head and a fake fur coat” which was amended to “Bald head and an ugly bird” when we clocked his companion. If you can’t take it you shouldn’t dish it out and he shouldn’t have dished it out! The best bit of the day by a mile. That wasn’t the end of the QPR connection that season as we beat Southend 4-0 in the last game only for Rangers to capitulate at Bradford so that we went down. I might be wrong. As I said earlier, the memory got very hazy around this time.

Our meetings resumed in 1998/9 with Rangers a shadow of their previous self. We won 2-1 at Loftus Road. Unfortunately, I had started back on the drink again and showing my customary lack of judgement, went into the Springbok before the game, which is close to the South Africa Road stand and very much a home fans pub. Not that there was any trouble but it really was a case of wipe your feet on the way out. I’ve seen less bacteria at an Aldermaston leak. Happy days though, a win and taking the p*ss out of Vinnie Jones. Having said that, have a read of his biography. A cracking read and it shows a side to him that might surprise you.

I was a bit strapped at the time and didn’t see us complete the double but, hey ho, that’s relationships for you. I wasn’t at the 2-1 home win the next season either, but made the return at Loftus road early in 2000. It was a 1-0 win through a penalty. I remember trying to distract the taker to no avail and a pal in the home end pointed to his young son and said “That’s a friend of mine.” His son wasn’t impressed as we were arranging to go to a QPR game a few years later and he apparently said to his dad “He won’t get us into trouble, will he?” He might not have been impressed but it certainly made an impression.

For personal reasons, this was a significant game, as I didn’t see Grimsby Town again until Arsenal away in late 2001. In some moment of clarity, I realised that the drink was a big problem and it had become a bigger one on match days. So if anyone thinks I might have gone on about the alehousing a bit, there was a price to pay. In fact, on the way back to Slough where I was then living, another London Mariner, Gary, was busy persuading a right wing soccer journalist that he was wrong to criticize football fans as badly behaved whilst I was proving just the opposite. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that fans can have a good drink before the game and a good singsong, but it isn’t for me anymore.

I can’t really say much about the following season except that Town did the double. I got the 3-1 home result by phoning out from rehab. When I came out, football had to take a back seat, a bit like it has at GTFC in recent years!

I’d frequently watched Brentford since moving to West London and had a season ticket for the 1996/7 and 1997/8 seasons when the travel was sometimes too much, although I always managed to get a good number of Town games in. Well, this other West London side helped get me back to games. I’d felt a bit on the outside looking in at the Arsenal game having missed a complete season and given my association of football with drinking and the fact everyone was down the pub beforehand. In fact I told a good pal of mine, Micky, that I found myself isolated from it all and I will always cherish what he said and that was that I was a good supporter and ambassador to the club no matter how many games I went to.

However, I gave football another miss until I got up one April morning in 2002 and saw that the Bees were at home to Huddersfield who they duly stuffed 3-0 in a near promotion campaign. And I had the time of my life. All the enthusiasm was back, dancing with the steward at every goal. She had thought I was going to run on the pitch for the first one but then enjoyed the hugging and ran up to me for the second and third goals. Then, remembering Micky’s words, I rang up a previous travelling companion with “I’m back”. And it’s been downhill all the way! Two relegations and poor football but it hasn’t driven me back to drink.

What was made clear though was that whilst Grimsby Town may have been a big part of my life, they were secondary to sobriety. When I first stopped in the mid 1990s, having been diagnosed with drink related diabetes and alcoholic cirrhosis (at the age of 34 if you think it couldn’t happen to you), I struggled badly to cope with going to games with friends who were going to be drinking, however moderately. This meant, along with the physical decrepitude, that the home games were always a strain and. Consequently that my personal win ratio was low (more of which later). It isn’t really helped by the binge drinking culture in Grimsby and that I was a part of. Even the Evening Telegraph seemed to glorify the amount of alcohol sunk by Town fans prior to the 1998 Wembley games.

Nowadays, I don’t mind being around it that much but am saddened to see how really young fans are battering themselves. The arrogant part of me can think they are just lightweight drinkers but we all start off somewhere. It may surprise people, as it did me, that most drinkers are intoxicated after 5 units or 2 ½ pints. I challenged this because of my own high capacity but was rightly informed that my lack of judgement after said amount told me that I could carry on. Whilst I used to struggle around drinking because I desperately wanted one and so avoided Town games, I now choose not to, enjoy the football more and break away from that company because, frankly, inebriated folk talk nonsense and, as I said earlier, after only a few drinks. Good luck to them. I’m not bitter (pardon the pun!), but I’ve been there, got the t-shirt. In fact, last season, I found myself uncomfortable around it for the first time in years so now make my own arrangements, which has reduced the number of away trips I make. After another away trip at a ground we never do well at, I don’t have the option of drowning my sorrows on the way home. This is a small price to pay. After all, I can honestly say my appreciation of the game has been enhanced in recent years and I don’t seem to suffer from that mindless anger where every decision has to be disputed whether it was right or not.

QPR went down to Division 3, as I call it, a season before Town. I was able to renew hostilities so to speak with the Brentford v QPR derbies although Rangers had the sign over the Bees during the next seasons. In 2003/4, Town joined in the fun as well. One of the poignant moments for me at one of these games was when Clarke Carlisle was taking a throw-in in front of the Bees fans at Griffin Park’s New Road. A shout of “Boozer” went out, as Clarke had also found himself in similar difficulties. His response was to laugh and mimic downing a pint in one, which won him a round of applause, laughter and respect from the Brentford fans.

During the 2003/4 season, I moved my home to Donny but was still working in London so did seven days on and seven days off, which meant a Town home game one week and the Bees the next when I was staying down South. My colleagues would relieve me early so I could get to Griffin Park for kick off on Saturdays.

I travelled up for the QPR FA Cup game that autumn having not seen a Town win since Ipswich away in 1999. How’s that for a record? I had no expectations. I was just glad to be watching the Mariners on a regular basis and QPR had won their first and only game at Blundell Park only a month or so earlier. I heard that at a Brentford home game but at least my pain was shared by 5000 others who professionally hate Rangers. As you can imagine, I was absolutely overjoyed to see us score, and though I didn’t dare believe it, we hung on to win. Four and a half years of hurt over.

The West London coincidence struck again as the next game was Brentford away and we won that 3-1 by playing to the conditions. If anyone thinks I have a conflict of interest when these two teams meet, think on. The grief I get if the Bees score a rare win over Town as I can testify to this season...oops, digressed again!

Sadly, we lost 3-0 again on a slide to relegation in Shepherd’s Bush where the only difference between us and the better West London team was our choice of manager. As with our last 3-0 win at Loftus Road, we went down. My usual work arrangement meant I made kick off in plenty of time.

I’ve always enjoyed a visit to Loftus Road, in spite of our record there. I actually like the ground, although it has its critics. I have to admit that it is a little cramped, but it has atmosphere. For those so inclined, there is no shortage of hostelries and plenty of spicy grub around. The support is similar to Town’s, and the Bees for that matter, in that it is all locally drawn. They had an active fanzine scene and I think they had three on the go at one time although I can certainly recall “A kick up the Rs” and “In the Loft”, copies of which are stored somewhere in my programme collection. I have seen some good games there as a neutral and it is in traditional football surroundings - tight housing, crowded and near the railway, albeit the overground Underground. Whilst Town have normally been on the receiving end at Loftus Road, at least until recent times, I’m glad I was there. No regrets!