Christmas Crackers, part the first.

The Christmas games come thick and fast every year and this one was certainly no exception. We played at Birmingham City on Saturday 21st, then again at home to QPR on Boxing Day (an evening kick off because of TV) followed three days later by Leeds Utd (again at home). Two days after those tough games there was an away game at Reading on New Years Day quickly followed by the 3rd Round FA Cup game versus West Ham United of the Premier League. Five games in 15 days against teams either challenging for promotion to the Premier League or actually in it. I was exhausted just watching, I don't know how the players coped!!


Anyway, down to business. QPR came down from the top league with an array of talented players on very high wages, so it was inevitable that some would go in the summer. However, a good few stayed and they are pretty much everyone's team to go straight back up again this season. We did have a couple of bits of luck prior to this match; Joey Barton, somewhat surprisingly, got sent off in the previous match so was suspended and Charlie Austin, high scoring striker, came down with an injury before the game, so he, too, was out.


Henderson was sent off at Birmingham and was suspended and Simon Cox was ill. Judging we needed a tall striker, Billy sent Greg Halford, our favourite utility man, up as Hendo's replacement. Chris Cohen is a long term absentee because of his injury and Dan Harding was dropped, so we needed two full backs, as Greg had been right back for the last game. Jara and Lichaj came in, two very fine players. We started the game well and never really let up. Halford was figuring amongst most of our good moves, one outstanding solo effort resulted in him bursting past Richard Dunne and coming face to face with Rob Green. Sadly Green just managed to get a foot to the ball and keep it out. However, Halford soon managed to score the goal his play merited. Abdoun, having a fine game on either wing ( our wingers alternate) broke down the right, expertly tricked the QPR defence and centred right onto Halford's head. And Greg made no mistake, 1-0 to the famous team.


It was a lead we never looked likely to lose. Rangers tried hard, switching from one expensive forward player (Zamora) to another (Johnson) at half time, but to no avail. JJ (Jermaine Jenas, a product of our academy who left us for Spurs some time ago) was one player to test our goalkeeper with a couple of fine efforts, but Karl Darlow was equal to all that was fired at him.


It looked as if we were, once again, not going to get the second goal our fine play deserved and we would, once again, spend the last quarter of the match gnawing our finger nails down waiting for the final whistle in an agony of apprehension. Then, lo and behold, with ten minutes to go, we were the recipients of a refereeing decision which could easily have gone the other way. Abdoun, juggled the ball near his own corner flag (just because he could, I suppose, there was no one near him) and then sent a raking pass up to Halford just over the centre line on the left hand side. Halford was tousling with his marker and appeared to flick the ball on. Reid was running forward and would have been offside if Halford had connected with the ball, thus the lino on the BC Stand side put his flag up immediately. However, Halford had not touched the ball and as Reidy was onside at the time Abdoun put up the original pass, Halford immediately ran to the referee gesticulating furiously that he had indeed not touched the ball. The referee must have also seen this as he correctly waved play on.


Now, it is clearly drilled in to all players at a very young age that you must play to the referee's whistle. QPR players neglected this fine piece of advice and stopped running. Even the 'keeper Green made little effort to stop Reid's shot which rolled into the far corner of his goal in front of a delighted Trent End. Of course, such a contentious decision was going to spark all out complaints from the QPR players. The referee briefly consulted his assistant, but stuck by his original decision, 2-0 to us and game over.


The first part of a post-Christmas double-header against fellow promotion chasers successfully completed.