Rangers' won their first ever game in the much maligned LDV Trophy on Tuesday night, beating a struggling Kidderminster side to go through to the second round. So another cup win for Rangers but one it would appear many fans would have been happy to see us lose.

I must admit the LDV isn’t the most glamorous competition around but I like to see Rangers teams win at whatever level they are competing at. However there has been some strong points made that the competition could have a negative effect on our season, so I took a look at the different arguments put forward.

“It’s a worthless competition”
Nobody expects us to win the FA Cup or League Cup but the biggest point made about either competition is that a good cup run will boost the clubs coffers. If that’s the case then what does it matter what the competition is called?

The football league kindly gave me a breakdown of the revenue clubs can earn from their competitions and here is what the LDV is worth to QPR

So Rangers are already assured of £4,000 by winning on Tuesday, not much but not to be sniffed at these days. Plus you can see how the money starts to mount up.

Win a couple more games and you’re looking at a twenty grand haul, very useful. Win the lot and you get fifty grand - handy when we are paying out more than that a month on interest for the ten million pound loan.

Add on the extra gate receipts along the way and it could be a nice little earner if we can win five more ties. Certainly sounds worthwhile to me in terms of money at least.

“Injuries and suspensions could harm our chances of promotion”
Well yes they could of course, but that’s why you have a squad. This season the reserve team league was cut from 25 teams to 15 teams and we are now lucky if we play two or three reserve games a month.

Quite frankly that isn’t enough to keep everyone match fit. The LDV could be just the tonic. Where else would Richard Pacquette, Eric Sabin, Dennis Oli etc have got games so far this month?

“Other clubs who have done well in the LDV have suffered in the League”
I’m not sure I hold with this, last season Bristol City won it and yes you can say that their league form fell away but you could also say that they finished above us and we got knocked out in the first round.

Here are some other recent winners; Wigan, Stoke, Birmingham (twice) and Rotherham. All these sides won as second division sides within the last six years – all these sides are now in the top two divisions. Bet they’re fans are cursing the fact they ever entered it eh?

“Last year Richard Langley was sent off in it and that cost us the play off final”
True but then again if he hadn’t got sent off at Oldham he wouldn’t have missed it either. And it Robert was a woman she’d be my Aunt, as someone once said.

It seems to me that the LDV gives us the chance to groom our young talent in a real competitive environment, bring in some much needed extra revenue and give us the realistic chance of seeing a QPR captain lift a trophy in Cardiff.

Doesn’t sound that bad to me.

ron@qprnet.com