As Rangers go into tomorrows play off semi final second leg against Oldham at Loftus Road I wonder how one football game has taken over my entire life for the last few days.

I’ve said before that my first live QPR game was the 1986 League Cup Final against Oxford. As a naïve eleven year old I guess I thought every game would as important as that. Truth be told, tomorrow we go into our most important game since that day – and I cant think about anything else.

It’s consuming my every waking hour and, as I’m writing this, some of what should be my sleeping ones too. Sure Rangers have had big games in the last seventeen years, the FA Cup Quarter Final against Manchester United, the final games of our last Premiership Season, the 6-0 win over Palace that kept us in Division One and the trip to Huddersfield that saw us leave that same division. For me though nothing compares to tomorrow.

Those relegation games were approached with a sense of dread and morbid acceptance, we were a club on a downward spiral, we knew it and more importantly the players knew it. When we beat Palace 6-0 to stay in Division One it was met with an outpouring of relief. Sure there was joy, but behind it all we knew that day did not represent a glorious turning point in our history, we had just used up the last of our get out of jail free cards.

One date that will forever live in my memory is the Saturday 21^st April 2001, the day that saw us relegated to Division Two after a defeat at Huddersfield. If we were all honest, despite the absolute devastation we felt, it was a day had been coming all season long.

If that date was the lowest I ever felt as a QPR fan, and without doubt it was, then Wednesday 14^th May 2003 is the exact polar opposite. I will go to tomorrows match with my held high, whatever the outcome I am so proud of Queens Park Rangers football club right now and I’d like to say thank you.

Thank you Chris Day, Nick Culkin, Fraser Digby and Simon Royce. Thank you Terrell Forbes, Danny Shittu, Clarke Carlisle, Danny Murphy, Stephen Kelly, Gino Padula, Steve Palmer, Chris Plummer and Danny Shittu.

Thank you Marcus Bean, Oliver Burgess, Marc Bircham, Lee Cook, Karl Connolly, Wes Daly, Richard Langley, Kevin McLeod, Tommy Williams, Matthew Rose, Ben Walshe and Jerome Thomas.

Thank you Paul Furlong, Kevin Gallen, Richard Pacquette, Brett Angell, Doudou, Leroy Griffiths, Dennis Oli, Calum Willock and Andy Thomson. Thank you Kenny Jackett, Tim Breaker, Gary Waddock, Scott Rushden, Prav Mathema and Ian Holloway.

Whatever the outcome of tomorrows match you’ve given us our football club back and you’ve given us a season to be proud of.

I’m still bricking it though.

ron@qprnet.com