Rangers’ went into the trip to Watford with the potent looking strikeforce of Dean Sturridge and Stefan Moore. Surprisingly we did score although, perhaps not unsurprisingly, it didn’t come from either of those two. Danny Shittu was the man who got Rangers’ first of the afternoon on the 90 minute mark, unfortunately Watford had already scored three at this point and most of The R’s faithful were walking down Vicarage Road when Shittu scored.  

Bill Power brought down the curtain on his time at Loftus Road when he sold his shares to Barnaby Holdings. The group fronted by Dunga paid £1.1 million for the shares which increased their stake in the club to over 27%

Rangers went into the home game against Reading with the potent looking strikeforce of Dean Sturridge and Georges Santos. Surprisingly we did score although, perhaps not unsurprisingly, it didn’t come from either of those two. Yes it was starting to get all too familiar by this point. We battled back from a goal down thanks to Lee Cook but Ivar Ingimarsson sealed the victory for Steve Coppell’s promotion chasers. The highpoint of the game, and arguably of the season so far, was the hilarious intervention of a rouge squirrel joining in the celebrations on the pitch after Cookie’s goal went in. How we cheered.

There was encouraging news about Martin Rowlands, after starting just three games so far this season he returned to action for the reserves but Matthew Rose was once again under the surgeon’s knife. This time the six million pence defender was having a metal mesh fitted to his groin. We have the technology, we can rebuild him.

After playing a combination of Moore, Santos and Sturridge upfront in the last two games, Ian Holloway pinpointed the side’s problems in an interview with QPR World. "We need to score more goals,” he said “we are lacking a few”.

Rangers under 18’s were drawn against top flight opposition in the FA Youth Cup, Aston Villa would be the visitors to Loftus Road in December. "We do like to draw the big teams in this competition,” said Joe Gallen refereeing to last year’s fixture against Southampton “but when we told the lads they were all very excited”.

Marcus Bean returned from his loan spell at Swansea determined to win back his place in the QPR side. "I'm a Rangers boy,” he said “I always dreamed of playing regular football for Rangers and I'm here to fight for my place”.

After a two week break we prepared for a trip to Plymouth and Ian Holloway had already made up his mind about his strikers. I'm selecting Kevin Gallen up front,” he declared “so I know that many of our fans will be happy with that." That said he was paired with Georges Santos. 

Shabazz Baidoo also travelled with the first team squad and came off the bench to score his first goal but again Rangers had already found themselves 3-0 down before this and the goal proved to be nothing more than consolation.  

Tommy Doherty’s leg injury became something of a mystery when an x-ray on the suspected break showed no fractures at all.

Olly shuffled the strikers again for the visit of Preston, Gallen retained his place but this time was partnered by Shabazz Baidoo, making his first start of the season. However once again it didn’t work, Rangers drew a blank and were beaten 2-0, our fourth straight defeat.  

Aaron Brown was loaned out once again, the former Bristol City winger, who had already spent time at Cheltenham earlier this season, joined Swindon Town.  

It was a quiet transfer deadline day at Loftus Road Lloyd Dyer extended his loan deal for another month but Ian Holloway was frustrated in his efforts to bring in further re-enforcements as Middlesbrough striker Danny Graham opted to join Derby instead of us. 

After missing the run of four losses through suspension Paul Furlong returned to the side to partner Kevin Gallen against Hull. This was our fifth different striking partnership in five matches. We looked to be heading for another defeat after going 2-0 down on the fifty minute mark but a Gareth Ainsworth inspired comeback saw us scrape a two all draw with Wild Thing getting both Rangers goals. Kevin Gallen limped off with a hamstring problem that would dog him for the rest of the season.  

Rangers were fined £14,000 by The FA for failing to control our players’ handbags during the trip to The Walkers Stadium. For their part in the scuffle Leicester were fined £20,000, The FA clearly deciding the Leicester players’ actions were about 43% percent worse than ours.  

And it wouldn’t be a month of the year without a member of the backroom staff leaving, this time it was the turn of club shop boss Mike Pink, who had done a sterling job in turning round the fortunes of the retail business, more than trebling sales during his time in charge.

< CONTINUE TO DECEMBER 2005 >