Post by QPR Report on May 6, 2009 18:10:26 GMT
Football League -
PRESS BOX: AIDAN MAGEE
News of the World football writer Aidan Magee looks back on QPR's big night - and giving a girlfriend the elbow.
Back in 2003, covering Queens Park Rangers was a rare treat for a freelance reporter on the Championship beat.
The Hoops were trying to fight their way out of League 1 under Ian Holloway after spending the majority of the previous decade sliding down the football pyramid.
Most of the media were concentrating their resources on the top two divisions.
Any club below that level seemed to have to blaze a trail up Mount Everest - or at the very least be involved in the Play-Offs - to earn a mention on TV, radio or in the newspapers.
And, sure enough - just this once - that's where Rangers found themselves.
One defeat in the final 12 games had created a buzz at QPR for the first time in 10 years. It took me back to my teens and made me more determined to be part of it.
After two seasons of rain-soaked tours of Gillingham, Brighton & Hove Albion, Watford, Millwall and Reading, I felt I had earned the right to cover my team against Oldham Athletic in the semi-final first leg at Loftus Road - the club's biggest game in years.
It wouldn't be too difficult to argue that plenty more significant events happened in 2003.
There was Gulf War II and the worldwide outbreak of SARS.
The Darkness rocked the charts, Roger Federer came of age at Wimbledon and England won the Rugby World Cup in Australia.
Paul Furlong's scruffy winner eight minutes from time, which earned Rangers a Millennium Stadium showdown against Cardiff City, wasn't quite Nick Hornby's Michael Thomas moment in Fever Pitch but, somehow, life was never the same again.
Three other less noteworthy events occurred that week.
I moved into a new flat, applied for a new job and in an especially productive week I managed to end a relationship which had long since run its course.
Believe it or not, telling a girlfriend 'it's over' was a good deal more straightforward than maintaining a professional demeanour in the Press Box when Furlong's goal triggered the celebrations that wiped out a decade of misery.
I gave my desk a decent whack with my fist! In all honesty, I longed to be on the pitch dancing like a lunatic with Danny Shittu.
We had sunk pretty low. And so it was great to experience what good times really felt like. Loftus Road was deafening that night.
We'll never know if QPR would have avoided an extra-time final defeat to Cardiff if a fire alarm hadn't disrupted their sleep at 3am at the team hotel.
It didn't matter that much as, with three friends, we made our way back down the M4.
Life was moving on for me. Rangers won promotion the following year.
And I got the job.
www.football-league.co.uk/page/ColumnistsDetail/0,,10794~1650296,00.html
PRESS BOX: AIDAN MAGEE
News of the World football writer Aidan Magee looks back on QPR's big night - and giving a girlfriend the elbow.
Back in 2003, covering Queens Park Rangers was a rare treat for a freelance reporter on the Championship beat.
The Hoops were trying to fight their way out of League 1 under Ian Holloway after spending the majority of the previous decade sliding down the football pyramid.
Most of the media were concentrating their resources on the top two divisions.
Any club below that level seemed to have to blaze a trail up Mount Everest - or at the very least be involved in the Play-Offs - to earn a mention on TV, radio or in the newspapers.
And, sure enough - just this once - that's where Rangers found themselves.
One defeat in the final 12 games had created a buzz at QPR for the first time in 10 years. It took me back to my teens and made me more determined to be part of it.
After two seasons of rain-soaked tours of Gillingham, Brighton & Hove Albion, Watford, Millwall and Reading, I felt I had earned the right to cover my team against Oldham Athletic in the semi-final first leg at Loftus Road - the club's biggest game in years.
It wouldn't be too difficult to argue that plenty more significant events happened in 2003.
There was Gulf War II and the worldwide outbreak of SARS.
The Darkness rocked the charts, Roger Federer came of age at Wimbledon and England won the Rugby World Cup in Australia.
Paul Furlong's scruffy winner eight minutes from time, which earned Rangers a Millennium Stadium showdown against Cardiff City, wasn't quite Nick Hornby's Michael Thomas moment in Fever Pitch but, somehow, life was never the same again.
Three other less noteworthy events occurred that week.
I moved into a new flat, applied for a new job and in an especially productive week I managed to end a relationship which had long since run its course.
Believe it or not, telling a girlfriend 'it's over' was a good deal more straightforward than maintaining a professional demeanour in the Press Box when Furlong's goal triggered the celebrations that wiped out a decade of misery.
I gave my desk a decent whack with my fist! In all honesty, I longed to be on the pitch dancing like a lunatic with Danny Shittu.
We had sunk pretty low. And so it was great to experience what good times really felt like. Loftus Road was deafening that night.
We'll never know if QPR would have avoided an extra-time final defeat to Cardiff if a fire alarm hadn't disrupted their sleep at 3am at the team hotel.
It didn't matter that much as, with three friends, we made our way back down the M4.
Life was moving on for me. Rangers won promotion the following year.
And I got the job.
www.football-league.co.uk/page/ColumnistsDetail/0,,10794~1650296,00.html