Tuesday 6 November 2012

QPR

QPR v Reading
Barclays Premier League
Loftus Road
Sunday 4th November 2012
1:30pm

Journey Time to the ground: 3 hours 15 minutes.  We left home at around 10:30am and walked to Winnersh Triangle station.  Unfortunately we missed the 11:01am train due to the people in front of us struggling to use the ticket machine.  This meant a half hour wait for the next train.  Due to engineering works, we had to get off the train at Twickenham and get a bus to Richmond station.  At Richmond station we were again delayed as the tube was delayed.  We caught the District Line to Hammersmith, then crossed over the road to catch the Circle Line to Shepherd's Bush Market. 

The ground is about a five minute walk away from the tube station, turning right as you come out.  The ground is signed posted when walking down Uxbridge Road. 
 
We ended up missing the first fifteen minutes of the game, but luckily it was still 0-0 by the time we got in, so we hadn't missed much!

Ticket Price: £35

Programme Price: £3.

I have lost count of the number of times I have been to Loftus Road, as it has always been a relatively easy away game to get to, and also because my boyfriend supports QPR.  We had tickets in the West Paddock as these are the cheapest tickets in the ground.  The West Paddock is on one side of the ground.  We were in row D, which was actually only two rows back, as the first two rows are used for the disabled, of which there were none.  We were in line with the goal-line and only really about 10 foot away from the corner flag.  The seat is advertised as uncovered as the roof doesn't quite extend over the front few rows, but luckily, despite it raining all night, and for a lot of the journey there, we remained dry throughout the game.  The view from the West Paddock was good and unrestricted, and we could see everything that was going on.  The Paddock is about seven or eight rows deep.  Behind this is a row of executive boxes.  Above this is the South Africa Road stand.  This is the main stand and contains more executive seating.

To the left of the West Paddock on the other side of the dugouts, is the East Paddock, which is again below the executive boxes and the South Africa Road Stand.  The the left of this stand is the Loftus Road End.  It is a small two-tiered stand and both tiers appear to be around the same size.  Opposite the Paddock is the Ellerslie Road Stand which is a single tiered stand running the whole length of the pitch.  To the right of the Paddock is the School End.  This is an identical two-tiered stand to the Loftus Road End at the other end of the pitch.  The away fans were in the School End upper tier.  This was our first visit to Loftus Road since QPR had been promoted, and both my boyfriend and myself noticed had the ground seems to have been smarted up a little.

Having missed the first 15 minutes of the game, it wasn't too long after we took our seats that Reading took the lead.  A corner was met by Sean Morrison, whose header was tipped onto the bar by Julio Ceasar.  The first player to react was Kaspars Gorkss who volleyed into the far corner of the net from six yards.  As I was sat in the home end, I managed to keep myself quiet, but thought that I might actually get to see Reading win a game!  The rest of the first half was quite scrappy, Reading sat back and QPR looked like a group of individuals, rather than a team.  We were in line to see the save of the game though, when Alex McCarthy tipped Esteban Granero's free-kick onto the bar.  In the second half, QPR played more like a team and had the majority of the play.  They equalised with 25 minutes to go when Djibril Cisse slotted passed McCarthy from six yards out.  The last fifteen minutes of the game was frenetic and end to end, with both sides pressing for a winner.  Ultimately neither side could find the breakthrough and a draw was probably the right result.

Attendance: 16,797 with 965 Reading fans.

Atmosphere:  The atmosphere was quite quiet.  The Reading fans in the School End upper tier made some noise throughout the game, but the QPR fans only really made any noise when they got themselves back into the game.  The actual West Paddock was very quiet, with most people talking about the game amongst themselves.

Journey Time home: 2 hours 45 minutes.  We stopped to get some food at a Syrian restaurant on Uxbridge Road, so didn't start travelling home til about 5pm.  We got the tube from Shepherd's Bush Market to Hammersmith, then jumped on a bus to Twickenham.  From Twickenham we caught the train to Winnersh Triangle and then finished by walking home.  We got back at around 7:45pm.

All in all, it was quite a difficult day.  The engineering works made the travel more difficult than it should have been, and it was a very cold day.  The game, although quite enjoyable, was played between two poor teams and I honestly believe that both sides will struggle to stay up this season.

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