“Final Destination” crop of movies have made a living out of selling the same formula over and over again. A group of young guys and gals hoodwink death by a whisker and then death comes to take them one by one over the course of the movie.
English Premiere League’s Queens Park Rangers in the league season 2012-13 reminds me of the movie.
At the end of the 2012 season QPR were expected to be relegated. They were one of the bottom 3 teams with 1 game remaining. Their only remaining game was against Manchester City, the team that was about to be crowned Champions if they beat QPR, QPR being the away team. QPR’s loss and relegation was a mere formality. On the final day however, with City leading 1-0, QPR equalized. But then Joey Barton then QPR captain got a red card and the relegation was back on. But Jamie Mackie unexpectedly scored for QPR to take the lead and shattering City’s title hopes.
In the dramatic last five minutes of the season, City scored twice, QPR lost, but the unfortunate turn of events for Bolton Wanderers meant they drew their game and QPR escaped death (relegation) to be back in the ELP for season 2012-13.
Learning from the narrow escape of the previous season, QPR owner Tony Fernandes poured his heart, sweat and more importantly lots of pounds to build a new look QPR. The huge money infusion meant QPR now boasted squad members like – Jose Bosingwa of Chelsea, Granero from Real Madrid, Rafael and Park Ji Sung from Manchester United, Shaun Wright Phillips of Man City, Traore from Arsenal. The strike force included Bobby Zamora, Djibril Cisse and Jamie Mackie. This was in addition to the talents of Adel Taraabt and Faurlin they already had on their squad sheet.
Tony Fernandes had had enough flirtation with relegation and his new look squad wasn’t supposed to mention the R word, in fact they were considered to be challenging for European football. But things didn’t go according to the plan. Under the management of manager Mark “Sparky” Hughes, QPRs season start was in shambles. They failed to win their opening 6 games and things did not improve significantly after that. Mid-way through the season, as the possibility of relegation started to surface, Hughes got the sack and Harry Redknapp was brought in to wave his magic wand. There was enough time to correct things and most importantly there was a January transfer window available for QPR to improve the squad and stave off relegation.
Such was QPRs reluctance to accept relegation that they blew 12 million pounds on central defender Christopher Samba and another 8 million on Loic Remy a prolific striker from Marseille. Remy started well scoring in his first game for QPR, but was injured and out for over a month within two weeks of joining the club. With Bobby Zamora and Park already on the injury list QPR were again short of bodies – able bodies. QPR would have still made it out had they beaten fellow strugglers, Aston Villa, Wigan Athletic. But fate just didn’t want to take any chance this season - they lost to Villa to fall 7 point behind in the race to survival and then drew when Wigan scored a last minute equalizer - then playing against Everton a deflected shot goes in the goal and Bobby Zamora picks up a Red card to add to their woes.
Such has been the roll of dice for QPR that all holes have aligned and there are no barriers to arrest their fall into the Championship. At the time of writing this there are still 5 games to be played but I will be surprised in QPR manage what no characters in the Final Destination movies have managed till date.
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