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QPR's march recalls the days when football's plot was less predictable.
The Premier League script is so predictable that the lesser teams cannot even contemplate breaking into the top six
QPR's position at the top of the Championship is a reminder of a time when the lesser lights were able to challenge for the top prize in English football.
After West Bromwich Albion had won at Arsenal last Saturday to rise to the dizzy height of fifth in the Premier League their manager was asked if he thought they could finish in the top half‑dozen. Roberto Di Matteo reacted as if the idea was too far-fetched to warrant a serious response. He was probably right yet if a side placed so high in September cannot realistically contemplate being there at the season's end then the situation is depressing indeed.
In the Premier League plutocracy everyone knows his place. The usual clubs will contest the title and Champions League places while the newly promoted teams will be considered cannon fodder until they prove otherwise. A few of the others will seek the crumbs of a place in the Europa League but most will be content simply to stay out of the bottom three. If only someone could come up with a new script.
Harking back to a time before the First Division clubs, motivated by the prospect of more money and greater voting power, broke away to form the Premier League 18 years ago can give a misleading impression. Those were not the good old days. In the modern game the quality of the football is better, the pitches are better, the stadiums are better and compared to the hooligan‑ridden 70s and 80s the spectators are better.
Yet the plots were less predictable and more capable of unexpected twists. Already the new season is promising to tell a familiar tale. Chelsea and Manchester United will again decide the championship with aesthetic accompaniment from Arsenal, and maybe another tweet from Tottenham, while Manchester City continue to delve into their bottomless financial pit hoping to find a team rather than an assortment of expensive but disparate spare parts. The thought of anyone below the salt mounting a serious challenge for one of the places at high table is more bizarre than ever.
Unless one of the plebs' ships comes home, as the SS Jack Walker did for Blackburn in the mid-90s, the general scene will remain unchanged. For many of those following football today it must be hard to imagine clubs such as Burnley and Ipswich Town, or even Derby County and Nottingham Forest, winning the league and competing in the European Cup. Yes, there will always be the occasional upset, such as Hull winning at Arsenal or Burnley beating Manchester United, but these will merely be passing oddities, not signs of unusual things to come. When Brian Clough's Forest won 4-0 at Old Trafford a week before Christmas in 1977 everyone realised that these were champions in the making, and so it proved.
The sight of Queens Park Rangers striding away at the top of the Championship has stirred the memory cells. QPR had four seasons in the Premier League between 1992 and 1996, finishing sixth, ninth and eighth before they were relegated. With their present wealthy backing they might be just what the top division needs to break the monotony.
In the mid-70s QPR were the most tactically advanced team in the country. Dave Sexton's squad included seven England players, among them Gerry Francis and John Hollins. There was no orthodox centre-forward, Don Masson and Francis provided the links between defence and attack, Dave Thomas and Don Givens the width and pace, and Stan Bowles the guile.
Sexton's team all but won the championship in 1976. When QPR completed their fixtures they were top but Liverpool had a match in hand, away to Wolves, and were losing 1-0 until the last quarter-hour when goals from Kevin Keegan, John Toshack and Ray Kennedy took the title to Anfield.
Di Matteo may find the idea of West Brom challenging down the finishing straight outlandish but nobody was laughing at the notion in 1978-79 when from November onwards Ron Atkinson's Albion were in the top three for all but one week and finished third behind Liverpool and Forest.
There have always been eras when the league has been dominated by one or two clubs – Arsenal in the 30s, Wolves and Manchester United in the 50s, Liverpool in the 70s and 80s – but the lesser lights have been allowed to shine more brightly than they are permitted to do now. Within relatively recent memory Norwich and Swansea have each presented a plausible prima facie case for becoming champions. Today they and their like would be laughed out of court.
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