The boys are back - Stevenage v QPR Match Preview
Thursday, 17th Jul 2008 14:52

QPR start their pre-season campaign with a trip up the A1 to face Stevenage Borough at Broadhall Way on Saturday. The hosts have been in action twice already and will be looking for a big name scalp to boost their confidence.

Stevenage Borough v Queens Park Rangers
Brodhall Way, Stevenage
Saturday July 19, Kick Off 3pm
Pre-Season Friendly

A wise old man once said on the stopping train back from a night match at Stockport County – “why buy a book when there’s a lending library?”

I think, in fact I know, he was referring to failing to play the field while you’re young and still have the chance but it seems to be a philosophy QPR is living the summer by at the moment. Why go out and chase the likes of Freddy Eastwood, David Nugent and Robert Earnshaw when you can go to Italy and borrow some promising young talent? Samuel Di Carmine is here for the season from Fiorentina and Emmanuel Jorge Ledesma may sign permanently for a hefty £2.2m this time next season if he impresses over the next 12 months. We’re chasing Ched Evans on a temporary deal as well. By the time we take to the field against Barnsley on August 9 it might be difficult to tell who we own and who we don’t.

Lack of ambition? Sensible business planning? A stroke of genius? A disaster waiting to happen? The thing is we just don’t know. None of us have ever heard of Di Carmine, Ledesma or Alberti before and most of us have only seen Ched Evans once. We’ve no idea how those we’ve signed or might sign might settle in or cope with the Championship or adapt to new surroundings or anything really. Over the next five weeks we get five clues – starting this Saturday at Broadhall Way.

As discussed earlier in the week our pre-season campaign looks pretty lousy on paper for the third year in a row but Stevenage certainly isn’t a bad game to start with. They’re just about the best non-league team around at the moment and long overdue an appearance in the football league. With Graham Westley back in charge they’ll be looking for play offs minimum this season and this weekend presents them with a chance to lay down a marker by taking the scalp of a QPR side that has only been back in training for a fortnight.

With Dowie talking up the prospects of Adam Bolder and Daniel Nardiello alarm bells are ringing among the QPR support that this season may not be the roaring success we’ve all been led to expect. This Saturday gives us a first opportunity to look at Iain Dowie’s Rangers in all their glory. Fingers crossed it lives up to expectations.

Five minutes on Stevenage

Stevenage Borough are a league side waiting to happen. They’ve been Conference mainstays since 1993 now after Paul Fairclough dragged them up through the leagues after their formation in 1976. Twice they’ve come close to making the final step – they won the Conference in 1996 but were refused admission because of the poor state of their stadium, then in 2005 they lost the play off final to Carlisle who of course have since gone onto League One and very nearly made it into the Championship for this season.

The ground is no longer a problem, QPR fans will find a very tidy set up at Broadhall Way when they visit this weekend, superior to most League Two grounds and quite a few in League One as well. Most football fans remember Borough for their impressive FA Cup exploits in the mid 90s when they beat Leyton Orient before losing to Birmingham City in 1996/97 and then took Premiership side Newcastle to a replay after a 1-1 draw at Broadhall Way.

Financial difficulties at the turn of the Millennium were solved when current chairman Phil Wallace arrived from Boreham Wood and set about rebuilding the stadium with help from the local council and building a team for the Football League. They won the FA Trophy in 2007 under the guidance of Mark Stimson who resigned after just a few matches the following season to become Gillingham manager. It was around this time that Stevenage received a record transfer fee for a player bought from non-league – Peterborough United paid £260,000 for left winger/striker George Boyd.

Plenty of eyebrows were raised when Peter Taylor, freshly sacked by Championship side Crystal Palace, dropped down to the Conference to try and lead Borough into the football league. Allegedly he had a clause in his separation agreement with Palace that he wouldn’t manage another league side that season although I’m not sure I believe that. Anyway his power of persuasion seem to have reduced since his remarkable success at Hull City and after taking Palace several steps backwards he failed to even make the Conference play offs with Stevenage and left the club at the end of the season.

His replacement for the coming campaign is Graham Westley who is taking charge of Borough for a second time. Westley is a former QPR youth player who enjoyed a journeyman playing career around Gillingham, Barnet and eleven non-league sides before moving into coaching. He’s become something of a controversial figure since then – enjoying terrific success in the Conference and FA Cup with Farnborough Town, a club he owned, but incurring the wrath of their supporters by walking out to take over as boss of Stevenage and taking many of the Farnborough players with him. That move saved Stevenage from relegation from the Conference in 2002/03 but Farnborough probably still haven’t recovered to this day.

Westley was expected to be the man to finally lead Borough into the league and although he took them to that play off final he left in summer 2006. His third managerial job was again in the Conference, this time at Rushden and Diamonds, but despite winning seven of his first 13 matches he was sacked after just eleven weeks for off the field issues following a draw at Aldershot. He spent time as a caretaker manager at Kettering before returning to Stevenage to replace Taylor in a move that is said to have surprised fans, pundits and players in Hertfordshire. It remains to be seen whether this gamble on the club’s part pays off and Stevenage finally gets a league side for the 2009/10 season.

Who to watch out for

QPR fans will need no introductions to Borough striker Calum Willock who was, shall we say, one of Ian Holloway’s less successful forays into the transfer market when he joined on loan from Fulham in 2002. Willock signed pro forms at Craven Cottage in 2000 but it was four clubs, three years and 20 appearances before he finally broke his scoring duck during a loan spell with Peterborough United. Shocked and stunned by Willock’s first career goal the Posh quickly moved to sign him up and in fairness 22 goals in 72 appearances isn’t a bad return at League Two level at London Road. Four goals in 44 appearances at Brentford and three in 15 at Port Vale hinted that maybe it was time to drop down a few levels and sure enough the 26 year old joined Borough towards the end of last season scoring once in nine games. Willock didn’t feature at all in their friendly win at Gillingham earlier this week but if he does play and we can’t keep him under wraps we really do have problems.

We may have more difficulty with Ashley Thomas who has league experience with Barnet and a record of 72 goals in two seasons with Hemel Hempstead. He’s got plenty of pace and can play in attack or wide in midfield – likewise Iyseden Christie who signed this summer from Kidderminster Harriers. He’s played for Coventry, Mansfield, Orient and Bournemouth in the Football League. Another striker, Steve Morrison, got the only goal of the game at Gillingham on Tuesday night.

Further back former West Ham trainee Daryl McMahon can pull the strings from midfield. The Irishman played for Port Vale and Orient after leaving Upton Park but became a fans favourite at Broadhall Way last season and is equally comfortable with either foot which is certainly a rarity for players at this level. Centre half Ronnie Henry was signed by Westley in his first spell as manager and recently signed a new two year contract with Stevenage – regularly represents England at semi professional level.

They are backed up this season by keeper Ashley Bayes and regular watchers of Conference football and lower league football will certainly recognise him after making nearly 100 appearances for Torquay, 127 for Exeter, 69 for Orient, 40 for Woking, 85 for Grays and 45 for Crawley. He left the south London outfit this summer to link up with Westley at Stevenage and will provide a solid base on which to build a promotion push.

Connections and memories

Apart from dear old Callum Willock who endured a torrid loan spell at Loftus Road and may lead the Borough attacking line on Saturday there are one or two connections between the two clubs. Stevenage manager Graham Westley started off as a trainee at QPR while Tony Thorpe spent a brief period at Broadhall Way as his alarming slump down the non-league pyramid gathered pace. He didn’t score in three appearances in Hertfordshire and was actually loaned up a league to Grimsby Town with little impact. Thorpe later signed for Tamworth in Conference North but scratched his eye while tiling and now plays for Barton Rovers in the Southern League Division One Midlands section. How the mighty have fallen.

QPR sold midfielder Adam Miller to Stevenage in 2006 after he’d failed to adapt to the Championship following a move from Aldershot. To be honest I never thought Miller was given a fair shot and, like so many other creative central midfield players at QPR at the time, was forced to play out of position on the wing by Ian Holloway. He got a second chance to make it in the league with Gillingham after impressing with Stevenage and has played very well for the Priestfield outfit despite their recent relegation.

The last meeting between these two sides was two summers ago. QPR won 4-0 in another friendly match with goals from Kevin Gallen (2) Gareth Ainsworth and Scott Donnelly. Gary Waddock was the Rangers manager at the time.

Team News

Almost impossible to predict teams for pre-season games and pretty much irrelevant however we know that Rowan Vine and Akos Buzsaky will miss all the friendlies with long term injuries and Martin Rowlands, with a suspension to serve in the first three matches and an ankle injury to recover from, is also unlikely to play on Saturday. Fitz Hall is also doubtful. Iain Dowie is likely to take a 22 man squad and play a different side in each half which should give QPR fans a chance to see most if not all of the new signings - Radek Cerny, Peter Ramage, Matteo Alberti, Emmanuel Jorge Ledesma and Samuel Di Carmine should all play some part. The Stevenage official site’s assertion that Damion Stewart and Egutu Oliseh will both make their debuts looks like a botched copy and paste job from our last visit here two years ago.

Stevenage have already been in action this summer – recording an impressive victory at League Two outfit Gillingham by a goal to nil. They play Hitchin Town tonight and QPR will therefore be the third of an incredible eleven pre-season friendlies before they kick their season off at Wrexham on August 9. They used a different team in each half on Tuesday, a mixture of experience and youth, and are likely to continue with that at the weekend.
Injury List

Prediction

Pretty pointless at this stage but you’d expect the R’s to come away with some form a win from what is likely to be a ring rusty performance. Stevenage’s added match sharpness having played two friendlies already will count in their favour.
Stevenage 0 QPR 3

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