GREAT! JOLLY OLLIE IS BACK
SAM ELLIOTT says QPR owner Tony Fernandes has performed a masterstroke by bringing back Ian Holloway
THERE is actually a good reason why the rich are rich, you know. It’s not luck, and it’s not because most of the elite are born with silver spoons in their mouths.
Even when something isn’t right, and when anxiety is creeping in, they can pull a rabbit from the hat. As if by magic, you’ve totally forgotten there was anything wrong in the first place.
QPR owner Tony Fernandes earns in half a day what most of us mere mortals take home in a year, but his decisionmaking at the R’s has baffled many.
He’s dished out mega-bucks contracts and made some awful managerial appointments in a rollercoaster ride in west London.
Back in the Championship again, QPR are now trying to live within their means, but manager Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink couldn’t get them going on the pitch and paid the price.
But if Fernandes wanted someone to take the heat off his questionable running of the club, he made a good move.
The owner not only has a popular crowdpleaser to help guide the criticism away from him, he’s got one with genuine passion.
After all, what deflects attention like a good one-liner from one of the club’s favourite sons? Step forward Ian Holloway, eventually. The heavy thick door to the Championship club’s media suite swings open, but there’s nobody standing behind it. The press pack continue to wait, but there’s a telling sign the man we’re here to see won’t be much longer.
Silence. Then a sharp bellow comes from down the corridor, an instruction for his wife to “get a wiggle on”.
The twang unmistakably Bristolian, ten years on it’s true what they say; as much as things change, they often remain the same.
Holloway is not only back, he’s back at QPR. Poor Kim. She probably should have known, but her husband does like to chat. His media commitments went on for well over two hours.
Just when we thought we had lost Ollie to Sky TV punditry, he couldn’t resist another stab at management.
He always knew how to hold a crowd. He still knows how to bewitch an audience with his bizarre tangents, his Brent-like face-pulls and unprovoked rants.
He had the FA in his eye-line here, that impassioned tirade started when he was asked a simple question about the abandonment of the Whole Game Solution. It didn’t steal focus.
“Why am I back here? I can’t help it I suppose. I’m a busy person, I always have to be in somebody’s life,” said the returning hero, who started back a decade on with a gutsy 2-1 win over Norwich on November 19.
“I’ve got every single golf club in my bag here. At my other clubs? A putter and a seven iron. This is the only club I would have walked out on my Sky contract for.
“When I signed a three-year deal there I said I would see it through to the end even if a club asked me to be their manager. Thankfully I added in ‘except QPR’.
“Thank goodness I did! I’m a man of my word, I’m just glad I managed to squeeze those words in when I sat down with the producer because I could have been in a whole heap of trouble.
“If it’s all about what a club means to you, then I think you’ve just appointed the right bloke to be honest with you.
“They say never go back but how could I not? This is my club and you don’t say no to your club - I had the best days of my footballing life here.”
And his worst. Not long after he was given his managerial chance, the club were plunged into financial chaos. “We were the first big club to have the word administration thrown at it,” the 53-year-old former Blackpool and Plymouth boss said. “Without a shadow of a doubt I have unfinished business here. “I have seen dreams and hoped crushed. I will never forget seeing and doing that to people, having to sack people and tell them it would all be alright. That time wasn’t easy for anyone. That’s why I wanted another go at it. “There is no such thing as a perfect job for anyone, but this comes pretty close, don’t you think? At QPR they don’t do things the easy way. Fernandes’ flagrant overspending has actually left the club flagging as a Championship alsoran. Not that Hollway sees Rangers as a bit of a basket case right now. “A lot of work has gone into repairing the mistakes of trying to buy success,” he said.“Hopefully I can make them play so well their money is irrelevant. “We need young hungry people who want it. Nothing would make me prouder than getting this club back into the Premier League. “I know we will do it, but it’s when. I would
be stupid to say this year or next year. I know what I want to do but I admit I don’t know exactly how long it will take. This season I want to give the players some TLC, a lot of love, we’ll see what that brings and where it takes us.”
Administration wasn’t the only issue he faced. He doesn’t forget, and there’s more he wants to put right.
“When we lost here to Cardiff 4-0 some lady threw me her season ticket,” recalled Holloway, who said they “just didn’t get him” at Millwall, his last job in management.
“I can’t repeat what she said. But it was the last game of the season and she threw me her season ticket, they’re clever around here!
“Then there was Peterborough away and we lost 4-1.What hurt wasn’t just the result or the performance, it was their fans were signing ‘you’re not famous anymore’ - that really got to me.
“It got to me because it was my club. My club, not famous anymore? I didn’t like that one bit.
“I wasn’t the most talented player, but I had good habits and I want to get some good habits into these players.
“I have different ways of doing things. I want to make them care about different things in their lives, it’s different from ten years ago. All the players I have worked with will tell you that I care about every single one of them.
“There are only two or three Championship clubs in a better situation but they’re not brilliant, they’re not unbeatable.
“I know how hard it is to keep hold of your job in this league but I set Arsene Wenger as my target – give me another 20 years here, that’ll keep me happy!”