Iain Dowie gets another chance to assess his options this weekend as the first team head north to face Andy Thomson's (pictured) old club Falkirk while the youths and reserves travel to Les Ferdinand's old stomping ground at Hayes.

Hayes and Yeading v Queens Park Rangers XI
Church Road, Hayes
Friday July 25, Kick Off 7.30pm
Pre-Season Friendly

Falkirk v Queens Park Rangers
Falkirk Stadium, Falkirk
Saturday July 26, Kick Off 3pm
Pre-Season Friendly

So three games and three wins so far this summer, we’re approaching the halfway point of the pre-season campaign and it’s so far so uninspiring as far as QPR are concerned. Ledesma and Alberti seem to be the big winners up to this point with fans who attended the Stevenage and Northampton games impressed with the pair. The same cannot be said of Zesh Rehman and Chris Barker who were both roundly criticised for their performances at Broadhall Way and were rewarded with a trip to Windsor with the reserves last week where, again, they did their cause little good. Daniel Nardiello also looks to have kicked his last ball for the club and won few friends with his performance last Tuesday night - Blackpool beckons for at least one and possibly all three.

It was reassuring to see Dexter Blackstock find the target against Northampton, the first goal scored by a striker out of the six we’ve managed so far, and we must hope for more to come from him and Agyemang over the coming weeks and months. The usual adjectives have been thrown at the pair this week, “hard working” seems to be the most used phrase when discussing our forwards, but the fact remains that neither looks capable of a 20 goal season at the moment.

Blackstock was dire for most of last season but many have correctly pointed out that 12 of his 14 goals the season before were assisted by Lee Cook who then joined Fulham. How gratifying it was to see a left wing cross by Ledesma land plum on Dexter’s head for the only goal of the game at the Sixfields on Wednesday. Brought back a lot of memories. Still I’m surprised and disappointed that Coventry’s Michael Mifsud appears all set for a move to Bristol City without so much as a sniff from his former manager Iain Dowie. There are strikers moving here there and everywhere in the Championship at the moment but none of them are going to be wearing Hoops next season.

The forwards we do have get another couple of chances to impress this weekend as the second string face Hayes and Yeading in London, while the first team heads north of the border to face Falkirk. That just leaves games with Kilmarnock and Chievo next week before the big kick off and with Iain Dowie making no secret of the fact that his starting eleven for the opening day will play against the Italians it promises to be an interesting seven days.

Five minutes on Falkirk
Falkirk are one of the ‘other’ teams in the Scottish Premier League, providing fodder for Rangers and Celtic on the odd weekends when an Old Firm derby isn’t taking place. 2008/09 will be their fourth consecutive season in the top flight following promotion in 2005 and they seem to have consolidated their position now with two consecutive seventh placed finishes under their belt. Frankly I find it hard to hide my disdain for the set up, organisation and quality of the SPL - a league that inexplicably splits in half a month before the end of the season meaning the teams that finish in seventh and eighth can actually end the season with more points than the teams that finish fifth and sixth but still finish below them.

Falkirk in recent times have been a club of near misses and in case you were about to trot out an angry e-mail to me about my criticism of one of the most farcical top divisions in Europe then hang fire a moment and consider the following. Up to 1997/98 a play off between the second bottom team in the top division and the second top team in the division below would take place with the winner playing in the top flight the following season. Falkirk finished second in the First Division in 1997/98 but were denied a play off with Motherwell because the Premier League had broken away to become the SPL and got rid of the play off game.

In 1999/00 the SPL decided to expand to 12 teams but rather than just abandon relegation for that season and promote an extra side they contrived a bizarre play off system for the end of the campaign whereby the bottom club in the SPL would play off against the teams the finished second and third in the First Division with two of the three sides playing top flight football the following season along with the First Division champions. Farcical? You haven’t heard the half of it yet. Falkirk qualified for this three way play off but were then told that their ground at Brockville did not come up to standard and they could not compete. Falkirk put forward a proposal to play at Murrayfield, the national rugby stadium, but this was rejected, the play off idea was abandoned and Aberdeen and Dunfermline played Premiership football in 00/01. The SPL then accepted an identical groundshare proposal at Murrayfield from Hearts - just to make them look even more competent and on the ball.

Falkirk got a reprieve the other way in 2001/02 when they finished in a relegation spot in the First Division but stayed up after Airdrieonians folded. A year later and The Bairns won the First Division again. Again their ground was judged not to be up to scratch and again the SPL denied them the chance to play top flight football at a compliant stadium - home of Airdrie United. Again having made that decision they then changed their rules on ground eligibility and sharing to allow Inverness to be promoted. So in four out of six seasons at the turn of the Millennium Falkirk finished the season in a position that should have seen them promoted or relegated and yet at the end of it all they remained a First Division club. Like I say my disdain for the set up north of the border is difficult to mask.

Finally in 2005 a 1-0 victory over Ross County won them promotion into the SPL. Despite only having two sides their new Falkirk Stadium is up to code for the top division and after finishing 11th in their first season they have progressed up to seventh in the past two campaigns and now seem fairly settled in the higher league.

The promotion and consolidation has been overseen by manager John Hughes who clocked up more than 200 appearances for the club as a player in two separate spells and was appointed manager, initially in a job share with current Burnley boss Owen Coyle, in 2003. Coyle left to coach Dundee United the following season and while he has progressed through St Johnstone to the English leagues with Burnley Hughes has done an outstanding job cementing Falkirk’s place in the top flight of Scottish football.

....and Hayes & Yeading
Hayes and Yeading United was formed as a single club this time last year when two of the bigger and more well known non-league clubs in the area elected to merge. Hayes was the older club after being formed in 1909 and produced some superb footballing talent such as Les Ferdinand and Jason Roberts but they rarely looked like making a return to the Conference after their relegation in 2002, this after finishing third in 1998/99. Yeading, some 50 years Hayes junior, never made Conference level but enjoyed derbies with Hayes in the Isthmian Premier and Conference South divisions. Their recent cup run that saw them take on Newcastle United shot former QPR trainee DJ Campbell to fame and earned him a move to first Brentford and then Birmingham City. Last season the merged club, which plays at Hayes’ Church Road ground, finished 13th in Conference South. So far this summer they have beaten Hanwell Town 3-0 and Swindon Supermarine (no seriously) 5-2.

Who to watch out for
One or two of the names in the Falkirk squad should be familiar to QPR fans from their time south of the border. Dean Holden was part of Iain Dowie’s Oldham side that we battled with in both league and play off matches a couple of years back and has since moved to Falkirk via Peterborough. He is yet to feature this summer though after picking up a nasty injury in January.

Lee Bullen also played against the R’s in the Championship with Sheffield Wednesday where he was made club captain. A tough, no-nonsense centre half and one time holder of the Football League’s community award for his work off the pitch at Hillsborough. He enjoyed a long career in Scotland with the likes of Dunfermline before heading south in 2004 - now in the twilight of his career at 37 years of age.

Jackie McNamara followed a similar career path to Bullen, starting in his home land with Dunfermline and then Celtic where he captained a league and cup winning side. Dave Jones took him to Wolves but he left last summer to return north with Aberdeen and he signed for Falkirk this year aged 34. Plenty of experience but not a great deal of pace at the back then.

Further forward former Republic of Ireland international Graham Barrett may ring a few bells among the QPR support - he started life as a trainee in Arsenal’s youth cup winning side and was a big name purchase for First Division side Coventry City in 2003. He scored six goals in more than 50 appearances for the Sky Blues, including a fizzing 20 yarder at the School End against Rangers in 2004. QPR won the game 4-1 with a hat trick from Jamie Cureton and one from Paul Furlong. He’s come through a career threatening injury at Livingstone and scored six times in 26 starts for Falkirk last season. Certainly one worth watching out for.

Burton O’Brien is another old Sheff Wed player to feature against the R’s during the past two seasons while Spanish midfielder and one time Barcelona trainee Arnau Riera scored once in 13 starts for The Bairns last season on loan from Sunderland and has been invited back for a similar spell this season.

Pedro Moutinho and Craig Higdon (both with eight goals last season) carry the main goal threat.

Finally look out for 40 yard old Russell Latapy who is a Trinidad footballing legend and has played with distinction for Rangers, Hibs, Coventry, Aston Villa and now Falkirk. He scored twice in 36 games last season and is back for another Indian summer this time around.

As for Hayes and Yeading well 23 year old keeper Alessio De Angelis certainly has a better CV than a lot of the players we’ve signed this summer having played seven times in Serie A for Lazio and up to Under 19 level for Italy. Apparently he impressed Hayes management in a trial - no shit Sherlock! Up front Staforde Palmer is a friend of one of one of our message board users and scored 15 goals in 34 games last season. The 20 year old is tipped for a bright future and will be one to look out for if his pregnant other half can hold off giving birth for another few hours - this would never have mattered in Trevor Francis' day of course.

Connections
Andy Thomson
Ian Holloway once joked about Thomson setting up a camp fire on the edge of an opponents’ penalty box and cooking sausages until the ball came his way. He certainly wasn’t the hardest working player we’ve ever had, but his scoring record during two and a half seasons with QPR was hard to argue with. The Scot arrived at Loftus Road from Gillingham with the R’s about to be relegated from the First Division - he scored four goals in the final eight games of the season and followed that up with a 21 goal campaign in the Second Division in 2001/02. A back injury aggravated by commuting round the M25 from Gillingham every day to train restricted his appearances in 2002/03 but he still scored five goals and left QPR with a record of 30 goals from 49 starts and 24 sub appearances. After a brief spell with Partick Thistle back in his home land he joined Falkirk and scored 14 goals for them as they won the First Division and promotion to the SPL. Now plays for Stenhousemuir in the bottom league in Scotland.

Les Ferdinand
Nobody really though much of Les Ferdinand when Jim Smith picked him up from non-league neighbours Hayes for £15,000 in 1987. Indeed he spent most of his early days with QPR out on loan first with Brentford and then Besiktas in Turkey where he scored 14 goals in 27 starts. It wasn’t until the early 1990s when he really started to fire on all cylinders for QPR - announcing his arrival with a flying header against Chelsea in 1991 and going on to bag 90 goals in 170 starts for the R’s. Back to back hat tricks over the Easter period in 1993 and consecutive 20+ goal campaigns in 92/93, 93/94 and 94/95 made him impossible for QPR to keep hold of and Hayes earnt £600,000 as a sell on fee when Newcastle paid the R’s £6m for him in summer 1995. He was desperately unlucky not to win a league title winners medal at St James Park and despite further spells with Spurs, Leicester and Bolton he retired with only a League Cup winners medal, and 17 England caps, to his name. A proper QPR legend.

Andy Impey
Rangers signed Impey as a youngster from Yeading in 1990 for £35,000 and his powerful wing play made him a favourite among QPR fans, and the club’s Player of the Year in 1995, before he was sold to West Ham for £1.2m in 1997. Impey was an exciting player to watch and with him on one side and Sinton and later Sinclair on the other QPR were an attractive side. Having said that most people remember Impey for his ability to deliver a sweet right hook and subsequent red cards. Recently finished his career at Coventry City.

Team News
Once again it’s the reserve side facing non-league opposition under the guidance of Gareth Ainsworth while the first team heads north. Chris Barker and Zesh Rehman both played at Windsor so it remains to be seen if they play at Hayes or get to travel with the rest of the lads. Daniel Nardiello is almost certainly Blackpool bound so you’d expect him to miss out altogether. Radek Cerny is yet to feature with a tight hamstring but will need to play in one of the games this week to make the Barnsley game, Mikele Leigertwood is another who has missed out altogether so far and will be looking for game time. Akos Buzsaky and Rowan Vine are long term absentees.

Falkirk have lost to Berwick Rangers and drawn with Ross County so far but still have four friendlies to come. Hayes could be without Staforde Palmer with his other half set to give birth any time now.

Prediction
Dowie is expecting to see pretty much the finished article by the time we play Chievo at Loftus Road next Saturday so expect another step up in performance level this weekend. I fancy us to go unbeaten through to the Barnsley game starting with a couple of wins this weekend.
Falkirk 0 QPR 2
Hayes and Yeading 1 QPR 2

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