The rest of the directors’ box was silent and immobile. We didn’t care. Five minutes to go, we were still 2–1 up. Two minutes to go, then Džeko scored for them and Agüero finished it off.
It didn’t matter because Stoke held on and Bolton were relegated. The City fans were delirious and we were beside ourselves. It was that rare situation when everyone in the ground was ecstatic. City had won the title for the first time in forty-four years and finally felt they could start to look United fans in the eye again. We had got through our toughest test and I had been part of one of the most ridiculous games I’ve ever seen. Punch-drunk, we got on the plane with the team back to London. There was a lot of celebrating but I also picked up that Joey Barton was a bit ostracized by the rest of the team because of the sending-off.
The feeling inside the club was that we could build on this, using the momentum from our amazing escape.
Reflecting on that first season, I realized that the mistake I made was letting emotion get the better of me and trusting people too much. When you come to a new business and one that is as high profile as Premier League football, you presume that everyone knows what they’re doing, but that’s not always true; just because people have been in their jobs for a long time, it doesn’t mean they know what they’re doing. It was similar to the time in Warner where we bought the RAP label and their fantastic artists – talent doesn’t necessarily translate into performance, talent has to be managed. In music, it’s slightly less obvious than in football, because playing football is all about character. If you’ve got the right character, you’ll perform to the best of your ability; if your character isn’t up to it, you won’t. Even after my experience with RAP, I went against my instincts and let things happen without questioning enough. Then there was the problem of distance. I was still based in Kuala Lumpur, running AirAsia from there and jetting all over the place with the Formula One team, so I simply could not be at QPR enough. And, because I wasn’t there every day, I didn’t see things through my own eyes.
It brought home to me strongly how important physical presence and visibility are for a leader. They are important not just to keep the staff focused and to make sure that the culture of openness grows but also so that you can gauge the mood, see the day-to-day interactions and hear the snippets that are telling.
So I missed seeing what was happening on the training ground and whether such-and-such a player was really putting a proper shift in – either in training, around the club or on the pitch. If I’d been more aware of that I think I’d have realized quicker that often the salaries being paid were far bigger than the effort I saw on the pitch. It was naivety really. I came from the standpoint that if you’re being paid so much money, you work your butt off; but some of these players simply didn’t.
Over the summer of 2012, we thought we’d bought well: a lot of players came in on free transfers, like José Bosingwa from Chelsea, but they also demanded mega salaries because they were at the end of their careers. Ji-sung Park was a huge signing for me in particular because he’s an Asian player and over there he’s a god. Unfortunately, he was half the player he had been. And it turns out that when we looked at the analysis, he hadn’t played that many full games – he’d been used more as a super-sub. Then we got Cissé on a permanent deal but he wasn’t as good in the second season. We always felt we needed two centre backs but people were asking stupid money because they knew we were pushovers. I put a stop to that.
Mark sent Joey Barton off to Marseille on loan which I fought hard against but lost. Joey has been a big part of my football life. Joey is direct, like me, and can put people’s backs up (again like me), but he tells it as he sees it and, in football, that’s worth something.
When he was at QPR, he said to me many times that we were going down the wrong track and signing the wrong players. His point was that signing old professionals wasn’t good for the club but he could never quite establish himself enough with the managers to convince them. He was kind of involved in Neil Warnock’s dismissal but then he and Mark Hughes couldn’t see eye to eye on anything. When Mark sent him off on loan, we really missed the backbone, his leadership and his fighting spirit on and off the pitch. He’s a smart guy who just had a loose fuse. If Joey didn’t see people playing 100 per cent or the way he felt they should be playing, he went after them, so he caused friction in the camp. After he had his baby he calmed down a bit and I think if he had stayed with us things might have gone better. I pushed hard with Mark to keep him but Mark wouldn’t budge, saying that the club would be better without him. I even tried to get him back at the beginning of the 2016–17 season but we couldn’t afford him and he went to Burnley.
It’s one of the bad sides of football: if people don’t like you, they cut you out. Whereas I’d always try to look for other options and work things through, there’s a ruthlessness about football that can be counterproductive.
Joey predicted that QPR wouldn’t win a game for two months in the 2012–13 season. He was wrong; it was more like four. In hindsight, this was the worst season we had and set us back a long way. We lost the spine of the team and bought in too many players.
We played well at the beginning despite having a nightmare first game against Swansea which we lost 5–0. In an emotional overreaction, I signed Júlio César from Inter Milan, which was a disaster because we should have stood by Rob. Over the course of the next few months we didn’t play badly but only picked up three points from nine games. You can’t recover from that kind of start. Some players who’d done well the previous season just didn’t perform – Taarabt, for example, whom we’d made permanent on a big contract – and I just don’t think the team were right mentally. The dressing room was divided and factional, and the team lacked motivation. It was probably the first time I really understood that you could be paying someone a lot of money but they weren’t always going to pay you back by playing 100 per cent.
We sacked Mark Hughes, which didn’t surprise anyone given our results. By the time he’d gone in November, we had four points from twelve games and we hadn’t won a game – not the kind of record to inspire the fans, management or players. Things looked bad but Harry Redknapp came in and we all felt if anyone could save us, it would be Harry. Sadly, not even Harry’s relegation-defying talents could change our abysmal start to the season. Three weeks before the end of the season we were relegated after a 0–0 draw at Reading, who were also demoted. We went down with a whimper. Leaving the Premiership turned out to be a good thing although on 28 April 2013 it felt like the end of the world.
Football never relents. The excitement of our first season back in the Championship since I’d become chairman was as great, if not more so, than our tumultuous first season in the Premier League.
Joey Barton came back from Marseille, adding steel to the midfield and to our team mentality, and we started on fire – not losing a game until the end of October. Then came a difficult period over Christmas, and an inconsistent run: we lost seven of the last seventeen games and dropped out of the top two. Leicester and Burnley were steaming ahead at the top but we hung in there and ended up seven points ahead of Wigan in the play-off places. We were tight at the back but couldn’t score goals either so most games were close.
We faced Wigan in the two-match play-offs. If we beat them, we’d go to Wembley to face the winner out of Derby and Brighton. Wigan have always been a bogey team for me. There’s something about their history with West Ham and QPR that spooks me. The first leg was at the DW Stadium and, as always when I’m nervous, I arrived very early. After an hour or two of solitary pacing, I bumped into Jamie Redknapp, who was on Sky Sports duties; he tried to calm me down. I went to see the players to try to inspire them but I think everyone’s nerves were jangling.
The game was tough but we managed a 0–0 draw, which put us in good shape for the return leg at Loftus Road. The day dawned and it was beautiful, temperatures were up and the evening was perfect for football … until we went 1–0 down after ni
ne minutes to a James Perch goal. The worst possible start. I had that Wigan feeling again until Joey Barton got the players in a huddle at half-time and something changed. A few weeks earlier, Joey had persuaded Phil Beard, our CEO, to bring in Steve Black, a motivational speaker who had worked with Jonny Wilkinson. Steve’s messages had been about keeping a simple focus and it was working. The communications team created a message on the back of that which was simply: ‘WE ARE TOGETHER’. That half-time huddle expressed that thought perfectly and it seemed to galvanize the team.
Charlie Austin got one back with a penalty after Junior Hoilett was brought down inside the box. That left about fifteen minutes on the clock. We’d already seen Rob Green make some fantastic saves and then Wigan hit the post. We had been lucky but I still felt it was ours for the taking. The atmosphere was unbelievable at Loftus Road – under the floodlights the crowd didn’t let up for a second. Again, a night to remember, the sort that makes football so special. Before extra time, a monsoon started, the rain bucketing down like a bad day in Malaysia, and then Joey got everyone together for another huddle.
I thought we were heading to penalties but in the first half of extra time, Charlie Austin diverted Bobby Zamora’s ball in and we all went bananas. Absolute pandemonium in Loftus Road. Wigan came back at us hard and Rob Kiernan nearly equalized with a deflection. You could hear the whole crowd suck in its breath.
When the final whistle eventually came, there was a pitch invasion. The rain was still hammering down, I was leaping up and down like a lunatic, people were singing my name and all the investors were there. By the time we’d celebrated on the pitch, getting soaked and taking selfies with the fans, it was probably midnight, but we opened the champagne in the dressing room and partied long into the night. Dave Whelan, chairman of Wigan, left in his helicopter before the end, which I thought a bit odd, but I guess he’s an experienced chairman who’s seen it all before. The excitement for us lasted less than twenty-four hours; then we had to focus on the final hurdle to the Premiership.
At last, 24 May 2014 dawned. The day of the play-off final against Derby at Wembley. We got 40,000 QPR flags and then a hundred or so volunteers from the QPR staff, QPR in the Community Trust and fans put a flag on every seat in the QPR end. When the team emerged, the scene was a dream – a churning sea of blue and white flags dominated one end of the ground. To take your team to Wembley is a feeling that so few people have had and one that I wouldn’t trade for anything.
We got completely outplayed by Derby; at half-time it was amazing it was still 0–0. Things got worse in the second half, when Gary O’Neil brought down Johnny Russell and we were down to ten men. This was about as low as it could get: we were at the end of a long, long season, there were over thirty minutes left and we were still being pummelled. It was like a boxing match going all the rounds with one boxer being permanently pinned to the ropes. I was amazed we were still standing but had a sense that, having hung on so long, we might just come away with something.
I turned to Ruben. ‘We’re going to win this. Whenever we get a player sent off, we’ll win or get a result.’
Phil Beard, sitting next to me, was despondent. ‘Let’s get it over and done with. We can regroup next season and push again.’
The eighty-ninth minute came and we still hadn’t had a single shot. Junior Hoilett, who had done little of note all season, ploughed his way down the wing, crossed and Richard Keogh, Derby’s captain, scuffed his clearance. It went straight to Bobby Zamora, who buried it first time. Elation! Ecstasy! I don’t think there are the words to describe the feeling. Derby had no time to come back at us.
When the final whistle went, it was unbelievable. No emotion in my fifty-three years can better that. The game was Roy of the Rovers stuff – except I don’t think even in a comic you could have got away with that ending.
We were presented with the trophy and, well, what more could you want? We went down to the pitch and 40,000 QPR fans were singing my name and all the great QPR chants. Then Joey Barton picked me up; the Daily Star had the picture on the back page the next day.
I’ve relived that moment a thousand times. We had a party at Loftus Road for all the staff and the players. Everyone could bring three or four family or friends so it was a big do which again went into the early hours. I didn’t sleep that night, just kept watching the highlights over and over and over. The following day we threw another party at Loftus Road and about 8,000 supporters came along to celebrate with the team. QPR are is such a family club and the fans are so local that the atmosphere felt familiar. Never one to miss an opportunity to showcase other brands, I presented Harry with a Caterham Seven and a personalized number plate to show our appreciation.
We were back in the Premiership but I was nervous about our chances again. We had lots of meetings about budgets and players but we seemed to be repeating the mistakes of 2012–13. Harry Redknapp surprised me a bit by choosing not to use academy players like he had at West Ham. He did the opposite; he wanted to use players he knew and trusted. So he signed Rio Ferdinand, which we argued about. Joey was clear that, much as he respected Rio as a man and a player, he wasn’t right for the team.
But we also signed Matt Phillips and Leroy Fer, who were good signings. We got Sandro even though Les Ferdinand – our director of football – warned us against him. Sandro had been an animal at Spurs but was a major disappointment for us – he just wasn’t fit enough. We had a core of some good players – Rob Green was great, for example – but our defence was weak so we let in a lot of goals. They were the best of a not-so-great bunch.
It became clear that rather than going after journeymen from the Premier League we should target players from the lower leagues. They tend to be of better value and hungry. By the end of the 2016–17 season, none of our players were ex-Premiership – everyone had come from lower leagues or the academy. And I felt much better about it. There are only a couple of players who’ve been there virtually the whole time I’ve been in charge: Nedum Onuoha and Jamie Mackie (who left for a couple of seasons but came back). The rest have come and gone.
The 2014–15 season was another one to forget on the pitch but behind the scenes it marked the beginning of a sea change. We won only eight games out of thirty-eight and finished bottom – three points behind Burnley and five behind Hull. There were many problems.
Joey really didn’t have the support he needed in midfield and the players we brought in just weren’t up to it. There were a couple of silver linings, though. Over the summer I got a call from Les Ferdinand, a QPR legend who scored eighty goals in 160 or so appearances for the club. Les just said, ‘I really want to do something with QPR.’
So we arranged to meet in Jakarta and got on like a house on fire. I realized that, although he was raw, his heart was in the right place and he could be the person we needed day-to-day at the club who could bring in a bit of discipline. So we signed Les up first as head of football operations to help develop the academy talent. He arrived in October and brought in Chris Ramsey as academy manager; they had worked together at Tottenham so knew each other well. Both Phil Beard and Harry were a bit pissed off about the appointments, I think, because to an extent they diminished their own roles. But it was the start of a new plan.
In February 2015, Harry quit – just after the transfer window closed. Harry needed knee surgery but I also think he just felt he couldn’t face another relegation battle; perhaps he felt that, with Les coming in, the focus would be more on youth. I like Harry and we have a lot of time for each other so I don’t hold it against him. In fact, in the long term, he did us a favour.
We looked at various replacements and Tim Sherwood was top of the list. He had done a good job at Tottenham before being sacked the year before. Tim and I talked a lot and I liked him but he is highly opinionated and vocal about it. It would have made for a tougher and I think perhaps more combative kind of relationship. As it happened, he decided at the last minute to go to Aston Villa. In the end, we appoint
ed Chris Ramsey in a caretaker role until the end of the season. Chris had been doing a great job at the academy, he knew the players and understood the club, so we thought we’d give him the chance to step up.
At the same time, we expanded Les’s role to include player recruitment and that, Phil Beard felt, diminished his job too much. Phil had been with us from the beginning but I think we were starting to move in different directions and recognized that we needed someone with more football experience. He resigned in February, a month after Harry.
Within four weeks, we’d lost our CEO and manager: football is never ever not challenging. However, another silver lining appeared in the form of Lee Hoos, who we persuaded to come in as CEO. Lee is probably one of our best signings. He had experience as CEO at Burnley, Leicester, Southampton and Fulham. He knows football through and through and he’s made a big difference. With Lee and Les in place, the club feels transformed and Ruben and I feel that it is in safe hands, so we can just watch the budgets. My problem with not being at the club enough is offset by having people there every day whom I trust to get on and do things the way I want them done.
After Chris’s first game in charge, we thought we’d got it spot-on: we won away at Sunderland, the first away game we had won all season. Rio Ferdinand and a few others messaged me to say that they thought Chris was OK. Even so, I started talking to Paul Clement – he was Carlo Ancelotti’s second-in-command at Real Madrid. I thought he would have been brilliant for the club. But Paul didn’t want to leave Real Madrid at least until the end of the season. So we carried on with Chris. He couldn’t turn it around and we finished bottom with only thirty points.
Flying High, My Story Page 16