Hi QPR Fans, My Name is Rob McGrattan and I am a student at Southampton Solent University currently writing my dissertation project. My subject is The Championship's finances between 2005-2009. As part of my project, I am doing a case study on QPR. I was wondering, whether fans would be able to give me their views on the QPR: Four Year Plan documentary. All views would be welcomed. All the best for the remainder of the season.
Hi Rob, I found this piece on ' The Four Year Plan.' It is written by journalist David McIntyre. I hope it helps, its better than anything that i could write. Good luck with your dissertation. http://www.westlondonsport.com/features-comment/the-four-year-plan/ At the recent premiere of The Four Year Plan I remarked to someone that I*think of*such gatherings of the QPR clan as being like a dysfunctional family’s wedding, where you’re simply glad*if*it all*passes off peacefully. Things*have changed it seems, but the film itself will forever offer a glimpse into life at Rangers*during some crazy times. But*despite the hype surrounding the documentary, it really only scratches the surface, which is why I felt a bit disappointed after seeing it for the*first time last year. “The star of the show is Amit Bhatia, who is portrayed as a cross between Mark Zuckerberg and Alf Ramsey.” It was only on second viewing, this time surrounded by others at the premiere, that I realised what a treasure the film is if you don’t happen to have spent much of your working life close to QPR. Despite some flaws, the film is a must-see for any*Rangers fan. It can give the impression that Briatore, Ecclestone and Mittal took*over at the same time and that the story is told over a four-year period. In fact it is filmed over three years and begins following the arrival of Mittal, who bought a stake some time after the others. The late Harold Winton, a former Rangers director and benefactor – and a man who loved a bit of mischief making and a conspiracy theory – amusingly reckoned the cameras were put there by Mittal so he could keep an eye on what the others were up to. The “others” isn’t what Winton referred to them as though. Harold was one of several people well placed to comment on the QPR soap opera who were interviewed during the making of the film. These interviews seem to have been largely banished, which is a shame because I think they may have given supporters a better understanding of events. The star of the show is Amit Bhatia, who is portrayed as a cross between Mark Zuckerberg and Alf Ramsey. Not here will you find his less impressive moments, or any direct disagreements with the likes of Briatore for that matter. Those hoping for a hatchet job on Paladini will be disappointed. But the broad thrust of the story – that Bhatia is a good egg who cares deeply about the club, brought sanity to the boardroom and was a crucial factor in Rangers winning promotion – is accurate. The film certainly flatters Gianni Paladini and in some ways even Briatore, who appears more foolish than destructive. Paladini is accurately portrayed as Briatore’s whipping boy and*more supportive of managers than he’s given credit for, with the exception of Paulo Sousa. Doing justice to Paladini’s role in the QPR farce was beyond the makers of The Four Year Plan as it would have meant filming three or four years earlier. I’ll come back to that. Briatore, as early reviews noted, is comparable to Tony Soprano. Footage of his determination to get his orders down to the dugout is pure gold. However, despite its billing as a film that shines light on events at the most troubled of clubs, there is a definite lack of what I’d call genuine ‘only at QPR moments’. And believe me there have been hundreds of those in recent years. Directors slagging off the manager behind his back, querying his decisions, even plotting against him – these things do happen in football. They happened at Loftus Road when Briatore still thought QPR was a restaurant. I don’t think any scene in The Four Year Plan topped the infighting over Ian Holloway’s apparent reluctance to sign Gary Cahill on loan, to give just one example, or was as ridiculous as players like Armel Tchakounte and others being*signed. So, a bit like past fly-on-the-wall insights into dressing rooms, where managers go berserk and on one infamous occasion even offer to fight their players, The Four Year Plan is fascinating and in its own way unique, but in many ways not unique to the club in question. Only when Sousa is confronted following his comments about Dexter Blackstock’s move to Nottingham Forest did I sense the film was finally hotting up and beginning to portray the QPR I know. The best*section of the film is the climax, which involves stunning behind-the-scenes footage of the build-up to the Faurlin hearing and the day promotion was confirmed. Those scenes will bring a lump to many throats and their lasting value to QPR fans mean director Mat Hodgson ought to be recognised in some way when the end-of-season awards are handed out in a few weeks’ time. As the film reaches its fantastic conclusion, Neil Warnock stars as the hero of the hour and his appointment is an obvious turning point. Consistent with QPR’s portrayal of events, the film implies that Warnock was headhunted by Bhatia. Who else? Rangers were able to get Warnock to Loftus Road in the end. This is comparable to the club’s*mission to convince everyone that various managers signed players and not Mr Paladini. Warnock, like others before him, was Paladini’s recommendation to the board, and he was targeted for the job long before he eventually took it. He was very much Paladini’s choice. What changed was that there was a collective decision that Briatore would be seen to step back and Paladini would relinquish the title of sporting director, all in the hope that a strong manager could be attracted. The real game changer though was simply that Crystal Palace went into administration, meaning QPR were able to get their man. The sea change works and relative sanity prevails long enough for Rangers to achieve their goal – despite Briatore’s presence continuing to loom large. But although the film gives a great insight into some of his antics, it charts a period when Briatore’s input was actually waning – even before the phantom takeover by the Mittals and Warnock’s arrival. Yes he was still influential, and was omnipresent via Paladini’s phone, but the peak of Briatore’s self-styled dictatorship came during the first year of his involvement – before filming started. He did step back – relatively speaking of course – following the sacking of Iain Dowie, whose troubled reign is a crucial time in terms of understanding the Rangers story but is barely covered in the film. As I*often say when talking about the QPR debacle of recent years: It’s a 2005 thing, not a 2007 thing. Briatore didn’t bring farce to W12, he arrived to bankroll it and The Four Year Plan charts some of what then occurred. I’d argue that as farcical as Briatore’s tenure was, the two years prior to it were even worse. Yes, worse. And a Four Year Plan-style account of that period really would have been an eye-opener for QPR fans and given them a better idea of how and why their once-great club became a laughing stock. And while Briatore’s visits were too frequent and his input obvious, his direct day-to-day role was*often overstated. A look at Paladini moseying around with his sidekick Gianni di Marzio – sometimes quoted in the Italian media as a ‘QPR transfer adviser’ – would have given Rangers fans a much more telling insight into their club, but would not have been as interesting to other viewers. That’s a trade-off The Four-Year Plan’s makers will no doubt have had to weigh up. I felt QPR supporters lost out to the wider public as a result, but the many fans who found the film to be a riveting expose will strongly disagree.
It's a shame it didn't actually start at the beginning, I seem to remember us being rock-bottom of the Championship when LDC was appointed, the first batch of signings were brought in and we actually played some sublime football including spanking wins over Stoke and Bristol City. It all went tits-up after LDC went and a revolving door was installed in the Manager's office where the film started...
That's right. Mick Harford turned us around even before LDC arrived but he was a desperate Manager second time round. It was a very good docu.
The Four Year Plan blows a gaping hole in the myth that suggests it takes brains to make money. It confirms the Goons were precisely that. Odd little men prancing about at odds with everything around them. 'Idiota' reverberates around the film on various levels as it increasingly did around the ground, spawned by the man it best describes. Oooh the irony, almost Shakespearian! The money bailed us out alright, but the joke is it was never about that. Briatore wanted a west London bolthole to add to his pompous life style. Trouble was, it involved football, a game as foreign to him as he was to the traditions of QPR FC. Obviously caught his rampant imagination though. We had to suffer the ignominy of watching him acting out his football manager fanasies; and listening to journos telling us we were the richest club in the world! Did the film catch all that? Yep I'm afraid it did. Poor us!
I thoroughly enjoyed the documentary: it gave a welcome look behind the scenes at QPR which both fans and neutrals should have enjoyed. Nevertheless, few fans will have been surprised by what it portrayed. We had seen for ourselves the results of many of the actions of our board and this, combined with the more reliable media reports, had given us a pretty clear idea of what was going on. We had seen a number of interviews of Amit Bhatia, not least on QPR World, and I think most of us could see that he had become a genuine fan. Despite being a fan, he publicly pledged himself to act rationally in the running of the club by not spending way beyong our means and by not changing managers every five minutes. He did exactly what he said he would do and you can't say that about many people in football. Unfortunately, Amit largely took a back seat in the early years and it was only when he and Ishan took centre stage that the Club started to enjoy the success that our new financial base made possible. And then there was Briatore. His public utterings had already painted him as an incoherent, egotistical, megalomaniac. We knew he had contempt for the fans from his poor attempts at communicationg with us and from the successive hikes in season ticket prices. I never once heard him express any affection for the club: it was abundantly clear that this was a project, a franchise if you will, from which he wanted to make money. And despite the wealth of Briatore and Ecclestone, they spent surprisingly little, although the wage bill did go up and the stadium was given a welcome lick of paint. It was keeping their eye on their short-term investment returns which deprived us of the necessary funding in the 2011/12 pre-season and which could easily result in our relegation after an all-too-brief time in the limelight. The rumours that Briatore was picking the team were well-aired and the documentary proved that someone who had been in football for about five minutes was indeed having an undue influence. That it was Gavin Mahon who was his chosen Messiah in any crisis speaks volumes for Briatore's knowledge of football. His contempt for, and name calling of, managers, even the newly appointed ones, was a bit of a shock. There must be relatively few people on this earth that he regards as being above the level of pond life. (He couldn't remember Hogan Ephraim's christian name.) One is left to wonder how such a nasty man could have been so successful in business: he didn't even seem paticularly bright, quite the opposite! Bullying can only get you so far: what else did he have? His lap dog, Paladini, in some ways came out of the film rather better than many fans would have expected. He aped the abuse dished out by Briatore and also his appalling arrogance, but it was clear that he genuinely cared. It was just the way he went about things that stank. Nevertheless, from the fans perspective, when it came, his was a tearless farewell. Ecclestone was a never-present and this was reflected in the film. It seems that, despite his multi million pound investment, he did not feel compelled to be actively involved and he was content to leave its safe-keeping in the hands of a certifiable lunatic. With Amit, the other hero of the film, of course, was Neil Warnock. It was a bravura performance to keep a cool head and a smile on your face with an owner like Flavio periodically coming down to earth. That he managed to put together such a successful side with that Machiavellian Scrooge on his shoulder was an awesome achievement. Like many on this board, I am grateful that Paladini unearthed Briatore and Ecclestone in time to save our club. It was a roller coaster ride and one that I largely enjoyed, despite the ridicule that we often (and rightly) attracted. But, my God, am I glad they're gone. Oh, I almost forgot: the most surprising thing about the documentary was, of course, that it happened at all. Clearly, Briatore's conceit and deluded sense of self-worth meant that he thought he would come well out of it: QPR's saviour, the great benefactor to the masses. Obviously, the whole world, or BBC2's late night audience at least, now knows exactly what he is.
The documentary would have been entertaining if it had been about any other club other than mine! What on earth they were doing letting some of those events being filmed in the first place is beyond me, I don't know why cameras were allowed to follow our directors around other than a massive vanithy project meant to massage their egos. Multi-billionaire Bernie Ecclestone moaning about how much bottles of water cost was an eye opener, hasn't the man seen how much money his daughter spunks up the wall? The origins of the Four Year Plan started with us being only a few days (some say hours) away from administration - again! - and we were truly grateful that the take over saved us. We started singing "Gigi De Canio, Bernie and Flavio!!" in appreciation of the new regime but it wasn't to last long. I'd always thought Paladini was a bit of a wide boy due to his previous role as a football agent and he didn't exactly come out smelling of roses after he alleged that he was held up at gunpoint in a row over security contracts at the club. His tears at the Watford game when we secured promotion looked genuine enough though. The documentary should be given to any new owners or managers and re-titled "How not to run a football club"
Nice summary Rodney. I really enjoyed the film, mainly because I knew it had a happy ending - Briatore gone and the club in the Prem. I suspect there are a few other chairmen around who act like Flav too...just don't let themselves be filmed doing it! Also surprised at how weak and inarticulate Hart, Harford and De Sousa seemed ( may have been editing). Regarding finances for me the most revealing bit was the chairman of the club discussing shaving £1 off the price of executive box lunches - shows the shoestring nature of operating outside the Prem.
Thanks SB73 and Brix. I thought it'd be nice to help a young lad with his dissertation. I always thought De Sousa was inarticulate: in interviews, he always used loads of English words that I recognised but, when he strung them all together, it was gibberish.
If I had just woken up from a four year long coma and watched this documentary about my beloved R's, I would have taken it as fiction, never in a million years a documentary. But as I've been awake throughout the entire period this documentary portrays, shocking as it may seem, it was not surprising for us who follow the club closely. You have got some great reviews from the gents above, hats off to Rodney for a very compelling story. This sums up my emotions: Have to say I honestly don't believe we would have reached the Premier League by now without them. Best sequence in the FYP for me was the conversation between Flavio and Gianni regarding the possible points deduction. "You say no problem no problem...and now we're up to our necks in s**t" Classic But in what other walk of life would they let someone film an employe recieve such a rollocking from ones boss? Flavio really had Gianni up against the wall on that one. Not the best performance review, don't think you should put that in your CV Gianni. Anyway, good luck Rob. Keep us posted on the end result will you?
