Ollie on transfers, cup exits, Gary Penrice and Bruce Forsyth - Interview
Sunday, 3rd Sep 2017 19:30 by Clive Whittingham
As QPR prepare to mark 100 years at Loftus Road on Saturday, LFW caught up with manager Ian Holloway to discuss his return to the club, transfer window, attitude to cups and memories of W12.
Second coming
The QPR manager job comes up a lot, whenever that happened over the last few years were you waiting by the phone, did you put feelers out, or did you feel your time here had been and gone?
IH: It came up just after I’d promised Gary Hughes, the head of football at Sky, I’d do a year with him to see how it went. I told him I wouldn’t go in for any other jobs. At the end of that year I got a three-year contract which I signed but I told him at that point if the QPR job came up that’s the only one I’d consider and want to put my name in for. Blow me down, it happened.
To get it again was a dream come true. I can’t tell you how excited I am about what I want to do here. What I’ve found here hasn’t discouraged me at all, I’m going to work through it and help the club as it has helped me through the ten years I’ve had an association with it. That came first through Gerry Francis, who I would have done anything for - if he told me to jump off the roof I’d have done it for him. His affinity with this club made me love it even from afar and when he came here and brought me with him it was more than a dream, going into the top flight at 29-years-old. I had a big decision to make at 33 when Ray Wilkins offered me two more years and Bristol Rovers offered me four years. Leaving here wasn’t easy, but to come back and have another opportunity is life changing for me. I want people to understand that, and I will do whatever it takes to get it to a situation where it’s moving the way everybody wants.
Hopefully everybody can see the way the lads are wearing the shirt, the way they’re chasing and working for each other at the minute, is a bit more like what QPR fans would expect.
Lewis Jones who worked with you at Sky also does bits for LFW and he always said that when he was putting your Championship column together for the Sky website the QPR bit would always take longer than anything else…
IH: Yeh my wife used to moan about that.
Continued here ... https://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/46457
Sunday, 3rd Sep 2017 19:30 by Clive Whittingham
As QPR prepare to mark 100 years at Loftus Road on Saturday, LFW caught up with manager Ian Holloway to discuss his return to the club, transfer window, attitude to cups and memories of W12.
Second coming
The QPR manager job comes up a lot, whenever that happened over the last few years were you waiting by the phone, did you put feelers out, or did you feel your time here had been and gone?
IH: It came up just after I’d promised Gary Hughes, the head of football at Sky, I’d do a year with him to see how it went. I told him I wouldn’t go in for any other jobs. At the end of that year I got a three-year contract which I signed but I told him at that point if the QPR job came up that’s the only one I’d consider and want to put my name in for. Blow me down, it happened.
To get it again was a dream come true. I can’t tell you how excited I am about what I want to do here. What I’ve found here hasn’t discouraged me at all, I’m going to work through it and help the club as it has helped me through the ten years I’ve had an association with it. That came first through Gerry Francis, who I would have done anything for - if he told me to jump off the roof I’d have done it for him. His affinity with this club made me love it even from afar and when he came here and brought me with him it was more than a dream, going into the top flight at 29-years-old. I had a big decision to make at 33 when Ray Wilkins offered me two more years and Bristol Rovers offered me four years. Leaving here wasn’t easy, but to come back and have another opportunity is life changing for me. I want people to understand that, and I will do whatever it takes to get it to a situation where it’s moving the way everybody wants.
Hopefully everybody can see the way the lads are wearing the shirt, the way they’re chasing and working for each other at the minute, is a bit more like what QPR fans would expect.
Lewis Jones who worked with you at Sky also does bits for LFW and he always said that when he was putting your Championship column together for the Sky website the QPR bit would always take longer than anything else…
IH: Yeh my wife used to moan about that.
Continued here ... https://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/46457
