Beat around the Bush: QPR fansâ weird and wonderful match-day superstitions Blog by Annie Robb Tuesday, January 21, 2014 8:01 AM So match day is finally here. Itâs January 18 and we are at home to Huddersfield. . .. It is also my 47th birthday (ouch)â¦Having been born in 1967, when we last won a cup (oh dear), Iâm feeling kind of positive about todayâs gameâ¦Turns out it is also Rob Greenâs birthday, though he is a mere 34, surely the gods have to be smiling on us, no? A lot of footballers have rituals or superstitions they feel MUST be adhered to for fear of breaking their luck - signs of the cross and kisses to their gods, meditating on the pitch before a game - and I know a lot of us fans have them too. You know who you are. My little girl Scarlett is coming with me, and since she came to the Donny Rovers game, she is officially our lucky mascot â FACT! Scarlett actually watched avidly for around 10 minutes before reverting back to playing on my iphone, but thatâs fine. Luckily she does want to come again, otherwise I might have a battle dragging our new mascot down to W12. I know fans who have their lucky shirt, the lucky pants, the lucky shave (one from twitter) and I have a few of my own match day rules. I shall be wearing my colours, since I wore them against Donny Rovers and we won, if weâd lost then of course I wouldnât wear them again, well, at least until the luck needed changing. I remember my daughter was wearing her Messi shirt, but today she wants to wear a dress. I am slightly stressy in case this is the missing piece of luck, but sheâs six and I cannot find a way to explain it to her⦠I will drive via the back streets around Old Oak, and not continue down the A40 as per. As it will be the site of our new ground, this has now become an important addition to the list. I will also have to put money into every charity bucket I see. Trust me, I save a fortune in the closed season, but hey itâs all for charity (and QPRâs âluckâ of course). On that note, Iâm offâ¦wish us luck⦠A few hours later⦠See, I told you didnât I? You may think that we won the game due to Charlie Austinâs goal scoring prowess, the fact that we battled it out and kicked on from 1-1, even though I thought our heads had dropped, but no. The planets were obviously all aligned, all the lucky pants, shirts, shaves, routes and pre-match rituals were in place. QPR fans I salute you, I have the mascot safe, until next time! Oh, and as an aside, those of you who remember Paul Inceâs ritual of not putting his shirt on until he was on the pitch â it turns out it wasnât superstition after all, he merely saw it as common sense. How disappointing!
