' WHY QPR FANS DISLIKE CARDIFF CITY '

The inside track on QPR’s dislike of Cardiff City


By Jamie Kemble

Wednesday 1st March 2017


Cardiff City supporters are often left confused by the level of dislike shown towards them from QPR fans so we caught up with Clive Whittingham to find out more on the ‘one-sided rivalry’.


There have been a number of tasty encounters between Cardiff City and Queens Park Rangers on the pitch and often in recent years they have come about with both teams fighting for promotion.

The Bluebirds defeated Rangers in the 2003 play-off final at Millennium Stadium but Neil Warnock’s hoops put the record straight by pipping Cardiff to Premier League promotion in 2011.

So the two teams have had their fair share of important meetings but in recent years, QPR supporters have seemed to have looked upon Cardiff as one of their rivals.

City fans have often expressed their confusion on social media when Rangers fans are heard singing ‘we hate Cardiff’ while their fixtures are broadcast on TV.

But how can one club consider another rivals when there’s around 150 miles separating the two?

Clive Whittingham from supporters website Loft For Words gave us the inside track on the rivalry and where it begun.

“QPR are in a weird West London food chain where we hate Chelsea, but as we don’t play them much and a huge portion of their support only started following them around 2001, they don’t pay too much attention to us,” Clive said.

“Brentford hate us because our chairman tried to force through a merger 50 years ago and put them out of existence, but a lot of QPR quite like them and there’s a history of our fans popping down there for games when Rangers are on long away trips.

“So rivalries are a bit weird in West London and we often end up growing them up through weird sets of circumstances with odd clubs – we’ve had a similar thing to the Cardiff thing with Stoke, Bristol City and Luton fairly recently as well. Cardiff, meanwhile, obviously have Swansea and to some extent Bristol City so don’t need to go looking for extra aggro.”

Clive then revealed that the recent promotion campaigns where the two teams have come up against each other have played their part.

He added: “First reason for the Cardiff dislike is that whenever we were fighting for promotion or against relegation it always seemed to be Cardiff fighting there alongside us.

“2002/03 we won a big game in the last-minute at Ninian Park but then lost the play-off final in Cardiff. 2011 we pipped Cardiff to promotion and Dave Jones seemed particularly scathing of us all the way through that, saying on several occasions that we were an average team with one Adel Taarabt, which firstly wasn’t true and secondly was a bit rich from a manager who had Craig Bellamy at his disposal.”

According to Clive Whittingham, it’s not only on-pitch tussles that have forged the dislike between the two teams with trouble off the field playing its part as well.

“Secondly, while Cardiff’s new ground seems to have gone out of its way to be a safe and friendly place to visit, and we’ve had good experiences in the city’s pubs meeting and chatting with Cardiff fans, it certainly wasn’t always that way, ” he claimed.

“The 2002/03 game where we won in the last-minute, in particular, was like a war zone outside the away end afterwards – QPR had been held on the terrace for ages and when they were finally released there were loads of Cardiff waiting and it went off.

“There was a game at Loftus Road around that time as well, which Cardiff won 4-0 with a Robert Earnshaw hat trick, where there were fights all over the South Africa Road before and after the game.

“After the play-off final most Cardiff fans wished us best of luck for the following season on our way back to the trains, but lots of QPR fans had a very different experience with people goading them and looking for something more after the match.

“Even as recently as 2011 we were getting taken off trains and bunged in designated pubs then marched to the stadium.”

And apparently there’s a more trivial nature to the rivalry too and it’s becoming less of an issue, even for Rangers fans.

Clive revealed: “There’s other bits to it – you pinched Richard Langley from us and although he was apparently poor for you guys he was a hero at Loftus Road – plus the classic anti-English/Welsh sentiment, turning up at Ninian Park and seeing stalls selling anti-English t-shirts and what have you.

“All very petty and not a particularly big thing. I haven’t heard any QPR fans building up the visit of Cardiff like it’s some kind of big thing, or like it’s a big grudge match or anything like that, though”.

Remember a few years ago coming out of that shit away end and coming under fire from fireworks being aimed at us from those flats off South Africa Road

so no real reason at all frankly - the reception at Ninian Park was like that for anyone who made the mistake of turning up to support the away team

Remember a few years ago coming out of that shit away end and coming under fire from fireworks being aimed at us from those flats off South Africa Road

Yup, little chavs on bikes throwing them as well. Cant stand QPR

They sound like the English version of Swansea with a big chip on the shoulder

The 4-0 game was a Friday night an it seemed there were more than just qpr fans there.
Most of the action took place up and around the springbok bar if I recall, but five of us ended up the wrong side of the action and were in a qpr pub with another pub opposite an were very lucky to get out after they spotted us and the pub went up chairs, stools the lot.

Thought the real reason was because our fans set their hotel fire alarm off the night before the 03 play off final?

Allegedly

Remember that time we chased them into the SpringBok, late 80s..
That was the night the burger van got overturned with the guy still in it..

It was like the Warriors on the way back to the train - at Latimer Road we were assaulted by a flying orange...

As Millwall would say, No one likes us, we don't care. In fact we kinda love it!

Queen's Park rangers fans have always been sly feckers it always seems to kick off on South africa rd they wait for the main mob to go then come out of a side entrance and try and attack the fans who are late coming out of the ground the last time I went there and I have been there a few times they came unstuck because he ones who lagging behind weren't the ones you wanted to bump into they soon went running back behind police lines

I remember my late uncle telling me there was a big rivalry in the 6o;s and it was regarded like a derby match

Allegedly

Allegedly