Loftus Road was my first league ground in1974. I hadn't been there for 40 years when an opportunity presented itself in the form of a Friday evening televised game against Aston Villa. I walked to the ground from my hotel as I was staying in Shepherds Bush. A few more than 16,000 had joined me this evening. With the exception of the ends, The School End and the Loftus Road Stand, the stadium still looks about the same as in the 1970s. Getting to the toilet at half-time was a test in an overcrowded alley under the stand. Behind the Ellerslie Stand, wehere I was sitting, there's no wall all the way up to the roof as in most other league stadiums I have been to. 

The home side had had a strong October taking 10 points from the 4 games they had played. Steve McLaren's side was in 11th position before the game. Aston Villa were in 16th, the new manager Dean Smith had had two weeks on the job with one win and one loss. Villa had most of the ball, but it was QPR's Pawel Wzsolek that scored the only goal of the game hitting a bar-and-in-shot when he was free with the keeper. Villa would register 4 wins and 3 draws from their next seven games and at the end of the season win the playoff final to regain their place in the PL. For QPR, it was a different story. They ended up 19th with yet another mangerial change. It's also worth noting that Luke Freeman was playing for QPR. It was the third club in six years I had seen him play for, Stevenage (2012) and Bristol City (2015) being the other two.