It's been an exciting week being a QPR fan. Just today we've signed 3 new players on permanent contracts, and all of them quality additions to the club. We know they'll be more. Add that to the quality loan signings we have, then the future really does begin to look good. To sum it all up, someone on a QPR mailing list said this:

Today has been like Christmas Day used to be when you were aged 8!.

It really is that good. You don't know whats going to happen next. If someone had said to me at the start of the season that we would be talked of as "the richest club in the world" I'd have said they were bonkers. But it's happened to our club, and we're all so excited about this signing or that signing, rumours of signings, new stadium, whether we can beat Chelsea in the cup. And what's more we've started to play decent football and win matches. Un bloody believable.

But and this is a big but, like other supporters of less fashionable clubs, we all have our reasons for being supporters. For me, I'm never ashamed to say I grew up following Arsenal, but not being from a football family, I never went to a game. My first real experience of watching football was after university when I started going to QPR. And what struck me most about the club was it's identity, and its real feeling of being a proper family club. There's been good times, but in my time there it's been mostly bad. But through it all there's always been that feeling of togetherness around the club and in the ground. I'm sure its a feeling common to a lot of football fans. And we're all scared that this essential part of our club is going to be lost.

And the sad thing is, I do believe it will be lost in the long run. Flavio Briatore, Bernie Ecclestone and Lakshmi Mittal are no fools. They're not in this for the love. They're not going to accept anything less than success. And I believe it will come at a price. And that price can be seen down the road at Chelsea. You see it every time you walk down a street in the country with Chelsea "fans" every where. You see it on the tube on match day with the fans in hats and scarves and flags and all the other paraphernalia of a glory hunting fan. And the more success we see the more we'll see this happen to us. Don't get me wrong. There are plenty of proper Chelsea fans out there. There always will be. But their voices, their identity, their place as the soul of the club has become diminished. And the club becomes villified. It happened to Man U before them. It's going to happen elsewhere in the future.

It doesn't have to happen to us. I don't believe for one moment that Liverpool football club will sell it's soul to the American Dollar. We have no need to lose our club to the seducing smell of our new owners money. Of course we want the investment. Of course we love Gigi De Canio, Bernie and Flavio (and Lakshmi as well now). Of course we want to do well. And win the league (beating Liverpool into second would be nice!). And play in Europe. And play stunning football every week. But we need as a club and fans to stick together and remember why we loved our club through the bad times (and even some good times).

So to all of us out there supporting our club today - let's all hope we can all be proud of the club we love today and fondly remember those days when we were sh*t. And then chuckle as we lift the European cup.

U R'sssss!