Wednesday 16 November 2016 16:48, UK
Newly-installed QPR boss Ian Holloway has described his decision to return to the club as a "no-brainer".
Holloway has decided to return for a second stint in charge at Loftus Road, having guided the R's back to the Championship during a generally successful first spell between 2001 and 2006.
The 53-year-old is a popular figure at the west London club, having been a first-team regular when they were in the Premier League during the first half of the '90s.
He returned as manager in 2001, with the club in the midst of a financial crisis and plummeting towards relegation to the third tier of English football and, although he could not stave off demotion, he had re-established the team in the second tier by the time he departed in 2006.
And QPR have now plucked Holloway from his job as a Championship expert at Sky Sports, having sacked Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink last week, with the team 17th in the table.
Holloway met the media on Wednesday and, asked if returning to a club where he was held in such high esteem could be a risky move, he said: "It's a no-brainer for me.
"How could I not come back to this place, with how I feel about it?
"I told my boss at Sky, if QPR come back in, you might be in trouble! Did I believe they would? Yes, one day, and they have. I couldn't turn this down, not in a million years."
Asked why the club was so special to him, he added: "I was 29 years old, my manager [Gerry Francis at Bristol Rovers] left, I thought he was brilliant, he taught me things that made me better.
"He went up the road to his old club, QPR, then I get a phone call saying 'Do you want to come?'.
"I came to this place when I was 29 years old and he said 'you might not play but you will rub off on people'.
"I was a down-to-earth muck and nettles player but I managed to play 150 times and it was the best days of my footballing life.
"I was a lower-league player, like a lot at QPR, and I was a part in making us as successful as we were.
"Then obviously, coming back as a manager, and we were the first big club to have the word administration thrown at it, so it was all new and that is a story in itself.
"The main reason really [he came back] is that, I did it once, with people who care about the club, and I want to do that again right now."
Despite lavishing money on the playing squad, QPR have had three fairly ill-starred Premier League campaigns since 2011, finishing bottom twice, and Holloway wants the club to revert to their formerly successful way of doing business.
"I feel that is absolutely vital for us," he said.
"We had a little spell where the owners were trying to buy success and you end up with people who don't care, or all they care about is the wrong thing. They pick their money up and they don't wear that badge.
"This fella next to me [Marc Bircham, who played under Holloway and is now back as first-team coach] was one of those people who helped me the first time, who made everybody care.
"When the thing you are doing it for is something that is burning in you, it shows. Luckily I managed to get them back up to where they were when I took over on half the budget.
"That is a fact and so to have another chance now when we are in this situation, is something I would have dreamed of and I was dreaming of, and now I just cannot wait to get going."
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