It's early-August 2013 and my life-sentence of following W12's finest has lead me to what is barely an away stand at Exeter City. No roof, no plush seats with extended leg room, certainly no big screen for action replays - 'proper football', as I'm sure my dad would say.
To top it off, my club had just been relegated from the Premier League in spectacular fashion, winning only four games, breaking the record for the worst start in Premier League history and just being an overall embarrassment really. There was laughter following relegation, awful January signings that would be immediately sold back and a wage bill that trumped then-Champions League finalists Borussia Dortmund, with barely a fraction of the success.
So here I find myself, on a random terrace on the south coast - cautiously optimistic, nervously expectant and perhaps, disastrously so. QPR would eventually go up in dramatic fashion via a 90th minute Bobby Zamora stunner, masking what had been a wholly underwhelming season for the run-away pre-season title favourites. Although Zamora would take the headlines, the promotion came on the shoulders of the first goalscorer on that August evening in the south coast.
Charlie Austin came to QPR with a growing reputation. 72 goals over 136 appearances for both Swindon and Burnley was impressive enough to almost earn him a move to then-Premier League Hull City, before the move broke down due to a 'knee problem' discovered in the medical. Ironically enough, Rangers themselves were chasing Celtic goal-machine Gary Hooper, who ended up choosing Norwich. So essentially, Austin was QPR's second choice and vice-versa.
'I have no doubt that if we give him the right service, he will score a lot of goals for us' - Harry Redknapp
In his two and a half year spell with the Rangers, Harry didn't get much right, but he was bang-on-the-money with this one. An initial 6 league games without a goal, which had fans concerned if this was Rob Hulse 2.0, was remedied by 6 goals in the following 6 games. There were penalties, there were headers, there were tap-ins, there was an eventual goal of the season winner at home to Charlton - Charlie scored every goal possible. In a team of high-profile, ex-Premier League and Champions League players, the star of the show was the bricklayer from Hungerford.
Following a three-month spell on the sideline due to a shoulder injury, Rangers stumbled and stuttered until his triumphant return. Two infamous goals at Loftus Road in the second-leg of the play-off semi-final before that glorious Wembley afternoon cemented (no pun intended) the striker in Rangers folklore forever.
The best, however, was yet to come.
'It's going to be hard work and I am prepared to put that in. I'm looking forward to getting started' - Charlie Austin
As was the story with Rangers at that time, another summer of big salaried players came into the club, with the short-lived idea of replicating the 3-5-2 formation that had carried the Netherlands to the World Cup semi-final that summer. Rangers, perhaps inevitably, would be relegated at the conclusion of that season, with rumoured dressing room rifts, players played out of position and a deadline-day tantrum that leading to Redknapp resigning due to a sudden need for knee surgery. And yet, amongst all the chaos, Austin once again stood tall amongst a shirking team of overhyped, overpaid players.
Austin's season would start with a late penalty miss in the dying moments of the opener against Hull, before grabbing his first Premier League goal in the win against Sunderland two weeks later. The 17 goals that would follow, would go on to be the best goalscoring season for any striker making the Championship to Premier League step-up and was rewarded with an England call-up.
The most memorable goals of the 18, for me, was a Christmas-period hat-trick against West Brom. Rangers would go 2-goals down early on at home - the natives were restless, the manager looking typically forlorn. The eleven men in blue and white would do what they did so often in moments of struggle - turn to their number 9. Austin would hammer home a penalty to pull one back before half-time and added another from close-range just after the restart. Austin would complete the hat-trick and the comeback 5 minutes from time, heading home from a Joey Barton corner.
Why does this stick out for me? Well, firstly, the image of Austin holding the match ball at full-time, covered in mud, hair scruffy from being mobbed by his team mates three times will live in on my memory forever. But, more than anything else, that game summed up Austin's first spell at QPR; when the chips were down and all looked lost, Charlie stood taller than everyone else and put the football club on his shoulders.
So here we find ourselves almost 8 years later, having beaten West Brom at home again, thanks to our man up front. Austin is now comfortably QPR's top scorer for the century and a huge part of this current promotion push on and off the pitch. He's a different animal to what he was in the first spell - his pace, although he was never blessed with a lot, has waned somewhat but his game has changed accordingly.
His touch is sharper, his passing range has expanded, his understanding of the game and his positioning has grown astronomically. Make no mistake, this ain't a farewell tour - this is still a very good Championship striker. Look at the way he finds space between the defenders to get on the end of that Willock cross - that is a level of movement off the ball that is learned over years of experience. His role in the side has changed from carrying it on his shoulders to 'if you need a goal, I'll score it lads'.
I think that goal on Saturday, like the hat-trick in 2014, has once again summed up who this man is for this football club again. Upon returning to the club last January, the goals he scored and the understanding developed with Dykes shot us right up the table. This season, he has heroically played on, despite some tragic personal circumstances but has delivered when needed. He is clearly respected by the players and his presence has lifted the form of Dykes, Chair and Willock immensely.
Austin is an important part of this promotion push - and that winner on Saturday won't be his last this season. It's rumoured that Warburton's first choice for a striker last January was the now-retired Glenn Murray, making Austin the compromise for a QPR striker twice in his career. If that is the case, let me be the one to say it; that man that I watched bundle in a goal away at Exeter in 2013 is the greatest second-choice in the history of second choices.
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