That was a fantastic day out and I must concur with almost everyone else on this thread - QPR away was just about the best away day in the country.
The only downside to this game was that I was hamstrung financially at the time by a shit job paying shit wages. This meant that the rattler was out of the question and we had to make do with the official travel club. Anyone who has travelled with them will know that it's not exactly a bundle of laughs and the coach drivers don't tend to be in a hurry to get to their destination, which in turn would limit any pre-match drinking time. As it happens, we got there just after 1PM and managed to throw about half a dozen drinks down us before the game kicked off.
QPR were a very good side at the time - the best team in London was a fair assessment - and started the match as favourites. However, in the build-up to the match it looked like their star man Les Fedinand wasn't going to make it. I think he underwent a series of pain-killing injections (not sure about the oxygen tent though) and miraculously made the starting line-up which was a bit of a pisser to be honest. Not only that, the papers beforehand came up with a worrying stat - QPR had not lost a home FA Cup tie for 13 years, so recent history was against us.
We were in the seats above the terracing as the stand curves round to the left looking out over the pitch so we were right next to the home fans. When Whitey banged the first into the roof of the net there were indeed loads of City on the other side of the fence in the home end celebrating. There were plenty of blues on the pitch as well. It got better when Vonk scored the second a few minutes later (cue another bout of absolute bedlam in the away end), and that looked to be that. But this is City remember and we almost fucked it up at the end - Holloway pulled one back, and then they forced a corner right at the death. Incredibly, the ref didn't even let them take it and blew up for full-time. That was us in the hat for the 5th round and I, like many other blues, started to really believe Hansen's prediction that we would win the cup that year.
