Step on the Gaz

29 August 2007

I'M sure no-one will mind if I take this opportunity to pay a tribute to Ray Jones and share my memories of him with you.

The first time I ever saw Ray, my initial thought was that he was the tallest lad I'd ever seen. Even then people were talking about him and saying he had something special.

It was a real pleasure to see him come through the youth team and develop as a player. Ray had massive respect for his elders and, in my book, that was another plus point - you sometimes don't see that in younger players.

But there were never any airs and graces about Ray, even after he got his England cap. He just got on with his job and went about it quietly, a real gentle giant.

Never mind playing for England, one thing that stood out about Ray was his ability to sleep for England! He'd fall asleep on the coach going to away games and sometimes we used to find him asleep in the dressing room between training sessions too.

Recently, we both went up to hospital with Paul Hunter, the physio, to have injections on our respective injuries. We were waiting for around 10 minutes, then the nurse called my name and I went up with Paul. Ray didn't react at all, so I looked behind me and there he was, fast asleep!

Only a couple of weeks ago, we were both doing a bit of swimming with Mark Barry, our sports scientist. Mark and myself both jumped in the deep end, began treading water and were breathing quite heavily after about 30 seconds.

Ray didn't seem to be doing a lot, so Mark said: "Come on Ray, are you trying?" Ray just came out with a great one-liner: "It's all right, I can touch the bottom!"

Football is a macho world and sometimes it's difficult to show your emotions. But I can honestly say that these last few days have brought us closer as a unit and there's no need to say 'we're going to do this or that for Ray' - with the character we have at QPR, we'll do it anyway.

We want to remember Ray as he was. His locker's still got his name on it and it'll stay like that for a long time - he wrote his name into QPR history and he won't ever be forgotten.

I won't be playing against Southampton, but I'll be in the stand wearing a shirt with Ray's name on the back, just as the lads will on the pitch.

My thoughts are with Ray's family at this time and I know the rest of the lads are all thinking of them too.