One of the things I look forward to most about Christmas is the football, something that’s particularly true if you’re a fan of a team in one of the lower tiers. Premier League clubs play 38 games per season, not counting the FA Cup, the Carabao Cup and any European competitions they happen to be in. Championship clubs, by contrast, play 46 league games every season and try to cram in as many as they can over the holidays. But even allowing for that, QPR has an unusually crowded fixture list this year – no fewer than eight matches between 1 December and 1 January.

The last time I went to see Millwall, with all four kids in tow, we were locked in a metal cage at the exit. This was for our own safety, the stewards explained

This would normally have me purring with pleasure. I remember racing to Loftus Road after a Christmas lunch in 2014 to rendezvous with my wife and six-year-old son to see the Rs play West Brom. I was so worried about keeping Caroline waiting that I ran straight into a lamppost, smashing my glasses. As I squinted into the floodlights, trying to figure out what was going on, Charlie gave me a running commentary, which turned out to be more exciting than watching the game. We were near the bottom of the Premier League at the time, having been promoted at the end of the previous season, and destined for relegation. The Baggies went two up in the first 20 minutes and another defeat looked certain. Then Charlie Austin, our 25-year-old striker, scored a hat trick in the second half, with the winner coming in the 86th minute. That was probably the best Christmas present I’ve ever had.

This year, I’m even more nervous than I was going into that match. At the beginning of this month, the Hoops were languishing in the relegation zone, only at the bottom of the second tier rather than the first. In the past 13 months we’ve had four different managers – never a good sign – and we’re currently without a director of football. The CEO is doubling up as QPR’s chairman, keeping the seat warm until we can persuade some Gulf potentate to pour money into the club. Going into our last game of November, we’d only chalked up one home victory in the previous year, a club record. Somewhat miraculously, we won that game but with a great deal of help from our opponents, Stoke City, who guided us to victory with an own goal in the 89th minute.

Actually, that may be slightly uncharitable. After a succession of journey-man managers, we’ve just recruited a 41-year-old Spaniard called Martí Cifuentes who looks like he could be the real deal. He’s never managed an English team before, having cut his teeth in Scandinavia, but last season he steered Hammarby to a third-place finish in the Swedish first division and got them into a cup final.

For his first game in charge, QPR were away to fellow stragglers Rotherham, a brutal introduction to Championship football, and I was expecting another defeat. Cifuentes likes his teams to play what’s known as ‘tiki-taka’ football, with the emphasis on short passes and keeping possession, probing for an opportunity to mount a swift surprise attack.

That’s not a style QPR’s players are cut out for, to put it mildly. Cifuentes’s predecessor, Gareth Ainsworth, was an English manager from the old school, believing our best hope of winning games was to sit back and defend, then try to catch opponents off-guard with long balls over the top. This is disparagingly referred to as ‘Brexit football’ in contrast to the European approach favoured by brainy tacticians like Cifuentes. Expecting our ragbag of Premier League rejects and injury-prone war horses to play like Barcelona was a bit unrealistic, surely?

In fact, we managed a 1-1 draw, which was a big improvement on the previous six games, all of which we’d lost. Some of our defenders were clearly struggling to adapt to Cifuentes’s ‘progressive’ style – it was like watching the hippos trying to perform ballet in Fantasia. But others who’d bridled under Ainsworth’s head-banging approach began to show signs of life. Our most technically gifted player is probably Ilias Chair, a 26-year-old Moroccan international, and he’d been languishing under the old regime, like a racehorse being harnessed to a cart. But he scored a wonder goal against Rotherham, his first of the season. We won another draw the following week, then lost to Norwich, then chalked up our first victory in 13 games against Stoke. We also won again on 1 December. Things are looking up at Loftus Road!

Needless to say, the fans adore their Spanish manager and have honoured him with his very own chant: ‘Martí Cifuentes/Martí Cifuentes/He eats paella and drinks Estrella/He hates effing Chelsea…’ Of course, there’s no evidence he does any of those things and he’s probably a big admirer of Mauricio Pochettino, Chelsea’s Argentinian manager. But hating the Blues, our most detested west London rivals, is considered to be essential for a good QPR manager. Almost half the songs our supporters sing are about how much they loathe Chelski. I don’t suppose any of their fans bother to chant about disliking us, QPR having long disappeared in their rear-view mirror.

The highlight of the Christmas period promises to be an away match against Millwall on Boxing Day. The Den is always an intimidating place to go, not least because their fans are so terrifying. I remember hearing them break out into a quiet, lowing sound a few years back, only for it to gradually increase in volume until it became a deafening, bloodcurdling howl. The last time I went, with all four kids in tow, we were locked in a metal cage at the exit. This was for our own safety, the stewards explained, pointing to a group of tattooed thugs a few yards away making throat-cutting gestures. I may ask Rod Liddle to accompany me, on the assumption that those guys are probably his drinking buddies.

In truth, I’ll probably enjoy myself whether QPR win or lose. One of the best things about going to all these games over Christmas is the good cheer among the fans, some of whom wear Santa hats. Above all, it’s a chance to spend time with my children, who are gradually fleeing the nest. Supporting QPR and going to games has been a constant throughout their childhood, and our intense, tribal loyalty to the club feels like a proxy for our love for each other, as I’m sure it does for other families who follow their teams round the country. We’re English, so far too embarrassed to talk about our feelings. But on those rare occasions when QPR score and we jump up and down and embrace each other, it means more than anything else in the world.