The football fixtures for the next season were announced last Thursday. I had been looking forward to that day for weeks and was up early, sitting eagerly with my phone. (They don’t release the dates until 9am so I know that it’s a waste of time expecting anything to happen before then, but such was my excitement that I can’t help it.)

If you know anything about football, you will know that each club has a mascot. Brentford FC is known as The Bees, so it will be no great surprise to know that our two mascots are Buzz Bee and Buzzette. I find them quite terrifying, and I’m always trying to dodge them at matches when they come at me with their creepy hands. (Picture not shown on account of the creepiness.)
Our bitter West London rivals, Queen’s Park Rangers, also have a mascot. And this is it:

I know. The fact that a Chat Noir would work for the opposition is bad enough, but Louis Catorze is quite outraged by the fact that it appears to be a vampire Chat Noir.

The mascot is based on a real-life black cat by the name of Jude, who used to live at Loftus Road (as it was then called, before its name changed to the Kiyan Prince Stadium). I haven’t been able to find much information about Jude, other than the fact that the club’s then-new owner decided in 2007 that Jude should leave the stadium and move in with a member of staff. “No official reason” was given for the move, but there were rumours at the time about anti-black cat superstition and fear.
Given that Jude had apparently lived at the stadium for TWENTY YEARS until his eviction, perhaps there was some truth behind this. Could Jude be an otherworldly shapeshifter who is still alive and well and annoying the merde out of some poor person in W12? Has he outlived the person who originally took him in? Will he outlive the whole darned lot of us?
Although it’s highly unlikely that a QPR supporter will be reading this, I can’t help hoping that someone will reply and answer our questions.
Leave a reply to Dr. CaSo Cancel reply