STEVE Black is set to continue his work with QPR, after having an extraordinary impact on the club last season.





The motivational speaker and sports psychologist was brought in towards the end of the 2013/14 campaign, and his effect at the Harlington training ground led Harry Redknapp to confess he wished he had met him years ago.





Black played an instrumental role in QPR’s dramatic promotion to the top-flight, but he is far more interested in focusing his energies on what is to come rather than what has passed.





Having agreed a season-long consultancy role, Black is already looking to the future, telling www.qpr.co.uk: “It was great to see those marvellous celebrations at the end of last season when we accomplished what we set out to accomplish, but almost straight after that, my mind went to this season.





“I have been working all summer to prepare my toolbox so that it’s in the best possible order for me to help as many people as I can.





“We have to make sure that standards are met all the time, we can’t take our foot off the pedal at all. We’ll work and we’ll rest, we’ll work and we’ll rest, and if we do that throughout the whole of the season, we’ll do very well. There’s no doubt about that.”





While many are describing Bobby Zamora’s Wembley winner against Derby County as one of the greatest moments in the club’s history, Black sees our promotion success as little more than a period of preparation for what’s to come.





“The way I see it, last season was just a warm-up for this season,” he said. “It went brilliantly, it couldn’t have gone any better but, looking at the bigger picture, what we did was just an extended warm-up.





“Now we’ve just finished that warm-up, and we’re getting ready to come out and play.





“So it was marvellous, but it’s finished. We’ve got to take all the good stuff from last season and we’ve got to run with it.”





It is widely accepted that the unity of the squad – perhaps best demonstrated by the team huddle during our play-off semi-final victory against Wigan – played a big part in our promotion success.





And Black is already thinking about how that team-spirit can be preserved as the personnel within the dressing room changes.





“We have to retain this, it’s everything,” he said. “It worked for us last season, and the reason it worked is because it wasn’t superficial. We all lived and breathed for the same cause. We spoke about it every day, everyone had a voice, everyone was able to say what mattered to them, and then we supported each other.





“But that can’t be one hit. It can’t be left there.





“When someone comes on board you tell them from day one exactly what you stand for and what you don’t stand for.





“But everybody has to be made to feel special.





“You should recruit on a daily basis. So if someone has been with you for 20 years, you still recruit them tomorrow morning. You care for them all the time, you don’t just leave them to it. You don’t just recruit somebody and then let them get on with it.





“So if there is a new arrival, you are there for him, and the world would expect you to be very supportive of him. Which we will be. But you’ve got to step outside of that and make sure you are there just as much for the guy who has been at the club for a number of years.”





While the nature of Black’s position can be difficult to define, he describes it in simple terms.





“I see my role for the new season just the same as it was for last season, which is to create a positive environment to help people flourish,” he explained.





“My first port of call will be the first-team, closely followed by everyone around it. I have an access-all-areas remit at the club so I will be working with people at Loftus Road as well as at the training ground.





“From the players, to the manager to the CEO to the office staff. I want to support everybody that I can in some way so that the club gives a performance that it is capable of and maximises the resources that it has.”





Survival is the chief target for QPR’s first season back in the Premier League, and Black added: “There’s a guy who used to manage a club called Liverpool. His name was Bill Shankly. And he used to say, ‘You can always win the next one.’ And guess what? He was right.





“We will prepare each week so that when the guys run out onto that pitch they will have as close to a full tank as is possible at that stage of the season. They will be very well organised and will play collectively to pull out the best possible team performance on the day.





“My aim and belief is that we will have a great season together, we will grow as a team once again and we will end the season better than when we started it, with greater standing within the football world.”



