This time last Friday the only thing on the mind of QPR fans was talk of an impending takeover, while their talented young striker Ray Jones was looking forward to his 19th birthday.

In the early hours of Saturday morning, 'Ray-J' and his two young friends were tragically killed in a car crash and suddenly football became irrelevant.

As a QPR fan, the first inkling I had that something was wrong was when I received a text from a friend to say the match at Burnley had been called off.

My initial thought was that we had been plunged into administration and were unable to fulfil the fixture - you get used to living on your nerves when you support a club like ours.

It was only when I logged on to the official Queens Park Rangers website that the horrible truth became apparent.

Within minutes messageboards were swamped by fans struggling to come to terms with the news - and not just Rangers supporters.

At the time of writing, the Ray Jones tribute thread on the BBC site had 813 messages on it - from followers of just about every club you could think of.

The first three pages alone contain eulogies from supporters of Liverpool, Manchester United, Bury, Preston, Ipswich, Glasgow Rangers, Arsenal, Cardiff, Manchester City, Sheffield Wednesday, Hull, Reading, Gillingham and Chelsea. There are 41 pages in total. www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A26277...

It is a similar story on the QPR fan sites. One thread on the Loft for Words board had 58 contributions from Blackpool fans boards.rivals.net/default.as... while a post from Stoke attracted 202 replies. boards.rivals.net/default.as...

Football fans come in for a lot of stick but it's at times like this when they come into their own. Old rivalries have been put to one side and the compassion shown has been extraordinarily touching, yet not altogether unexpected.

Witness the scenes at Anfield this week when the parents of murdered 11-year-old Rhys Jones walked on to the pitch in full Everton regalia and were warmly applauded by all sides of the ground.

The mood did not change when Everton's traditional Z Cars anthem mischievously boomed through the loud speakers and the rendition of You'll Never Walk Alone was even more spine-tingling than usual.

A common theme on the messageboards is that the death of young Ray and the equally tragic loss of Sevilla's Antonio Puerta news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/foo... "puts everything into perspective" - a well-worn phrase perhaps but one that neatly condenses what everyone is feeling.

QPR have just spent £900,000 on a player - our biggest transfer outlay in years - but you can bet no-one will be talking about Mikele Leigertwood when the fans meet up for a pint before the Southampton game on Saturday.

It's not just the supporters who are pulling together. Burnley held an open training session at Turf Moor on the afternoon the match was due to take place, collecting donations from supporters to go towards a charity chosen by QPR.

And Cardiff City allowed a Wales-based Rangers fan to plant a flag at the spot where the young striker scored the dramatic winner at Ninian Park last season, allowing him to "stay there as long as I liked whilst I cried like a baby."

Heart-warming tributes have also been made by the management, players and former players at QPR.

John Gregory called him a "beautiful boy", while his predecessor, Ian Holloway, said in his weekly BBC column: "Ray was someone I would have been proud to call my son".

Jones's former strike partner Paul Furlong pointed to the sky after scoring his first goal for new club Luton and Arsenal's Robin van Persie sent a signed shirt to Loftus Road bearing the message "a sad loss to football". www.qpr.premiumtv.co.uk/page...

From my own point of view, it's going to be hard to concentrate on the football on Saturday.

There will be an eerie sense of déjà vu as everyone files past the makeshift memorial outside the ground, just 15 months after another of our talented teenagers was laid to rest. news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/...

But it's only once inside that it will really hit home - the supremely gifted Ray Jones, who was truly destined for great things, will never be pulling on those blue and white hoops again.

Whatever we fans are going through, it is nothing compared to the anguish suffered by his family and there won't be a dry eye in the house when the name of their precious boy rings out around the ground at three O'Clock.

There's only one Ray Jones. May he rest in peace.

Tranmere fan's article: boards.rivals.net/default.as...
Guardian article: blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2...
Ray Jones video tribute: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao4D...
Joe Gallen interview: news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/foo...