Bircham lives the dream in full colour

Marc Bircham is living his hoop dream. Enthusiastic, passionate, committed - nothing comes close to describing the pull he feels for Queen's Park Rangers. Bonkers is perhaps more accurate. "I love the club, absolutely love it," he says as he munches on a pear, his arms circling for emphasis.

Bircham, who was taken to his first game at the age of two, conveys the fervour of someone who has been transported from the terraces onto the turf. Indeed his manager, Ian Holloway, says as much. "If some kid is from Shepherd's Bush and he is in the team, they never forget it," he says of the 24-year-old, who is actually from Wembley. "You look at Birch, he is a QPR fan, and you ask our fans about him and they love him because he really plays like a QPR fan would."

You would have to agree, looking at Bircham. He is quite distinctive. Earlier this season it was a blue mohawk sitting on his head; now he has contented himself with vivid highlights in the team colours. "I wanted to do something," the midfielder says. Indeed, Holloway told him to tone it down "because I was taking attention away from the team. But I kept getting letters from mums saying they'd dyed their kids' hair blue and were upset because mine had changed. Since then I've been adding bits of blue and white and the manager hasn't seemed to mind," says Bircham, who now regards his appearance as a lucky charm.

To judge by the correspondence there will be more than a few QPR fans copying him tomorrow for the Second Division play-off final. It will be the club's biggest game since 1986, Bircham says, when he walked from his home to watch the Milk Cup final defeat. His hero then was striker John Byrne and for years he has worn a T-shirt, under his football shirt, with Byrne's name on. Bircham, a member of the lifelong supporters' club, had made the same trek four years earlier for the FA Cup final. Indeed as he speaks he is sitting, in the trophy room at Loftus Road, beneath a replica of the League Cup that QPR won in 1967 - their last, and only, major success. Tomorrow they will wear a similar all-white strip and try to summon the spirit of '67.

"This is another cup final," he says, "no doubt about it. Of course, we would have liked automatic promotion, but this feels better. All the fans will say the same, it is going to be some day out." Bircham will be well supported. "I've got 55 members of my family going," he says. "They hired a coach and if I was not playing I would have been on it too."

And yet, even though he says "I only played football to play for QPR", he left, on his father's advice, at the age of 14. "It was a hard decision, but QPR did not have much interest in youth at that time. Gerry Francis was manager and his policy was to buy players from lower leagues and sell them on. I don't think I would have got a chance."

Bircham signed for Millwall, making his debut in 1996, the year QPR dropped out of the Premier League and began their horrendous downward spiral, which ultimately led to administration.

Bircham's contract ran out last summer and, although he had offers from Birmingham City and Charlton Athletic, he had little doubt when Holloway called. "People said I should not drop down a division, but I did not see it like that," he says. Negotiations were brief. "The manager's office overlooks the pitch. I just looked out over it and signed there and then. I had to take the chance to fulfil my dreams and now I'm back where I want to be. If they offered me a 10-year contract I would take it."

That enthusiasm has overflowed at times. "In my first five games I was booked three times and sent off once," Bircham says. "Maybe I needed to calm down a little." Still, he has collected a further eight yellow cards this season.

Not that Holloway is complaining. Bircham is his type of player and Holloway, a former QPR midfielder, is forthright in his views on the club he inherited when he returned as manager two years ago. "The whole place had a stench about it," he says, "a stench of people who promised too much and were underachieving. Now everyone is playing with their heart and soul for the place. We had 51 pros who were not achieving anything, who were just picking their money up. We should have been good enough to stay up."

With relegation to the Second Division financial collapse was complete. Between 1997 and 2001 QPR somehow ran up losses of £27m through inflated wages and transfer fees. "We have moved backwards financially, but forward in spirit and application," Holloway says.

But the club are successfully restructuring themselves. The former chairman and owner Chris Wright has written off £4m owed to him and a £10m loan has stabilised matters. But, of course, it needs to be repaid. It is still a precarious existence. "What has happened is terrible and watching it happen was just terrible," Bircham says. "We know things are still difficult, we know money is needed, but promotion would mean so much."

There speaks a true fan.