I WAS relaxing in my hotel room in the West Indies island of Grenada when the telephone rang.

?Hi,? said the voice at the other end. ?This is Elvis.?

I bit back a temptation to reply, ?Yeh? And I?m Dolly Parton?, for this was indeed Elvis, a barman in the hotel.

And he was ringing with some valuable information to help me in a personal quest . . .

It all started in a sports shop in the Grenada capital of St George?s. I was sifting through the rails of football shirts and found the usual suspects: Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Celtic, even Chelsea. Then I pulled back a strip to reveal a white polo-style shirt with a badge on the breast. It showed a football and a palm tree encircled by the words: Queen?s Park Rangers.

I gasped. The team I had supported since birth had a shirt in a West Indian sports shop. Or at least, a namesake did. I asked the shop assistant who this Caribbean QPR were.

?Queen?s Park Rangers of St George?s? he said. ?The national stadium is called Queen?s Park Stadium. They?re Grenada?s premier league champions.?

It was fate. My holiday had started with a whimper when QPR had just failed to win promotion to division one in a play-off final at Cardiff?s Millenium Stadium.

But never mind, here in Grenada QPR wore the victor?s crown. A team with the reputation of the school?s best fighter: so tough that few dared challenge their supremacy.

The shirt was marked up at $79 (£20). But it was shop soiled from having been on the rail for some time and he let me have it for $52.

Back at the hotel I told Elvis about my purchase.

?Queen?s Park Rangers, they?re the champions,? he said smiling. Elvis, unlike the vast majority of West Indians, preferred the poetry that is football to the prose that is cricket.

I asked him if this was the football season.

?Yeh, Queen?s Park Rangers have a game this weekend, against Carenage.?

I had to go. I told Elvis I would like to see the match.

?I?m not sure if it?s on Saturday or Sunday. I?ll ring your hotel room and let you know the date and time.?

I could picture myself on the terraces in my new QPR shirt, joining the local lads in cheering on the Rangers, maybe introducing them to some new chants.

I asked Elvis if I had to buy a ticket in advance. He shook his head.

I said: ?I can just pay to get in at the ground then??

?You don?t have to pay,? he said. ?It?s free. The match is on open ground.?

Dreams of terracing cheers faded. Still, the crowd would surely be five or six deep, young boys hoisted high on their fathers? shoulders, the buzz of excitement as QPR swept forward.

Elvis duly telephoned. The game was set for Saturday, kick-off 4.30pm when the brutal Caribbean sun has dipped and the air is a shade cooler.

He told me how to reach the ground. A bus to St George?s and change to another for Queen?s Park.

Grenada?s buses are one of the few frantic items on a laid back island. These nippy maroon Toyota minibuses are operated by a driver and a doorman who hops in and out of the sliding side door and takes the fare, a flat rate of $1.50 (37p). Once known as ?Reggae buses? they play music and each is registered not with a number but a name. These names are not proper nouns, they are just one or two words, like Prosperity or Dream Day, so customers can identify their favourite bus and make a beeline for it. Lined up by the capital?s bustling spice market, their names in sequence make a kind of poem: Fear Not . . . Force of Nature . . . Naked . . . Contentment.

I left one packed bus and changed to a second. The doorman beckoned to me when we reached Queen?s Park. It was not exactly the prettiest part of the capital. But the national stadium towered above me. This must be the home of sporting triumph. Next door to it, Elvis had told me, was Queen?s Park Rangers? ground. I walked along the stadium wall until it opened out onto a football pitch that made Tavistock?s Langsford Park look like the San Siro Stadium. It was a scrubby area of ground with a storm culvert running down one side of the pitch. Behind each of the goalposts was a wall daubed with a political slogan: Vote NDC For Better Jobs.

Six or seven people sauntered by the touchline. On one half of the pitch, 14 players were kicking a football. On the other half, two chickens and a couple of goats guarded the goalmouth.

I was 15 minutes late so the game would be underway. This couldn?t be the right place. I walked onto the empty half of the pitch to speak to a middle-aged man who looked as though he may have something to do with the proceedings.

?Hello, I?m looking for Queen?s Park Rangers? ground,? I said.

?Yeh, this it.?

?They?re due to play a match today. Against Carenage??

?That?s right.? He nodded towards the players. ?That?s Queen?s Park Rangers over there. They?re having a training session.?

It was pretty neat stuff. Clever back-heeled passes, swift, intelligent through-balls. ?Great,? I said, rubbing my hands together in anticipation, my gaze sweeping the pitch. ?Er, where?s Carenage??

He shrugged.

?They didn?t turn up,? he said.