For two clubs with such distance and contrasting history between them, QPR and Blackpool have shared some great players and classic matches over the years.

Recent Meetings:

Blackpool 2 QPR 2, Saturday January 16, 2010, Championship

QPR were in disarray when they last visited Bloomfield Road, under the caretaker/permanent charge of manager Mick Harford following Paul Hart’s resignation after just a month with the club. Harford was Rangers’ third manager of the season already and League One was starting to look a distinct possibility for the R’s who had won just two of the previous 12 games. When Charlie Adam scored after nine minutes from a Barry Bannan assist a familiar story seemed ready to play out but when referee Trevor Kettle uncharacteristically awarded Rangers a generous penalty after half time for a dubious handball by Alex Baptiste, Adel Taarabt was on hand to cheekily chip the London side leve. Gary Taylor Fletcher struck what seemed certain to be the winner through a crowded penalty box 13 minutes from time but Matt Connolly proved an unlikely hero with an exquisite piece of thigh control and a 20 yard volleyed finish to win the R’s a point.

Blackpool: Rachubka 5, Eardley 6, Evatt 7, Baptiste 5, Crainey 6,Southern 6, Vaughan 7 (Euell 90, -), Adam 7, Ormerod 8,Taylor-Fletcher 7 (Nardiello 89, -), Bannan 8 (Burgess 60, 6)

Subs Not Used: Gilks, Martin, Edwards, Butler

Booked: Adam (foul)

Goals: Adam 9 (assisted Bannan), Taylor-Fletcher 77 (assisted Adam)

QPR: Ikeme 6, Hall 4 (Ramage 79, 6), Gorkss 7, Stewart 6, Connolly 7, Routledge 6, Leigertwood 5, Faurlin 6 (German 81, 7), Buzsaky 5 (Ephraim 46, 8), Taarabt 7, Agyemang 5

Subs Not Used: Cerny, Balanta, Simpson, Borrowdale

Booked: Routledge (foul)

Goals: Taarabt 55 (penalty), Connolly 84 (assisted German)

QPR 1 Blackpool 1, Saturday August 8, 2009, Championship

At Loftus Road on the opening day of that season QPR were both lucky to escape with a draw, and unlucky not to win the game. They were lucky to get the point they did from a 1-1 because they equalised late and the goal when it did come, through the most unlikeliest source, was a mishit cross from Peter Ramage that deceived the goalkeeper. However QPR had been the dominant force for much of the match and Ben Burgess’ first half opener after defensive hesitancy was against the overall run of play of the game.

QPR: Cerny 6, Ramage 7, Hall 6, Gorkss 6, Borrowdale 7, Routledge 6, Rowlands 7 (Agyemang 60, 7), Mahon 6, Balanta 7 (Buzsaky 56, 6), Helguson 5 (Vine 56, 5), Taarabt 6

Subs Not Used: Putnins, Stewart, Connolly, Ephraim

Booked: Helguson (foul), Routledge (foul), Buzsaky (foul), Hall (obstructing goalkeeper)

Goals: Ramage 86 (assisted Vine)

Blackpool: Rachubka 8, Crainey 6, Evatt 6, Baptiste 6, Edwards 6,Vaughan 6 (Clarke 73, 6), Adam 6, Southern 6, Euell 7, Burgess 7,Taylor-Fletcher 7 (Ormerod 68, 6)

Subs Not Used: Gilks, Eardley, Martin, Nardiello, Demontagnac

Booked: Adam (foul)

Goals: Burgess 37 (assisted Taylor-Fletcher)

Blackpool 0 QPR 3, Tuesday January 27, 2009, Championship

Rangers’ previous trip to Bloomfield Road saw them defy their poor away form under Paulo Sousa, and wild weather conditions, to record a comfortable 3-0 win. Wayne Routledge’s strong wing play set up Heidar Helguson for a first half headed opener and the Icelandic international, more than used to playing in the driving sleet that battered the players and uncovered QPR fans throughout the night, made it two after half time when he slid in a penalty after a foul on Lee Cook. Hogan Ephraim added a deserved third five minutes from time in what was one of QPR’s best away performances of the season.

Blackpool: Rachubka 7, Barker 6, Evatt 5, Edwards 5, Harte 3 (Crainey 64, 4), O'Donovan 5 (Nemeth 59, 5), Fox 5, Vaughan 6, Martin 4 (Owens 46, 6), Campbell 6, Taylor-Fletcher 6

Subs Not Used: Gilks, Baptiste

QPR: Camp 7, Connolly 6 (Hall 88, -), Stewart 7, Gorkss 8, Delaney 6, Routledge 8, Cook 7, Leigertwood 7, Mahon 7, Miller 6 (Ephraim 54, 7), Helguson 7 (Blackstock 75, 7)

Subs Not Used: Bulmer, Di Carmine

Booked: Cook (foul), Routledge (kicking the ball away)

Goals: Helguson 17 (assisted Routledge), 58 (penalty) Ephraim 90 (assisted Cook)

Previous Results

Head to Head >>> Blackpool wins — 3 >>> Draws — 9 >>> QPR wins — 13

2009/10 http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/fb_news.php?storyid 1 Blackpool 1 (Ramage)

2008/09 Blackpool 0 QPR 3 (Helguson 2, Ephraim)

2008/09 QPR 1 Blackpool 1 (Blackstock)

2007/08 QPR 3 Blackpool 2 (Buzsaky, Vine, Rowlands)

2007/08 Blackpool 1 QPR 0

2003/04 Blackpool 0 QPR 1 (Rowlands)

2003/04 QPR 5 Blackpool 0 (Ainsworth 2, Langley, Gallen, Palmer)

2002/03 Blackpool 1 QPR 3 (Langley 3)

2002/03 QPR 2 Blackpool 1 (Langley, Clarke og)

2001/02 QPR 2 Blackpool 0 (Langley, Gallen)

2001/02 Blackpool 2 QPR 2 (Griffiths 2)

1989/90 QPR 3 Blackpool 0* (Sinton, Sansom, Barker)

1989/90 QPR 0 Blackpool 0*

1989/90 Blackpool 2 QPR 2* (Clarke 2)

1981/82 QPR 5 Blackpool 1* (C Allen 4, Stainrod)

1981/82 Blackpool 0 QPR 0*

1972/73 QPR 4 Blackpool 0 (Bowles, Francis, Thomas, Haton og)

1972/73 Blackpool 2 QPR 0

1971/72 QPR 0 Blackpool 1

1971/72 Blackpool 1 QPR 1 (Marsh)

1969/70 Blackpool 1 QPR 1 (Leach)

1969/70 QPR 6 Blackpool 1 (Marsh 3, Bridges 2, Venables)

1967/68 QPR 2 Blackpool 0 (I Morgan, Clarke)

1967/68 Blackpool 0 QPR 1 (L Allen)

* - FA Cup

Memorable Match

Blackpool 1 QPR 3, Saturday March 29, 2003, Second Division

What would Rangers give to have Richard Langley out on the field this weekend in his prime? Certain players often seem to do well against certain teams — no club was more delighted than Everton when Les Ferdinand finally decided to call it a day — and Richard really seemed to have the Indian sign over Blackpool back in the Ian Holloway days.

The 2002/03 season was the second of QPR’s three year stay in the third tier. Holloway had spent 2001/02 building a team from scratch while in administration and, while clearly traumatic for the player, Langley’s cruciate knee ligament injury proved to be a blessing in that. Had he been fit at the end of the 2000/01 relegation season then the youth team graduate would surely have been sold in a cut price deal by the administrators along with Peter Crouch and Jermaine Darlington. But as he, and centre half Clarke Carlisle, were crocked no buyer could be found and they stayed put. Rangers consequently found themselves with two First Division-standard players returning to the team fighting fit and ready to go for the start of that second campaign.

Langley had already served notice on Blackpool. After returning to the team the previous year he’d scored one of the all time great Loftus Road goals against the Tangerines in a 2-0 win — striding onto his own cleared corner and whacking a glorious first time volley into the far side of the net from the corner of the penalty box. When Pool returned to Loftus Road in 2002/03 for a televised Sky fixture he repeated the dose in the first half before Chris Clarke’s farcical own goal won the game for Rangers.

The R’s travelled to Bloomfield Road in March. An autumn of discontent that saw heavy defeats by Cardiff and Notts County as well as the infamous FA Cup exit to Vauxhall Motors was now a distant memory as Rangers, led from the front by free-scoring Kevin Gallen and a revitalised Paul Furlong, were well in play-off contention. The turnaround in form had coincided with the loan signing of Lee Cook from Watford but he’d maxed out his three month short-term allowance earlier in March, signing off with a goal and an assist in a 4-1 home win against Cheltenham. That sent Holloway scurrying for chief scout Mel Johnson’s little black book again and prior to the trip up to the seaside he added Everton youngster Kevin McLeod on a temporary basis for the rest of the season.

McLeod made his debut at Bloomfield Road on what was a strange day for many Rangers fans. Blackpool were in the middle of redeveloping their ground and having built two sides of it and flattened a third, the away fans were housed in the one remaining old stand which was now set some 40 yards back behind the goal. Wanting to at least see a match they’d travelled so far to see, and spotting an attractive deal in the new hospitality suites, several QPR fans decided to ‘go corporate’ for the day and so at kick off stationed themselves on the balcony that stretches around the back of the new stands above the home support.

I was among the group that day and Blackpool had assured us pre-match that away fans regularly used the new facility and there wouldn’t be a problem. One can only assume that when away fans had been in there before their team hadn’t done very well because when Langley clipped a glorious free kick into the net from 25 yards off the underside of the bar ten minutes before the break all hell broke loose with home fans climbing the steps below to exchange views with the QPR fans who’d dared to celebrate the goal up in the hospitality suite.

The mood didn’t improve much at half time with several fans threatened in the toilets and the natives only grew more restless when, midway through the second half, Langley collected a pass from McLeod on the edge of the area and drilled it low into the far corner for his second of the game. Langers had been substituted early by Holloway in the previous week’s home defeat by runaway league leaders Wigan and was clearly in the mood to prove a point. He completed his first senior hat trick when Gallen fed McLeod who crossed for Langley to score with a diving header — although the home defenders were adamant he’d punched the ball in Devon White style. A late consolation strike from Scott Taylor couldn’t dampen the mood among a large travelling support, and just to further improve relations up in the posh seats my younger brother successfully tricked injured Chris Clarke into signing a photograph of his glorious Loftus Road own goal.

Rangers subsequently became embroiled in a tit for tat battle for sixth place with Tranmere Rovers. Both teams went on incredible winning runs with Rangers scoring last minute winners at Cardiff and Brentford in subsequent weeks to hold the Merseysiders at bay. In fact, Rangers were so preoccupied with Tranmere they barely noticed that their form had carried them to the cusp of the automatic spots and had referee Andy Hall not harshly sent off both Clarke Carlisle and loan full back Stephen Kelly in the final home match against Crewe leaving the R’s hanging onto a 0-0 then the R’s could have gone into the final day at Colchester (where they won again) with a shot at promotion. Crewe took that instead and although Holloway’s men won through a play-off semi-final with Oldham, Langley was suspended for the final in Cardiff which finished 1-0 to the Welsh side after extra time.

Blackpool: P Barnes, L Richardson, M Flynn , S Grayson, J Hills (M Blinkhorn, 75), M Bullock, R Wellens, D Coid, S Taylor, P Robinson (J Milligan, 68), R Walker (J Burns, 75)

Subs not used: M Theoklitos, I Hughes

Goals: Taylor 90

Bookings: Flynn, Hills

QPR: C Day, S Kelly, C Carlisle , D Shittu, G Padula, K McLeod , S Palmer, M Bircham , R Langley, K Gallen, P Furlong (M Rose, 78)

Subs not used: B Angell, N Culkin, A Thomson, R Pacquette

Goals: Langley 35, 65, 85

Bookings: Carlisle, McLeod, Bircham

Connections

Trevor Sinclair >>> Blackpool 1989-1993 >>> QPR 1993-1998

I was actually fortunate enough to see Trevor Sinclair before he arrived at QPR to replace Andy Sinton in the summer of 1993. A year prior to that he'd been a second half substitute for Division Four side Blackpool at Wembley as they beat my home town Scunthorpe United in the play off final on penalties. Sinclair was eye catching — a black lad in an almost entirely white team, bouncing and tricking his way up and down the wing with his mop of a dreadlocks and enormous backside trailing behind him — and had attracted the attention of plenty of higher division clubs by the time Gerry Francis moved in with Richard Thompson's moth-eaten cheque book.

Sinclair was very different to Sinton. He'd go around the houses and trick full backs to get past them, whereas Sinton was far more direct and reliant on pace. A fabulous goal in a Sunday clash with West ham in 1995 when Sinclair picked the ball up on halfway and drove straight towards goal before lashing in from the edge of the box showed he did have some of Sinton's strengths in his locker, but goals at Leeds the following season and two at Spurs the previous year were far more typical of him.

At the time he represented exactly what QPR needed to do in the transfer market. They'd bought Sinton from nearby Brentford for a few hundred thousand and sold him onto big spending Sheffield Wednesday for £2.5m, then replaced him with Sinclair for £600,000. Sadly the model went awry soon after he'd arrived when Darren Peacock, initially a well scouted bargain basement purchase from Hereford, was sold on to Newcastle at a big profit but only replaced by Karl Ready, a wholly inadequate waste of space from our youth team who miraculously, and infuriatingly, went on to clock up a decade of, most dreadful, service at Loftus Road.

Sinclair quickly forced his way into the England Under 21 reckoning, making his debut against Denmark at Griffin Park in 1994, and became a real hit at Loftus Road . Sadly, at that time, becoming a hit at Loftus Road meant QPR fans would have to read rather a lot about your impending move to Arsenal/Spurs/Man Utd/Blackburn in the gutter press and Sinclair certainly wasn't short of admirers by the time Rangers dropped out of the top flight in 1996. That relegation was the direct result of the sale, and failure to replace, talismanic striker Les Ferdinand the summer before and in fact Sinclair found himself pressed into action as a central striker that season as Kevin Gallen and Danny Dichio's inexperienced partnership, supplemented unsuccessfully and only very occasionally by Mark Hateley, failed to fire. Sinclair won the club's Player of the Year award as the club dropped down a level but stayed with the R's in Division One.
That paved the way for him to score arguably the club's greatest ever goal in an FA Cup Third Round tie with Barnsley.

QPR have beaten Barnsley at Loftus Road since dinosaurs roamed the earth and did so twice in 1996/97 despite the Tykes ascension to the Premier League at the end of that season. They were struggling somewhat in the cup game — reduced to ten men by one of Andy Impey's trademark Floyd Mayweather impressions and a goal down early on thanks to a vintage piece of Tony Roberts goalkeeping — but Sinclair settled nerves and wowed the nation with a 20 yard, airborne bicycle kick into the roof of the net down at the School End. It won the BBC's Goal of the Season that year, the third time a QPR player had taken the award.

His relationship with the W12 faithful was testy by this stage though. He was booed prior to a league game with Man City the following season after apparently requesting a transfer — boos turned to cheers when he instinctively lobbed in the opening goal from fully 40 yards. His time at Loftus Road was coming to an end, and Harry Redknapp was waiting to pounce. The deal that took Sinclair from Loftus Road to Upton Park went down in the QPR annuls as just about the worst piece of business the club has ever done. The Hammers were able to secure QPR's best player, previously linked with a £6m Premiership move and later called up by England for four appearances at the 2002 World Cup, for little over £1m with the truly dreadful trio of Iain Dowie, Keith Rowland and Tim Breaker to sour the deal. It was the sort of deal you'd do on Championship Manager having taken over a club with the clear intention of destroying it for sport.

Sinclair didn't make the same mistake he had at QPR when West Ham were relegated in 2003 — he jumped ship immediately and made a £3m move to Manchester City, the club he'd supported as a boy. He'd become more versatile during his time in East London and played both left and right wing for City, scoring the club's first ever goal at Eastlands in a UEFA Cup game against Welsh side TNS. He was released to join Cardiff City alongside fellow veterans Robbie Fowler and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink in 2007 but injuries restricted his impact. He appeared for the final four minutes of the club's 2008 FA Cup final defeat against Portsmouth but never appeared against QPR after leaving.

He retired to a television presenting job on the Abu Dhabi Sports channel where he fronts Final Score, a weekly Premier League highlights programme.

Others >>> Matt Phillips, QPR 2013-present, Blackpool 2010-2013 >>> DJ Campbell, QPR 2011-2013, Blackpool 2010-2011 >>> Ian Holloway, Blackpool (manager) 2009-2012, QPR (manager) 2001-2006, 1991-1996 >>> Kaspars Gorkss, QPR 2008-2011, Blackpool 2006-2008 >>> Paul Hart, QPR (manager) 2009-2010, Blackpool 1973-1978 >>> Danny Nardiello, Blackpool 2008-2010, QPR 2007-2008 >>> Zesh Rehman, Blackpool (loan) 2008, QPR 2006-2009 >>> Marcus Bean, Blackpool 2006-2008, QPR 2001-2006 >>> Phil Barnes, QPR (loan) 2006, Blackpool 1997-2004 >>> Ian Evatt Blackpool 2006-2013, QPR 2005-2007 >>> Danny Shittu QPR 2011-2012, 2001-2006, Blackpool (loan) 2001 >>> Clarke Carlisle, QPR 2000-2004, Blackpool 1997-2000 >>> Marvin Bryan, 1995-2000, QPR 1992-1995 >>> David Bardsley, Blackpool 1998-2000, 1981-1983, QPR 1989-1998 >>> John Burridge, QPR 1980-1982, Blackpool 1971-1975 >>> Mickey Walsh, QPR 1978-1981, Blackpool 1973-1978

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Pictures — Action Images

Photo: Action Images

ozexile added 03:52 - Dec 12 Credit where credits due to Sinclair. He started the world cup quarter final against brazil in 2002. Unfortunately for him no one seems to remember that.
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HastingsRanger added 09:33 - Dec 12 I always associate Blackpool fixtures with very good results against good Blackpool sides. The 1969/70 6-1, 1972/73 4-0 and more recently the 2008/09 3-0 away were all excellent performances that belied the quality of the opposition on the night. Another one please!
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smegma added 09:34 - Dec 12 I did the corporate thing in both 2001/2002 /(2-2 draw Griffiths scored both) and 2003/2004 we won 1-0 and Rowlands scored. In 2001/2 we were sat behind the goal in a decrepit old stand and were sat with Blackpool players wives and kids. We were attacked by locals when we scored, one charming bloke had his daughter (about 8yrs old) with him and she was crying her eyes out. And again in 2003/4 we were in the pwopa VIP area in the main stand and like you clive , morons tried to attack us from below our balcony. Then when we went inside at half time some locals again tried to attack us. We were pretty handed but seeing as a QPR fanatic had got us in there in the first place we had to behave. At the end some players came in to celebrate with us and the locals tried to attack both Bircham and Gallen.

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qprninja added 11:43 - Dec 12 Karl Ready. The horror.........the horror...
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TacticalR added 19:48 - Dec 13 In retrospect it seems amazing that you could find gems like Sinclair in the lower reaches of the Football League. Nowadays it seems such players are all twiddling their toes in the reserves of Premiership clubs.
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