QPR have confirmed the capture of long serving Bristol City right back Bradley Orr, in the process bringing an end to more than ten years of problems on the right side of the QPR defence. The R's are now short of pace at centre half though as Damion Stewart is heading the other way.
Facts:
At 27 Orr has joined Rangers in what should be the prime of his career. The former Newcastle United junior has brought the curtain down on a six year association with Bristol City, during which time he made 255 appearances and scored 13 goals, by signing for QPR for a fee believed to be around £500,000. Bristol City were keen to retain him, or seek a bigger transfer fee, but his contract was set to expire in 12 months time and the Robins have decided to cash in now.
Orr is a Scouser by birth and came through the ranks at Everton initially but signed his first professional contract at Newcastle in 2002. He spent time on loan with Burnley in the Championship before leaving St James’ Park permanently without making a senior appearance and signing for Bristol City who were then in League One and had just missed out on promotion when QPR pipped them to the second automatic spot on the last day and Brighton beat them in the play off final. Orr has been the regular City right back for the last five years, making the Championship team of the year in 2007/08 as Gary Johnson’s men were beaten in the play off final by Hull City. He was transfer listed midway through that season after rejecting a new contract, but did eventually sign for a further two seasons.
Orr was something of a problem child early in his career. He was sent off in a match at Northampton in August 2006 for headbutting his own team mate Louis Carey during the game, and served 14 days of a 28 day prison sentence along with fellow City player Steve Brooker for his part in a nightclub brawl a month later.
Stewart was voted the QPR player of the year in 2008/09 and although his form was patchier last season he has been an integral part of the QPR backline since he signed for the R's in 2007. Stew Peas made 168 appearances for the R's, scoring 13 goals from centre half as his heading ability proved a valuable attacking weapon from corners and set pieces. But it was the speed of the former Harbour View and Bradford City man that made him a real asset to Rangers. Initially as Rangers struggled under Gary Waddock he looked an accident prone liability but he quickly grew into the position at a higher level and has been a terrific servant to the R's.
Stewart, who has 36 Jamaican caps to his name, has missed a good chunk of the pre-season this summer thanks to the fractured skull he sustained in the opening ten seconds of our win at Crystal Palace last season.
Opinion:
1 Jan Stejskal, 2 David Bardsley, 3 Clive Wilson, 4 Ray Wilkins, 5 Alan McDonald and so on. What a bloody team that was. Every other Saturday my dad would sit me in the corner of The Goldhawk with a pile of comics and football magazines, and then my granddad would walk me down to the ground at about 2pm. We’d sit on the wall at Batman Close waiting for the rest of the lads to catch us up and then click through the turnstiles and climb the steps into the Upper Loft. We’d walk all the way along the concourse to the far end and our seats in the P Block and as we went the team would emerge onto the field and the announcement would go up. Jan Stejskal was the goalkeeper, David Bardsley and Clive Wilson were the full backs, Ray Wilkins was the lynchpin, Alan McDonald and Darren Peacock were the centre halves, Ian Holloway was the fetcher and carrier, Andy Sinton and Andy Impey, later Trevor Sinclair, worked the flanks and up front it was Les Ferdinand with one of Gallen, Allen or Penrice. The names tripped off the tongue and the team picked itself.
Sadly in amongst the turmoil of Gerry Francis’ departure, the sale of Les Ferdinand, the disastrous spunking of the money by Wilkins, the relegation, the failed new dawn, the manager turnover and the ultimate destruction of the entire club culminating in us beginning a League One campaign in administration with only eight professionals signed up for the start of pre-season training the fate of David Bardsley was rather forgotten. Bardsley was a superb right full back – regularly courted by Arsenal and Spurs during the early years of the Premiership and shamefully denied more England caps than he really deserved by a mistaken belief that Lee Dixon was a better bet. If he was, why did George Graham keep trying to sign Bardsley? As well as a supreme defensive game The Bard’s execution of crosses from deep, nurtured and developed when he played further forward at Watford and Oxford, was famed in W12. Who can forget the raking 50 yard ball to the back post against Ipswich in late 1993, headed into the top corner harder than most players could kick it by Devon White?
The last time I saw Bardsley play was for Blackpool, right at the tail end of his career, at Scunthorpe United. It was a freezing cold winter’s day and both Pool and Scunny were struggling at the bottom of (then) Division Two. Bardsley had a shocker, and copped plenty of abuse for his trouble from the visiting fans to our left in the railway end at Glanford Park. He just couldn’t cut it any more, at any level. Horrendous knee injuries and numerous failed comebacks had blighted the end of his time at QPR and he was a sad shadow of his former self that day in North Lincolnshire. He retired just a few short months later and now coaches in Florida.
In 1997, with Bardsley firmly on his last legs, then QPR manager Stewart Houston spent £500,000 on Arsenal’s reserve team player of the season Matthew Rose, and so the QPR disease began. Previously we had Matt Jackson on loan from Everton – a fine full back who had won an FA Cup at Goodison Park and one who would go on to enjoy another ten years of action in the Championship and top flight with the likes of Wigan, Watford and Norwich. The departure of Wilkins and arrival of Houston de-railed the permanent signing of Jackson and so QPR signed Rose instead. Rose was, is, always has been a centre half but Houston thought he could develop him into a right back. A disastrous pass back that let Alun Armstrong in for a Stockport County winner at Loftus Road early on in his Rangers career showed he was wrong.
I would contend that we haven’t had a genuine right back playing at right back for any length of time since. Ady McDermott surfaced briefly, scored a couple of cracking long range goals before being sold on the cheap to West Brom and never being heard of again. Danny Maddix, Matthew Brazier, Antti Heinola, Mark Perry, Steve Morrow (particularly disastrously), Steve Yates and Jermaine Darlington all played there – a sorry mixture of converted centre halves, midfielder and wingers. Tim Breaker had been a steady right full back once but was on his last legs by the time Rangers got hold of him.
The trend continued under Holloway during his rebuilding. Terrell Forbes was a converted centre half, Marcus Bignot a central midfielder and more often than not used totally out of position at left back anyway. Holloway feared a lack of height would cost us at the back post so again people like Rose and Georges Santos were asked to fill in. This was a sully on a position once occupied by the likes of Warren Neill and David Bardsley, a sad neglect of a position on the field that can both tighten the defence and add to the attack immeasurably. Even when given money to spend post takeoever Rangers moved quickly to sign Peter Ramage, a centre half growing up and still a centre half now if his performance at the end of last season are anything to go by. Ramage cannot cross, or play a ball down the line, so why he was signed as a full back is anybody’s guess. Mikele Leigertwood has enjoyed success and failure in equal measure in that role, but is j’t a right back by any stretch of anybody’s imagination.
Bradley Orr is. Early in his career he played midfield but he is a right full back. Two seasons ago he was voted the best right full back in the Championship. He’s an excellent signing for a good price at a good age in my opinion. Saints be praised.
Sadly, and as you may be able to tell this is rather an afterthought to the original article, the news is tempered by the departure of Damion Stewart. We have rather opened up another problem while solving the original one here because having been short of any kind of quality right back we've now hamstrung the centre of our defence. We are not short of centre halves, but Stewart was the only one we had with real genuine pace. His own accident prone-ness was often covered up by his ability to quickly make up ground and recover the situation. Ramage, Connolly, Hall, Gorkss - none of them have any real pace, and it's hardly a strength of Clint Hill's or Bradley Orr's either. This move weakens us as much as the Orr transfer strengthens us in my opinion and we will have to work very hard on a defensive pattern of play to avoid dropping too deep for fear of pace in behind, or pushing too high up looking for offside all the time to compensate.