With QPR facing Millwall in the week that Andros Townsend landed in the nation’s psyche as a genuine star for the national team, it seemed an opportune moment to look at where it all went so right for the Spurs winger.
Millwall 2 QPR 0, Tuesday March 8, 2011, Championship
QPR didn’t lose often in the Championship in 2010/11 — just five times in fact on their way to winning the league — but they didn’t beat lowly Millwall, or score a goal in fact, in either meeting that season. The midweek trip to The Den in March came at a niggly time for Rangers. The full extent of the charges relating to the Ale Faurlin transfer were starting to become apparent and a 4-1 defeat at eventually relegated Scunthorpe was just around the corner. Millwall, in front of a typically boisterous home crowd, gave Neil Warnock’s team a good going over with future Loftus Road loan darling Andros Townsend impressing down the wing and striker Steve Morison giving former Millwall man Danny Shittu a torrid time. In the end the only surprise was it took the home side an hour to score — Morison outpacing and outmuscling Shittu (not seen often) before lashing home. When Shittu then chopped the striker down in the box a penalty was awarded, converted by Liam Trotter, and a red card issued which effectively killed the game as a contest. Rangers won the league anyway.
Millwall: Forde 6, Dunne 7, Robinson 7, Ward 7, Craig 7, Henry 8, Trotter 7, Mkandawire 7, Townsend 8, Morison 8, Harri 7 (Lisbie 66, 6)
Subs Not Used: Mildenhall, Eastmond, Schofield, Hackett, Barron, McQuoid
Goals: Morison 63, Trotter 73 (penalty won Morrison)
QPR: Kenny 7, Orr 6, Shittu 4, Gorkss 5, Hill 6, Routledge 6, Derry 6, Faurlin 7, Buzsaky 5 (Miller 71, 6), Taarabt 6 (Smith 70, 6), Helguson 5 (Chimbonda 79)
Subs Not Used: Cerny, Hulse, Moen, Ephraim
Sent Off: Shittu 72 (professional foul)
QPR 0 Millwall 0, Tuesday September 28, 2010, Championship
Tensions were running high at Loftus Road for the first meeting between the sides that season. Amid violent disturbances on South Africa Road and Shepherd’s Bush Green, unbeaten QPR put their league leadership on the line against Kenny Jackett’s Millwall side. Ultimately the match was a damp squib, with few chances for either side, but given what went on around it that was probably for the best.
QPR: Kenny 7, Walker 8, Hill 7, Gorkks 7, Connolly 7, Derry 7, Buzsaky 7, (Leigertwood 6), Mackie 7, Taarabt 6, Ephraim 6, (Agyemang 6), Helguson 7
Subs Not Used: Cerny, Rowlands, Smith, Borrowdale, Parker
Booked: Helguson (foul)
Millwall: Forde 7, Dunne 7, Robinson 7, Ward 6, Craig 6, Hackett 6, Mkandawire 7, Ward 6, Barron 6, (Harris 6), Morison 6, Abdou 6
Subs Not Used: Mildenhall, Smith, Henry, Grimes, Laird, Robinson
Booked: Dunne (foul)
Head to Head >>> Millwall wins 30 >>> Draws 19 >>> QPR wins 19
2010/11 Millwall 2 QPR 0
2010/11 QPR 0 Millwall 0
2005/06 QPR 1 Millwall 0 (Nygaard)
2005/06 Millwall 1 QPR 1 (Nygaard)
2004/05 Millwall 0 QPR 0
2004/05 QPR 1 Millwall 1 (Furlong)
1994/95 QPR 1 Millwall 0* (Wilson)
1993/94 QPR 3 Millwall 0** (Barker, Ferdinand, Sinclair)
1989/90 Millwall 1 QPR 2 (Barker, Wegerle)
1989/90 QPR 0 Millwall 0
1988/89 QPR 1 Millwall 2 (Falco, pen)
1988/89 Millwall 3 QPR 2 (Francis, Allen)
1987/88 Millwall 0 QPR 0
1987/88 QPR 2 Millwall 1 (Bannister, McDonald)
1972/73 Millwall 0 QPR 1 (Givens)
1972/73 QPR 1 Millwall 3 (Bowles)
1971/72 Millwall 0 QPR 0
1971/72 QPR 1 Millwall 1 (Marsh)
1970/71 QPR 2 Millwall 0 (Marsh, Francis)
1970/71 Millwall 3 QPR 0
1969/70 Millwall 2 QPR 0
1969/70 QPR 3 Millwall 2 (Bridges 2, Clement)
1967/68 Millwall 1 QPR 1 (Marsh)
1967/68 QPR 3 Millwall 1 (R Morgan, Keen, L Allen)
1965/66 QPR 6 Millwall 1 (Marsh 2, R Morgan, Collins, L Allen, Lazarus)
1965/66 Millwall 2 QPR 1 (Leach)
1963/64 Millwall 2 QPR 2 (McLeod, Leary)
1963/64 QPR 2 Millwall 0 (Bedford, McQuade)
1962/63 QPR 2 Millwall 3 (Leary, McCelland)
1962/63 Millwall 0 QPR 0
1957/58 Millwall 5 QPR 0
1957/58 QPR 3 Millwall 0 (Locke 3)
1956/57 Millwall 2 QPR 0
1956/57 QPR 0 Millwall 0
1955/56 QPR 4 Millwall 0 (Clark, Shepherd, Ingham, Smith)
1955/56 Millwall 2 QPR 0
1954/55 QPR 1 Millwall 2 (Shepherd)
1954/55 Millwall 0 QPR 1 (Clark)
1953/54 QPR 4 Millwall 0 (Kerrins, Clark, Pounder, Smith)
1953/54 Millwall 4 QPR 0
1952/53 QPR 1 Millwall 3 (Smith)
1952/53 Millwall 2 QPR 1 (Smith)
1950/51 QPR 3 Millwall 4* (Parkinson 2, Addinall)
1937/38 QPR 0 Millwall 2
1937/38 Millwall 1 QPR 4 (Lowe, Cape, Cheetham, Fitzgerald)
1936/37 QPR 0 Millwall 1
1936/37 Millwall 2 QPR 0
1935/36 Millwall 2 QPR 0
1935/36 QPR 2 Millwall 3 (Blackman, Lowe)
1934/35 QPR 1 Millwall 0 (Farmer)
1934/35 Millwall 2 QPR 0
1927/28 Millwall 6 QPR 1 (Beats)
1927/28 QPR 0 Millwall 1
1926/27 QPR 1 Millwall 1 (Goddard)
1926/27 Millwall 2 QPR 1 (Middleton)
1925/26 Millwall 3 QPR 0
1925/26 QPR 3 Millwall 0 (Cable 2, Whitehead)
1924/25 Millwall 3 QPR 0
1924/25 QPR 0 Millwall 0
1923/24 QPR 1 Millwall 1 (Parker)
1923/24 Millwall 3 QPR 0
1922/23 Millwall 0 QPR 0
1922/23 QPR 2 Millwall 3 (Parker, Davis)
1921/22 Millwall 0 QPR 0
1921/22 QPR 6 Millwall 1 (Chandler 2, Birch, Grant, Smith, Edgley)
1920/21 Millwall 0 QPR 0
1920/21 QPR 0 Millwall 0
1899/90 QPR 0 Millwall 2*
* - FA Cup
** - League Cup
Andros Townsend >>> QPR (loan) 2013 >>> Millwall (loan) 2011
When Andros Townsend arrived at QPR on loan from Spurs at the end of the January transfer window this year, LFW said this…
"Which just leaves the Tottenham raggy dolls to assess. David Bentley, Jake Livermore and Michael Dawson were mentioned as serious targets before Jermaine Jenas arrived on a free transfer and Andros Townsend on loan until the end of the season. When you consider that Jenas made just three appearances (two from the bench) during a season long loan at Aston Villa last term and recently started just once for his boyhood club Nottingham Forest during another temporary spell in the league below, and that Townsend hasn’t impressed on or off the field during Championship loans with Birmingham and Leeds, it’s hard to shake the feeling that these were just signings for the sake of making signings. Redknapp likes to trade players, he felt the squad needed freshening up, so he moved the deckchairs around a little — it didn’t really matter who we got from Spurs, as long as we got somebody.
"In fairness Townsend was excellent on his first appearance at the weekend giving hope that, now he’s been given a chance in the top flight under a manager who has worked with him before, the attitude and effort issues that affected several lower division loan spells may melt away. Millwall is a difficult crowd to please and he seemed to get on well at The Den.”
It seemed, on the face of it, to be the classic Harry Redknapp deadline day move. A player QPR didn’t really need, in a position they weren’t short in, who hadn’t done brilliantly elsewhere, signed at the last possible second from one of ‘Arry’s former clubs simply to give him the excuse to wind the car window down and talk about what a lovely boy he is.
QPR fans had more cause than most to welcome Townsend into the fold — not only because the QPR team of 2012/13 was a particularly nasty, festering beer shit of an outfit, but also because Townsend had performed very well against them previously. While with Millwall in 2010/11 he’d contributed significantly to a 2-0 win for the Lions against Neil Warnock’s side, one of only five defeats for the Super Hoops in a season that ended with a second tier title success.
But his history didn’t look promising. Tottenham have shown — with Dean Parrett, with John Bostock, with Kyle Naughton — that they’re not averse to hoovering up half-decent young talent they have no real use for simply to prevent Chelsea or anybody else having them. Said talent then spends years and years accumulating a succession of loan deals until, suddenly, they have a 24-year-old player on their hands whose only experience is three month spells with Orient, Stevenage and Coventry City - and if Lewis Holtby can’t get into this Spurs team then generic loaned youth 2.0 certainly doesn’t stand much of a chance.
Prior to joining QPR Townsend had been on loan at Yeovil, MK Dons, Orient, Ipswich, Watford, Millwall as mentioned, Leeds and Birmingham. There had been occasional success — a solo run from the halfway line and tidy finish in Yeovil green became a YouTube sensation — but in the main even Andros Townsend’s mum would have struggled to talk up his impact at these clubs. Watford sent him back early. He walked out on Leeds early much to Neil Warnock’s chagrin apparently because he preferred his chances at Birmingham where he subsequently bombed.
At QPR though he excelled. A fabulous, dipping, 25-yard volley at the Loft End laid the platform for a 3-1 home win against Sunderland — one of only four victories all season — and while only QPR will know how they contrived to lose a thrilling encounter at Villa 3-2 it wasn’t for want of effort on Townsend’s part who, again, scored from long range.
But he was still undermined by a sniffyness from those who proclaim to know the game. Townsend’s MO is very simple — he gets the ball in a wide right area, drives towards the goal in a crow’s flight direction and wherever possible gets a shot away. He’s like Jamie Mackie, only more talented, less good looking and almost certainly a bit brighter. Kyle Walker, another Spurs junior whose life changed with a half season loan at QPR, now plays behind him in the first team at White Hart Lane and playfully remarks in interview that he "always shoots” and "thinks two ‘oooohs’ equals a goal.” By the end of his time at Loftus Road the learned opinion was that he’d done extremely well, but that any modicum of effort and positivity was always likely to make him stand out amid a fart cloud of utter, utter, utter, lamentable dross. When rumours did the rounds in the summer that QPR were thinking of spending £4m some said they were being over charged. When Rangers subsequently spent £4m on Blackpool’s wide man Matt Phillips some said they’d shrewdly taken a better option. Cards on the table, I said both.
But what Andros Townsend is suddenly making a career in is simplifying a ridiculously over complicated sport. Managers these days talk about "possession in the opposition half” and "penalty box penetrations” and ball retention and pass completion and anybody who sits and watches Spain or Barcelona string 30 passes together and go nowhere and proclaims it rather dull is lambasted as a philistine, probably a distant cousin of Gary Megson, to be banished to Glanford Park or Field Mill or Blundell Park forever more and forced to watch long ball nonsense with the other knuckle draggers. What Townsend is doing is cutting through the crap, and asking the question: what if, instead of pussy footing around, we just run really quickly towards the goal? What if I, as the winger, burn a full back for pace and sling a cross over? Remember those days? Andy Impey? Andy Sinton? Simple game this.
Yes, Andros Townsend works on basic principles — run quickly, run towards goal, shoot on sight - but in modern football, where players are dragged out of bed at 07.43 for a bowl of chicken and pasta because somebody somewhere has worked out that chicken and pasta four hours and 28 minutes before kick off improves performance by .45%, such simplicity is revolutionary. What if we just run at the goal and shoot? Let’s see. What’s happened so far is he’s become first choice at Spurs despite them spunking more than £100m on players who could all play his position, and impressed at international level in crucial World Cup qualifiers.
Of course what will happen now, after two fine performances for his country which had plenty to do with crucial wins against Montenegro and Poland that carried England to the World Cup next summer, is we’ll absolutely hammer the lad. Every injury will be sweated over, every movement scrutinised, every performance analysed until — like his predecessor in the hype stakes Jack Wilshere — we realise he’s not the messiah, he’s just another young lad making his way through a broken English system.
And racism. Always racism. Roy Hodgson, encouraging the team to hand Townsend as much possession as possible to continue annihilating his full back with in the second half on Tuesday night, used a monkey being shot into space metaphor. Newspapers who would have happily queued up to hammer the England manager for playing safe and going with James Milner for the two must-win qualifiers now have to find another scab to pick at, and this is it.
England deserves the football it gets. Long live the likes of Andros Townsend.
Others >>> Shaun Derry, Millwall (loan) 2013-present, QPR 2010-present >>> Rob Hulse, Millwall (loan) 2013, QPR 2010-2013 >>> Patrick Agyemang, QPR 2008-2012, Millwall (loan) 2011 >>> Jason Puncheon QPR (loan) 2011, Millwall (loan) 2010-2011 >>> Adam Bolder, Millwall (loan) 2007-2008, 2009-2010, QPR 2007-2009 >>> Stefan Moore QPR 2005-2008, Millwall (loan) 2004 >>> Steve Lomas, Millwall (manager) 2013-present, QPR 2005-2007 >>> Danny Shittu, Millwall 2012-present, 2010-2011, QPR (loan) 2001, 2002-2006, 2010-2011 >>> Marc Bircham QPR 2002-2007, Millwall 1996-2002 >>> Rhys Evans, Millwall 2008, QPR (loan) 2001-2002 >>> Marcus Bignot Millwall (loan) 2007-2008, 2008-2009, QPR 2004-2007, 2001-2002 >>> Chris Day, Millwall 2006-2008, QPR 2001-2005 >>> Kenny Jackett Millwall (manager) 2007-2013, QPR (coach) 2001-2004 >>> Justin Cochrane, Millwall 2008, QPR 2001-2002 >>> Darren Ward, Millwall 2010-2013, 2001-2005, QPR (loan) 1999-2000 >>> Danny Dichio, Millwall 2004-2005, QPR 1993-1997 >>> Andy Impey, Millwall (loan) 2005, QPR 1990-1997 >>> Ray Wilkins, Millwall (coach) 2003-2006, 1997, QPR (player manager) 1994-1996, 1989-1994 >>> Tony Witter, Millwall 1991-1998, QPR 1991 >>> Mark Falco, Millwall 1991-1992, QPR 1988-1991 >>> Ian Dawes, Millwall 1988-1995, QPR 1982-1988 >>> Ian Stewart, Millwall (loan) 1982-1983, QPR 1980-1985 >>> Jimmy Carter, Millwall 1998/99, 1987-1981, QPR 1985-1987 >>> Clive Allen, Millwall 1994-1995, QPR 1981-1984, 1978-1980 >>> Gary Waddock, QPR (manager) 2006, 1991-1992, 1979-1987, Millwall 1989-1991 >>> John Byrne, Millwall 1992-1993, QPR 1984-1988 >>> Gavin Maguire, Millwall 1993-1994, QPR 1984-1989 >>> Frank Saul, Millwall 1972-1976, QPR 1970-1972 >>> Tony Hazell, Millwall 1974-1978, QPR 1964-1974 >>> Frank Neary, Millwall 1950-1954, QPR 1945-1947
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Pictures — Action Images