Ok so not the most enticing title for an article LFW has never come up with, but we’re back on the horse later with our ten best ever matches so treat this little house of horrors as payment for that.
1 – Gerry Francis leaves
Well, it’s a toss up really between the departure of Gerry and the sale of Ferdinand for the top spot in this particular countdown. I’ll explain my reasoning behind giving Gerry the nod in a moment but let’s first of all briefly sum up the build up and aftermath of the moment QPR’s greatest manager of the last 25 years was forced out and joined London rivals Spurs. Francis was something of a controversial appointment in the first place – he’d done reasonably well without ever tearing up any trees with Bristol Rovers and Exeter but was a former QPR and England captain as a player and seen as a bright young managerial talent. And it was that youth which counted in his favour when, in a move that would these days have employment lawyers crawling all over the club for months, they removed the experienced, popular and successful Don Howe from the top job in W12 to “make way for a younger man.” Francis continued where Howe had left off, inheriting a squad containing the likes of Ferdinand, Bardsley, Wilson, Sinton and Wilkins and moulding it into an attractive attacking unit that finished fifth in the inaugural Premier League.
However while Francis probably wanted to kick on from there, chairman Richard Thompson had an iron fist wrapped around the purse strings. Gerry was occasionally allowed to go out and spend £600,000 on Gary Penrice he was mostly engaged in fending off interest in his better players from clubs that knew when the price was right Rangers always sold – Andy Sinton and Darren Peacock were removed from Francis’ 1992/93 team. This policy, and the lack of progress it brought on the field, frustrated Francis and the supporters and things reached a breaking point at the start of the 1994/95 season. The campaign started poorly – Ian Holloway and Alan McDonald quickly picked up long term injuries and Ray Wilkins was allowed to leave to join Crystal Palace, all without replacement. Rangers’ form in the league was poor, and they were knocked out of the League Cup at home against Man City. It was after that cup game, where Rangers scored after eight seconds but still lost 4-3, hat stories began to surface in the press that Thompson wanted to bring in another QPR legend, Rodney Marsh, to work as a Director of Football over Francis with responsibility for the transfers. Marsh says now he had no idea the extent of the role Thompson had in mind and would never have intentionally undermined Francis. On the field a difficult looking Saturday-Monday double header at Loftus Road against Villa and Liverpool resulted in a surprise six point haul and two fabulous performances. But the memory of them will always be overshadowed by Gerry’s decision to walk out the week after.
Richard Thompson, in the main, had sort of the right idea. QPR, on their crowds and with their resources, must always take the big money for their best players when it is offered. Buy low and sell high. But only in the case of Sinton, who was replaced by Trevor Sinclair for less than half the price, did we ever replace the departed players at all. Darren Peacock was replaced by Karl Ready for instance – total footballing suicide. By October 1993 QPR were poised to move into second place in the Premiership behind Man Utd, but lost an away match 1-0 at Swindon Town who were the whipping boys for everybody else. We were agonisingly close to a great dynasty at Loftus Road – Kasey Keller from Millwall and Clive Mendonca from Grimsby added to the squad we had at that point would have cemented us as a top three side just as the footballing cash flow was about to explode. Instead, we cashed in in the short term and the club has now completely missed the boat. We’ll never be a top five Premiership side again in the next 100 years. The untold riches that could have been ours were taken away by pure short sightedness of a board who made all of £5m from selling Andy Sinton and Darren Peacock without replacing them.
2 – Ferdinand heads north
Once the tone was set that Rangers were an un-ambitious selling club it was inevitable that Les Ferdinand would be the next out of the door and in the end it was a surprise we hung onto him as long as we did. I remember where I was when I heard - it’s the QPR fans’ equivalent of the JFK moment – sitting in the back seat of my dad’s car as he filled up at a petrol station in Twickenham. All the talk had been of Les going to Aston Villa, which would have been a sideways move at the time, but given his penchant for absolutely destroying Newcastle United it was no surprise to see him head there with Keegan probably sick of thinking of ways of trying to keep him quiet. The season before he was bought he scored twice in the first 15 minutes of the home match against the Magpies which Rangers eventually won 3-0, the season before he’d come back from injury to score one and dominate the game at St James’ Park as we won 2-1. He dressed his shop window well in that part of the world.
Had Rangers still been under the guidance of Gerry Francis at this point then he may have been able to cover for the departure because, to be fair to Rangers, they did give Ray Wilkins a fair chunk of the money to spend. A young Andy Booth moved to Sheff Wed that summer for reasonable money and did very well for example and there were people like Keller, Alex Rae, Darren Purse and others all on the market. The famous Evening Standard headline saying Roberto Baggio was set for Loftus Road went down in infamy, if that move was ever possible and we didn’t do it then the person who made the decision should be strung up.
Ferdinand was an unbelievable player in his prime. In his final two games for Rangers he scored twice against Spurs at Loftus Road in a 2-1 win, and then twice at Man City a week later as we won 3-2. The fans at Maine Road sang “stay another year Leslie” as he humiliated veteran keeper John Burridge with a well crafted lobbed finish but it seemed inevitable even then. Ray Wilkins spent the money on Ned Zelic, Mark Hateley, Gregory Goodridge, Simon Osbourn, Lee Charles and Jurgeon Sommer and in doing so killed off what was left of QPR as a top ten Premiership side.
3 – Peacock sold, Ready in, Thompson out
Not much more to say on this one really because it’s just a continuation of a theme. The decision to sell Darren peacock to Newcastle for a piffly £2.5m when he was a shoo in for the Player of the Year award at Rangers and then replace him with youth teamers Karl Ready and Alan McCarthy had predictable results. Peacock had been a bit of a liability at times, the 1992/93 season is scattered liberally with examples of him inexplicably falling on his arse and costing us goals, but he’d eradicated that accident prone side of his game by 1993/94 and if he had to be sold then he needed adequately replacing – Nigel Pearson at Middlesbrough was available for half the price we sold Peacock for.
His sale prompted a total collapse in the team’s form – Rangers were seventh when he left but quickly lost 4-1 at Oldham, 4-0 at home to Leeds and 3-1 at Sheff Wed in consecutive matches. Swindon then completed an embarrassing double with a 3-1 win at Loftus Road. It also started the most vociferous campaign against a board that I can ever recall in my 20 years of supporting Rangers with “we want Thompson out” echoing around every ground that QPR played their games at. Ironically after the 4-0 Leeds home match the away fans left down South Africa Road singing “we want Thompson in”, and a few years later they got just that which always makes me smile a little.
It was during that Leeds match, and earlier a home game against Wimbledon in which Peacock scored his final goal in QPR colours, that the fans started to invade the pitch for sit down protests during the action. The Leeds invasion was particularly memorable as it was kicked off by a busty blonde lady, who I believe went by the name of Denise, racing onto the field, tearing her shirt off and whirling it around her head. The crowd was delighted, although as the bra stayed on my grandfather felt the need to approach her in the pub at Sheffield Wednesday a week later and tell her: “We were all proud of you love, but I was disappointed.”
4 – Cantona’s 96th minute equaliser
For the second time this week I find myself writing about the stand out worst moment of my childhood. I went to junior school in Hampton Hill where the majority of the in mates supported either Tottenham (possibly fair enough) or Manchester United (unforgivably). What the hell is the point in supporting a team that plays 250 miles away that you never get to see just because it wins all the time? What a soulless existence. The fact that they’d never even driven past Old Trafford, never mind been inside, didn’t shame the horrible little bastards enough into not waiting for those of us who supported proper football teams and went to see them with our dads (when dads could still afford to take their sons to the football) on the playground on Monday mornings to take the piss out of us because of our latest defeat at Oldham.
I hated them, and Man Utd, even before they broke my heart in 1996. My first QPR game was Southampton away in the FA Cup in January 1992, a week after the famous 4-1 success at Old Trafford. From that moment on the chocolate box terrace at The Dell I had longed to see this blue and white hooped team beat Man Utd so I could go into school and stick it to the glory hunting Cockney Reds. We’d gone close – only some fine goalkeeping from Schmeichel denied us more than a 0-0 draw at Old Trafford in 1992/93 and a season later Bradley Allen gave us the lead before Cantona turned it on and we lost 2-1. Later that season Clive Wilson put is in front but we lost 3-2 and a year later Ferdinand scored the first and last goal in another 3-2 defeat at Loftus Road and missed an absolute sitter to make it 3-3. We just couldn’t get over the line and fulfil my dream of beating the scum of the earth and my existence on the concrete wilderness of Hampton Hill Junior School’s playground remained a downtrodden and lonely one. Even the year four teacher who supported Tranmere Rovers gently mocked me when the mood so took him.
In 1996 there was added importance to the game, because QPR were not so much standing on the trap door at this stage as dangling freely down the shaft and clinging on by their finger nails. Unlikely victories against tough opponents were required, and when Danny Dichio put Rangers ahead, not altogether undeservedly, in the second half it seemed that the moment for me and the team had arrived. I’ve recounted what happened next, Cantona heading home so deeply into injury time that Sunday morning was almost dawning to deny us and the referee blowing for full time almost the second the ball hit the back of the net, once already this week and will not go into detail again. I cried. I remember slumping over the hoardings at the front of the Q Block and crying, and sitting in the Goldhawk afterwards and crying, and crying on the tube home. I will always, always, always hate those bastards.
5 – Spurs come back from the dead
As well as removing quality players from the side, the club’s transfer policy through the 1990s also robbed us of much needed experience. Sinton and Peacock were the high profile departures but by the start of our relegation season Ray Wilkins was no longer playing regularly, Clive Wilson had criminally been offered a better deal to join Gerry Francis at Spurs and Les Ferdinand had also gone all without adequate replacement. The naivety of a side led by former youth team partners Kevin Gallen and Danny Dichio was there for all to see time and time again through 1995/96. No more so than the Monday night football in September against Spurs at Loftus Road. Mark Hateley was paraded in front of the crowd before the game after signing from Rangers, but Rangers recovered from that horror to take a 2-0 lead just after half time thanks to a fantastic Danny Dichio header, and a back post effort from Andy Impey. From there Rangers could have seen the game out but the experience and nous was all on the visiting team and they came back into the game when Teddy Sheringham cynically conned David Ellery into awarding a penalty with a pathetic dive over the back of Karl Ready with the ball long since gone. Sheringham got a late winner as well, after Jason Dozzell had equalised, to send Gerry Francis running onto the pitch in front of the dug outs in celebration. A hideous, hideous birthday night for me.
6 – Relegated at Coventry
Despite everything that went on in 1995/96 Rangers still had half a chance of staying up three games before the end of the season. Coventry away, West Ham at home and Forest away with nothing to play for didn’t look terribly taxing on paper, but Coventry were down there as well fighting for their lives which meant a six pointer at Highfield Road in front of a sizeable Rangers contingent. We lost, of course, thanks to a late header from Eoin Jess. Kevin Gallen had a goal ruled out for offside in the first half, Andy Impey was sent off late on for lamping Marcus Hall after a scuffle and all in all it looked like much of the season had done – QPR the vulnerable and naïve side built around mediocre youngsters, Coventry the been there seen it done it outfit who were used to escaping late every year. Despite the defeat Rangers still had a chance of staying up, but Coventry, Man City and Southampton all miraculously won their away matches a week later which meant our 3-0 home hammering of West Ham was academic.
7 – Nightmares from 12 yards
As well as the points lost from winning positions against Spurs and Man Utd, another criminal element of our relegation season was our penalty taking. The departure of Clive Wilson is often overlooked when talking about the dismantling of our great 1992/93 side, despite him being one of the best players in it That’s because Rangers didn’t actually get any money for the out f contract left back, instead allowing him to move to Spurs under Gerry Francis again because they were offering a two year deal and QPR only 12 months. As well as quality, experience and lots of other things that would have been useful in that Wilkins team Wilson took with him an impressive record of penalty conversion and the results back at Loftus Road were catastrophic. Mark Hateley won a spot kick on his home debut against Middlesbrough only for Simon Barker to sky it over the bar and cost us two points, and another handball by David Wetherall in a home match with Leeds later in the year presented Kevin Gallen with a chance to equalise in a game where we had trailed 2-0 to two Tony Yeboah strikes. John Lukic was awesome that night, and saved the penalty with ease. Perhaps the most gut wrenching miss though came in the FA Cup against Chelsea. Rangers, live on Sky, were again 2-0 down by half time but a fabulous strike from Nigel Quashie halved the deficit and the tempo of the QPR performance and atmosphere that created only seemed to be sending the game in one direction. When Kevin Hitchock climbed over the back of Hateley a penalty was awarded and Bradley Allen rolled it two yards wide of the target.
8 – Shockport Bounty
If the league was beyond the QPR side of 1993/94, then one of the cups certainly should have been within reach. Again, had we managed to progress sufficiently in one of these it might have helped us keep the squad together. Rangers are currently without an FA Cup win in 11 years, the worst record in the country, and they didn’t fare much better on a frozen pitch at Edgeley Park against Second Division Stockport back in January 1994 either. The enormous gangly frame of Kevin Francis gave Darren Peacock absolute nightmares all afternoon. Rangers did actually take the lead when Simon Barker’s fine volley from the edge of the box after Ferdinand’s knock down found the net after 20 minutes but Stockport were allowed a controversial equaliser when Kevin Francis fired home despite the referee tending to injured Chris Beaumont on the edge of the six yard area right in front of Jan Stejskal. The Czech had been replaced by Tony Roberts by the time the winner went in 15 minutes from time from Andy Preece. Stockport lost 4-0 at home to Bristol City in the next round.
You Tube Footage, if you can stand it
9 – Swindon double trouble
Swindon Town won five matches in their one and only Premiership season, including just a solitary away game. That was at Loftus Road, 3-1, and by that point they’d already beaten us 1-0 at the County Ground as well. Les Ferdinand’s equaliser in the home game was the only time I can ever recall my father not celebrating a QPR goal, he barely even moved. Enough said.
10 – Cup progress halted
A year on from the Stockport humiliation Rangers did actually string a cup run together. They dodged an early bullet by switching a Third Round tie with Aylesbury to Loftus Road on safety grounds and winning 4-0 - a certain LFW writer was the mascot that day – and followed that up with a 1-0 win against West Ham at Loftus Road in round four when Andy Impey scored. Millwall were then dispatched having previously beaten Arsenal and Chelsea in cup competitions that year, Clive Wilson’s last second winning penalty made our countdown of greatest moments earlier this week. QPR were playing well, Ray Wilkins had successfully turned around a poor start to the season after taking over from Gerry Francis and there was a sense that Wembley might not be beyond us. The Whittingham household gathered around the television in our kitchen to watch the draw for the quarter finals. Wolves, Palace, Everton, Newcastle, Liverpool, Spurs and Man Utd remained in the hat – any of them at home and anybody but Man Utd away and we would have stood a good chance. We were the last out of the hat, so even then there was hope we may at least get United at home, but it wasn’t to be. At Old Trafford 6,000 QPR fans made the journey but Wilkins lost us the game before we’d even started by dropping Trevor Sinclair so he could play both Clive Wilson and Rufus Brevett down the left to combat the perceived threat of Andrei Kanchelskis. Lee Sharpe scored in the first half, Dennis Irwin made the most of Tony Roberts’ infuriating technique of building a giant wall to cover one side of his goal and then standing behind it in the second. We travelled up, about 14 of us, in an old carpet van with PE benches in the back which was a good laugh, and the thought of 6,000 QPR fans singing “Paul Ince is a wanker” for the whole of the second half still makes me smile (even the United players were laughing) but as missed opportunities go…
How about Paul Furlong’s injury time School End winner for Chelsea in 1995/96? Or Alan McDonald rupturing his Achilles against Aston Villa in December 1993 ruling him out for the whole season? Or the succession of Sky defeats in 1992/93 that robbed us of a higher place than fifth, most notably a 1-0 set back against Graeme Sounness’ piss poor Liverpool side who we battered constantly for 86 minutes before succumbing to Ronny Rosenthal’s late goal? I could go on, we had blatant penalties denied against Arsenal in two 0-0 draws at Loftus Road in 1992/93 and 1993/94 ad the Karl Ready and Jurgeon Sommer disaster that gifted Newcastle a win at Loftus Road in 1995. Tony Roberts could have a section all to himself – there was Neil Thompson’s infamous 30 yard dazy cutter at Ipswich that somehow squirmed through him and in, two bad errors in a 3-2 televised defeat at Nottingham Forest where he contrived to concede one straight from a corner, and the laughable Paul Walsh goal at Loftus Road where he dallied over a back pass for too long and ended up wellying it into his own net off Walsh’s arse. Stejskal was accident prone in is latter days as well, punching David Rocastle’s shot through his legs and in against Man City. Had enough? Well finally I make mention of Tottenham’s useless defender Kevin Scott who in 1994 went out purely to get Les Ferdinand sent off at White Hart Lane and succeeded within half an hour, the pair of them dismissed for fighting inside half an hour – the reaction of the home crowd told you everything you needed to know about the respective players’ abilities.
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