 Monday, 19th Jul 2010 22:31 by Ross Smith Ross Smith returns with another superb article for LoftforWords, recalling probably the lowest point in the club’s history as the R’s slipped into the third tier, and administration, a decade ago. I can’t believe that come 3pm on August 7, it will be ten years since the start of that ill-fated season culminating in administration and relegation to the third tier of English football in 2000/01, the lowest ebb in the clubs history.
Dodgy takeovers, meddling chairman, in-house fighting, court cases, rumours of huge unpaid debts, managers undermined, multiple managerial sackings and appointments, Paul Hart, players not caring, over the top ticket prices - the negatives go on and on and the mood amongst us fans has been more down than up over the last five or so years. But when I think long and hard about it, I still maintain with the benefit of having most of our recent troubles behind us, Huddersfield away 2001 is still in my mind the lowest I’ve felt following Queens Park Rangers football club. If you’re moaning about our current signings, or lack of ambition, it may be worth casting your mind back to that day.
If I’m completely honest, I wasn’t even there. I tried to pick up the odd snippet from a radio in Bournemouth where I was out drinking to try and take my mind off the inevitable. I figured I’d done my time before then, I couldn’t handle any further humiliation. In my absence the club was relegated to the third tier of English football, in administration and with 80 per cent of the first team out of contract and not fit to wear the shirt anyway, events since have never seemed as desperate as that afternoon in the spring of 2001.
It is often said in times of turmoil “lest we forget”, and I’ll certainly never forget that horrific season. So, a decade on, I’m taking the opportunity to look back.
When the season kicked off in August 2000 economy was booming under Tony Blair’s Labour government, Big Brother had hit our screens for the first time, there were mass queues at the petrol pumps as protesters were blockading the fuel depots over hiked prices, Manchester United were champions of England, Chelsea had won the FA Cup, England were total dross at the European Championships under the guidance of Kevin Keegan who was little over a month away from quitting in the Old Wembley bogs as England’s 2002 World Cup qualifying campaign got off to a miserable start in the last ever match played at the old Wembley stadium and Luis Figo had just completed a record £41 million pounds (and a pig’s head) transfer to Real Madrid from Spanish rivals Barcelona.
Nationwide Division 1 still had clubs spending big money. Birmingham City had spent a whopping £2.25 Million on, wait for it, Geoff Horsefield from Fulham. The Cottagers must have been laughing all the way to on the bank on that one you might assume, but this was when Jean Tigana had just been appointed and they were splashing big cash on the likes of Louis Saha and taking their squad to the dentist. West Brom splashed £2million on Jason Roberts, Graeme Souness was appointed manager of ailing Blackburn Rovers. It seems a world away from the Premiership graveyard of skint clubs we find ourselves amongst now doesn’t it?
Incidentally QPR had also spent, while not quite in the magnitude of those mentioned above, a firm 250k on Blackpool defender and player of the year Clarke Carlisle. £250k for a club as pot-less as ours at the time was bordering on the outrageous and smacks again of the gross mismanagement of those running our club into the ground at the time. A further £60k spend bagged us Tottenham youngster Peter Crouch. Karl Connolly, Christer Warren and Danny Grieves were also recruited on free transfers. All the greats.
The surprise though was losing fan favourite Kevin Gallen, who left the club out of contract in somewhat acrimonious circumstances. Stories did the rounds about the club refusing to offer signing on fees and Gallen copping the hump, or Rangers refusing to guarantee first team football ahead of the luminaries like Connolly. Gallen left with a parting shot voicing his concerns over how QPR has been allowed to decline and ended up on trial with Huddersfield Town.
Joining him on their way out of Loftus Road were Steve Slade, Ademola Bankole and the man with the shortest Ranger’s playing career to date, Richard Ord – sadly forced into retirement by a crippling knee injury sustained just minutes into his first Rangers appearance in a pre-season friendly at Aylesbury. A year previously Ray Harford had turned to Ord and spent £600k on the Sunderland centre half in preference to Leicester’s Gerry Taggert who went on to anchor Stoke’s defence for years while QPR chased insurers for pay outs on Ord. There was a degree of bad luck to this horrific tale of decline as well as the chronic mismanagement of our football club.
Looking back at the match programme for the opening match of the season against Birmingham at Loftus Road I can’t help but scoff at a somewhat ironic line about our rivals Stockport County which reads “Kevin Francis and Brett Angell aren’t getting any younger, and with no money to spend, Stockport could really struggle”. Yes Brett Angell indeed, I mean you stand no chance with that old warhorse charged with scoring the goals for your team. You’d be mad back then to think he’d actually got another season in him, I mean he’d been around the block more times then the new kids. Mind you, he did score for every club…he’s played…….oh...
Stockport discovered new goal scorers in Shefki Kuqi and Aaron Wilbraham and finished 19th, three points clear of the drop zone.
Quite a poignant moment springs to mind, whilst sitting in the hot sun in the Lower Loft that day before kickoff. A kid a few seats to my left in the row behind uncontrollably chundered his post match lunch all over the poor unsuspecting supporters in front of him. Some young lass wearing a skimpy white top tied around her naval got splattered with the stuff, along with a couple more supporters in the vicinity. There’s nothing worse then the smell of a freshly served pavement pizza baking in the hot sun, and luckily I think the stewards moved in the clean most of it up with some disinfectant after the smell nearly had the same effect on a few of us other poor unsuspecting spectators. In hindsight the mode was set there and then. This was surely a sign of things to come that year. Little did I know it at the time, but come the middle stages of that season, we’d all be left feeling like doing the same thing before and after matches on a regular basis.
The game was probably one of the dullest I’ve ever sat through - Francis v Francis, Birmingham pretty much dominated but couldn’t break down the R’s defence and it ended nil-nil. The only real items of note were Birmingham’s new signing Geoff Horsefield getting pelters from the R’s faithful (ex Fulham and all that) and then getting injured and stretched off, to our amusement, for what turned out a lengthy lay off, and the debuts of defender Clarke Carlisle and a very young and naive looking Peter Crouch. I have to admit during that second half, I never thought he’d make it at Rangers, let alone make it as an England international in the future. Carlisle looked a class act though, and got off the mark in the next game away at Palace where he towered a header in to give Rangers a 1-1 draw in front of the Sky cameras.
So the writing wasn’t on the wall in terms of performances right away, and we didn’t have to wait a long for the first three point haul of the season which came in our second home match. A fluky goal from figure of hate, newly loaned striker and legend in waiting, Paul Furlong who charged down a clearance from Crewe goalkeeper Jason Kearton and celebrated as it rebounded off him and into the net. Kearton had, earlier in his career, performed heroics on his Everton debut at Loftus Road by pulling off numerous eye catching saves after replacing Neville Southall following a sending off in a Boxing Day classic. Everton eventually went down to nine men and Rangers won 4-2 thanks to an Andy Sinton hat trick. During the Crewe game Rangers would start what would become the order of the season, picking up long injury layoffs to key players with Karl Ready and Ian Barraclough both substituted before half time. Subsequently the form quickly began to dip and the first inkling of what was to follow was a home 4-1 reverse thumping by Colchester in the Worthington’s Cup where Lomano Tresor Lua Lua ripped the R’s defence a new one and sealed a transfer to then Premiership giants Newcastle in the process. That seemed to be where the trouble started - an unshakeable habit of not winning the home bankers festered against newly promoted Preston and Gillingham whilst our form on the road went from the iffy to the dia’bleedin’bolical. I remember our obligatory farcical performance at Vicarage Road where the Ranges defence, being lead by the hapless Steve Morrow, conceded two goals from corners in what seemed like a minute and resulting in me angrily leaving the ground with about ten minutes to go in disbelief as it was just all too painful to carry on watching. The R’s were 3-0 down at half time at Barnsley, where fans stormed the tunnel at the break to let the players know exactly what they thought of them, before finally succumbing 4-2 and a 1-0 lead at Grimsby was quickly turned into a 3-1 defeat after which Town striker Bradley Allen told QPR fans over dinner that his former side were the worst he’d seen in the league that season and were in real trouble.
By the Christmas period things were looking desperate as the depleted team had completely lost it’s fighting spirit. Rangers couldn’t defend or score goals which evidently resulted in bad defeats, draws when we should have been winning and some awful humiliating big tonking defeats on the road to Preston (5-0), Sheffield Wednesday (5-2), Wimbledon (5-0), Arsenal at home in the FA Cup (6-0), among many other half baked pathetic displays. The point of no return for me though was the Fulham home match on the evening of January 31, 2001. At times it felt like Peter Crouch against the world.
I came straight from work and being caught up in rush hour delays on the tube, arrived five or so minutes after kick off just as one of our better performers of the season, Clarke Carlisle, was being stretched off for what was later revealed a career threatening cruciate injury. These injuries are never nice and Christ have we had some over the years. They used to end careers instantly. Gazza was the first high profile payer I can remember to have his career saved by an at the time (1991) ground breaking operation after suffering one. Carlisle’s injury was a complicated version of the injury. He wouldn’t be seen again in a Rangers shirt for nigh on 18 months and the club would be a very different place when he finally returned. As if that wasn’t bad enough though, within ten minutes lightening struck twice, this time another key performer and excellent QPR home grown young prospect Richard Langley suffered a cruciate ligament injury ruling him out for the best part of a year. Fulham won 2-0 after Ludek Moklosko flapped a routine shot to give them an easy lead. Fulham went to become deserved champions and have stayed in the Prem ever since. For Rangers though that really was white flag time – a poor team, in trouble, robbed of two of its better players in the same game.
The team was never able to recover any momentum despite Gerry Francis resigning and being replaced by Ian Holloway. It was too late; the club called in the administrators shortly after Ollie’s appointment. He had virtually nothing left to work with. Not even a few of his shrewd free signings in Marcus Bignot, Andy Thomson and a loaned Leon Knight were able to dig us out of the hole we found ourselves in. I guess fighting spirit will only get you so far. Throwing a two goal lead away at Crewe was the final nail in the coffin; Huddersfield away was just the ceremony. We sunk to Nationwide Division 2. To rub salt into gaping wounds the administrators sold shining star of the season Peter Crouch to Portsmouth while Olly was on holiday - “loveable rogue” Harry Redknapp had told the player to make a transfer request to drive the ludicrously low £1.5m figure down still further when Holloway had been assured he wouldn’t be sold for less than £4m. Jermaine Darlington was sold to Wimbledon, everyone else out of contract was released and not fit to wear the shirt anyway – stories of players like Ready, Morrow, Kiwomya and others laughing at Peter Crouch’s tears following the relegation at Huddersfield and the ABC loan was on the cards. The future of the club was on very stony ground. Did it ever really get any worse then that?
Although we eventually recovered, it took the best part of eight years to finally put our diabolical financial woes behind us. Barring the odd embarrassment at the hands of lower league/non league teams in the cups, I can honestly say that in my opinion that 2000/01 was the worst season I can ever remember. Okay so in the aftermath and the seasons that followed you could say we we’re happier back then. The club felt like it belonged to the fans and we felt like we were important to the club. But I can honestly say for all the disappointment we have suffered post take over, our situation has never seemed as desperate as it was back in 2001. The club were apparently toying with the idea of merging with Wimbledon for Christ’s sake.
So ten years on, how do we compare the Queens Park Rangers who will take to the field at Loftus Road for the start of the 2010/11 campaign in a few weeks time to the one who took to the field at a puke stenched Loftus Road back in August 2000?
Obviously there is a difference, a vast difference in fact. You could go as far as saying same stadium, same name, same fans, but quite a different club. For a start we are no longer brassic to the extent where we can’t even afford to get a photocopier engineer in. We have, on paper at least, a much stronger squad. We have a manager who has no past connection with QPR but with bags of experience at our level and six months ago was about as popular with the majority of QPR fans as picture texts are to Cheryl Cole. Compared to Gerry Francis who on his appointment was seen as some kind of returning hero as we QPR fans conveniently forgot he had recently failed miserably at miserable Spurs.
The club emblem has changed and not many of us like it. We pay through the nose for match tickets compared to many other teams in the same division. Jude the black Cat has become Spark the erm…orange stripy cat. No more round the pole at half time.
But overall I would like to think we are stronger now on and off the field. Us fans have that certain steel of ‘been there, lost there, seen it, done it’ about us. Not much else could phase your average QPR fan these days. From the uncertainty of administration and playing in the unfamiliar third tier, to the ridicules of getting through more managers the Darth Vader does commanders, we surely have nothing original left that can grate on us. We’ve been to the depths of despair and come out the other side and here we are watching our team albeit through a thousand yard stare. I would certainly take our situation now over any other in the past ten years. There is no doubt in my mind about that. The fact we are thinking about the possibilities of promotion to the Premier league rather then fighting to stave of League 1 again says it all.
Starting the season with a bloated squad containing the deadwood likes of Antti Heinola, Geroge Kulscar, Keith Rowland, Tony Scully, Richard Graham, Ross Weare, Tim Breaker, Ian Baraclough, Karl Ready, Chris Kiwomya, Sammy Koejoe etc is now surely a thing of the past. May sound harsh but I sincerely hope we never find ourselves in a position where we have to rely on their likes again. To think we might actually have sustained a serious promotion challenge that year is nearing the ignorance of a million odd England fans believing we could actually win the World Cup in Africa. Okay so our squad at the moment isn’t perfect and like your average racing car could do with the odd tweak here and there, but I would like to think each player we now have would walk straight into the starting team we set out against Birmingham City in that opener of the 2000/01.
So as I leave you to ponder that, here’s a quick reminder of the starting eleven in the matches I have mentioned.
vs Birmingham City, Saturday August 12 2000, 0-0 Harper, Baraclough, Darlington, Ready, Morrow, Carlisle, Langley, Wardley, Peacock, Crouch, Kiwomya. Subs used : Perry
vs Watford, Saturday October 14 2000, 1-3 Harper, Darlington, Perry, Warren, Morrow, Carlisle, Langley, Kulscar, Wardley, Crouch, Koejoe. Subs used: Peacock, Connolly
vs Arsenal, FA Cup Fourth Round, Saturday January 27 2001, 0-6 Miklosko, Baraclough, Darlington, Rose, Plummer, Carlisle, Langley, Peacock, Perry, Crouch, Kiwomya.
vs Fulham, Wednesday January 31 2001, 0-2 Miklosko, Baraclough, Perry, Rose, Plummer, Carlisle, Langley, Peacock, Connolly, Crouch, Kiwomya, Subs used: Koejoe, Connolly.
vs Huddersfield, Saturday April 21 2001, 1-2 Harper, Perry, Baraclough, Ready, Plummer, Knight, Bignot, Peacock, Darlington, Crouch, Thomson. Subs used: Pacqutte, Kiwomya, Wardley
They were not all bad I guess. So here’s a run down on the few who could hold their heads high at the end of that campaign.
Lee Harper: Pretty decent keeper, had a mid season gap though when he was out of favour over the past it Miklosko.
Gavin Peacock: I used to love him - great captain and very reliable on the field when he played. Unfortunately due to injuries that was all too little that season, a big factor in the teams downfall.
Clarke Carlisle: Looked an excellent signing with a big future when he joined, he was still young and that cruel injury certainly hampered his development and his mental well being too. His career never had the opportunity to blossom to its full potential after that. Has gone on and finally played a season in the top flight since, good on him.
Peter Crouch: What is there left to say? Such a rookie back then and really thrown in at the deep end. As the season went on he grew in confidence and ability. Fair play to him, he became something of a cult hero in his brief time with us and at times looked like one of the few players out there fighting for our club. Played at the highest level of the game since both domestically and for his country. Farcically ignored in South Africa.
Richard Langley: Was pretty much the first name on the team sheet by that season, played well in a shit team which must have knocked his confidence a bit. Bad injury meant his season ended prematurely. Came back strong though and was our best player over the following two years before the inevitable sale. Career blighted by injuries after and a brief return in 2005 saw a lacklustre Langley struggle to find form. Moved on in 2006, now plays in Thailand.
Marcus Bignot: If anything typifies an Ian Holloway signing, it has to be this man. First thing Ollie did was get him on board, worked hard, upped the team effort. If we had him from the start of that season we might have had a chance. Left in 2002 but returned in 2004 where he went on to have a good career at Rangers, especially in our maiden season back in the second tier after promotion. I will always have time for Biggy.
Danny Maddix: Although on the sidelines with constant injury, Maddix made just two appearances that season, but still worth a mention due to his long 13 year Ranger’s career finally coming to an end. A true professional when fit and was sorely missed in the heart of defence. His absence was another reason why our campaign was such disaster.
And there you have it, the rest of them; well it’s been said a thousand times before so I won’t open old wounds.
So here’s to 2010/11. May our hopes and wishes come true. I’m 99.9% certain history won’t repeat itself. I just hope I don’t see any kids losing their lunch before 3pm when we face Barnsley. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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