As LoftforWords concludes its look back at QPR’s previous time in the Premiership, we look at the ten best players who pulled on the Hoops in that time, and make passing reference to a few of the poorer ones as well.
1 – Les Ferdinand
Les Ferdinand was better than Didier Drogba. I’ve said it several times before, and having watched the tapes back again I’m now absolutely sure about it. There’s a tendency to build modern day football up as always being better than what has gone before but in Ferdinand’s case I think he is better than the best we have in his position these days. He was quicker than Drogba, scored a wider variety of goals and did it all in an inferior team to the one Drogba currently has backing him up. Ferdinand scored 24, 18 and 26 goals for QPR in his three Premiership seasons at Loftus Road and then scored 29 for Newcastle, without taking penalties – add in Clive Wilson’s successful penalties over that period and he’d have been a 30 goal a season striker for three of four years. He scored poacher goals from a yard out, fiercely powerful headers from all over the penalty areas, blistering 30 yard pile drivers, free kicks and solo goals where his pace and power carried him past two or three players on the way to goal. If you marked him tightly he’d beat you in the air or turn you with his strength, if you stood off him he’d go past you for pace, and if you were happy to let him try his luck from 30 yards out he’d punish you regularly from that distance as well. Described at the time as one of the few English players who could make a go of it in Serie A at the time, he was the complete Premiership centre forward and would be worth the best part of £30m in the modern transfer market.
68 goals in 110 appearances for QPR between 1992 and 1995, sold to Newcastle for £6m in summer 1995.
2 – Clive Wilson, 1990 to 1995
So far, so uncontroversial. In fact given that we were only in the Premiership for four years and we were absolutely bloody awful in the fourth one selecting a top ten players is not as difficult as it probably should be – it’s more a case of putting the 1992-1994 line up in order. So any of the next four or five players at least could easily have been the other way around or in another order altogether. In second place I’ve gone for Clive Wilson, a player who left at the same time as Les Ferdinand further condemning us to certain relegation the following year. Wilson was a left sided midfielder for Chelsea and Man City, and initially at Rangers as well, before being converted into a fine left full back who really should have won England caps while at Loftus Road. He took the penalties as well, although I can’t say he ever really inspired much confidence in me when he did that – a harsh criticism given his record. His finest individual moment was probably the last second penalty in the FA Cup fifth round tie with Millwall but he was a superb player overall, learning the defensive side of the position successfully and bringing the attacking element of his midfield play in a way not at all dissimilar to that of players like Ashley Cole and Gael Clichy in today’s game.
173 appearances for Rangers, 12 goals scored only one in open play, signed for Spurs on a free transfer in summer 1995
3 – Andy Sinton, 1989-1993
I’ve probably mentioned it once or twice before but I like a good winger – the quicker and trickier the better – and that’s probably got a lot to do with growing up watching first Andy Sinton and then Trevor Sinclair. Unlike Wilson, Sinton did actually make the breakthrough into the England set up when Graham Taylor was the manager winning 12 caps after a debut against Poland in 1991. Sinton was an absolutely superb player with speed, skill, strength and a great eye for a cross. He was also quite prolific for a winger, his hat trick against Everton has been mentioned this week a few times and he bagged 22 goals for the R’s in 161 appearances which isn’t too bad for somebody who was an out and out wide left player. Ultimately Sinton never reached the heights of his time with QPR again after leaving to join Sheffield Wednesday – the wrong club in hindsight – for their club record fee at the time of £2.75m. Wednesday never hit the heights of their 1992/93 season again either and went on the wane, like Sinton who ended up at Spurs two years later and always received dog’s abuse whenever he returned to Loftus Road with Wednesday, Spurs or Wolves. Now manages Telford and has said in interview that the atmosphere on his return to the Bush used to frighten him, while reiterating it was never his decision to leave the club and Rangers sold him to balance the books and keep Les Ferdinand instead.
A £350,000 Trevor Francis signing from Brentford in 1989, made 161 appearances and scored 22 times before leaving for Sheff Wed for £2.75m.
4 – Ray Wilkins, 1989-1994
Wilkins was probably seen as a man coming to the end of his career when he first joined Rangers in 1989 but he went on to play superbly at the top level of English football for a further five years at Loftus Road. He started his career with Chelsea in 1973 before spells with Man Utd, Milan and Paris St Germain. It was around this time that English clubs were banned from Europe owing to the behaviour of Liverpool fans on the continent which had the effect of boosting the Scottish Premiership massively. Serving England internationals like Wilkins, Mark Hateley and Paul Gascoigne all played north of the border in the late 1980s and early 1990s and that would simply never happen today. Wilkins arrived at QPR right at the end of Trevor Francis’ reign as manager and served well under first Don Howe and then Gerry Francis. His legs weren’t what they had been at one time, and Francis cleverly paired him with Ian Holloway who would run all day and do Ray’s leg work for him to prolong his career and influence. Even well into his 30s he could still pick out an absolutely exquisite pass and a review of the season videos of the time is littered with delicate and incisive through balls that you cannot help but admire all these years later. He left Rangers in 1994 to be the player coach at Crystal Palace but returned within six months as the new QPR boss. Such was his poor performance in that role, and subsequent involvement at Chelsea again, he’s not viewed as fondly as he should be by QPR fans because for a good few years at Loftus Road he was absolutely majestic. His stooped headed goal at home to Spurs and glorious 25 yard lob against Wimbledon at Selhurst Park, both in the 1992/93 season, burn bright in the memory banks today.
5 – David Bardsley, 1989-1998
How spoilt we were, and how we’ve paid for it since. For the last decade and more we’ve been forced to watch one centre half after another, shoe horned into the right full back role at QPR with predictable consequences. I wanted to play in goal when I was a kid, but I was too small so they stuck me at right back until I grew a bit despite me having no footballing ability whatsoever. It was that sort of attitude that saw people like Matthew Rose picked there so often – square pegs used because nobody thought the round hole was that important. Bardsley showed how effective a good right full back can be to a team. Like Clive Wilson he’d played previously with Watford and Oxford as a midfielder and carried that attacking spirit with him in his full back position. Wilson was known for his penalties, Bardsley for his world class crossing ability which supplied so many goals for Les Ferdinand, Devon White and others. He took a mean free kick as well, almost ripping the net off the back of the posts at the Loft End against Southampton in August 1992. While others left as the team declined, Bardsley was forced to stay by a succession of injuries that decimated the latter part of his career and rendered him a shadow of his former self when I saw him in his final season as a professional footballer playing for Blackpool against Scunthorpe. Bardsley now coaches in America, and has his teams decked out in blue and white hoops.
Bardsley made 253 appearances for Rangers, scoring four goals, between 1989 and 1998.
6 – Trevor Sinclair, 1993-1998
I first saw Trevor Sinclair play as a youngster for Blackpool at Wembley. My family went along there because our home town club Scunthorpe had reached the play final and faced Blackpool, who won with Sinclair in fine form. That summer we sold Andy Sinton to Sheff Wed and Gerry Francis went out and replaced him with the dreadlocked winger. While never quite as good as Sinton in my opinion, Sinclair was something of a revelation as a goalscoring winger at Rangers. He was a clear and obvious Player of the Year in our relegation season and was expected to leave that summer. He didn’t, and he scored one of the goals of all time in an FA Cup tie against Barnsley the season after we dropped out of the top flight. Ultimately though he stayed too long, he grew stale and put on weight, he was in danger of being one of those players that had missed the boat – as an England Under 21 international with Rangers in the Premiership he had the world at his feet but suddenly he was stagnating a division lower. For QPR the deal to take Sinclair to West Ham was a disgrace - £1m for a player worth five times that at one point, plus Iain Dowie and Keith Rowland which rather speaks for itself. For Sinclair the move was a good one, West Ham revitalised him and he played European football for them and went to the World Cup in 2002 with England. He went on to play for Man City and Cardiff before retiring and deserves to be fondly remembered at Loftus Road for his fine goals and tricky wing play.
Made 168 QPR appearances and scored 16 goals after signing from Blackpool. Won 13 Under 21 caps while with Rangers, scoring against Denmark at Griffin Park, but all of his 12 full caps came after leaving W12.
7 – Andy Impey, 1990-1997
You can’t walk into a pub in certain parts of Sheffield without some Blades fan or other chewing your ear off about Dane Whitehouse and how he was going to be an England international and sign for Man Utd for £5m before Gareth Ainsworth shattered his leg and ruined his career. As an outsider looking in the notion of Dane Whitehouse ever amounting to anything much seems preposterous, and no doubt if anybody from another club happens upon this article and sees Andy Impey in the top ten of anything other than a list of people without necks they will scoff and think we must have been bloody awful. That’s because Impey came from Yeading before he played for QPR, and didn’t do much for West Ham, Leicester, Forest, Millwall or Coventry after he left us. But in our early Premiership days Impey was a revelation, even making the England training squad at one point to his own surprise – he told fans at the QPR open day that summer he thought “only Tottenham players got in the England squad.” While Sinton and Sinclair on the other side were more conventionally effective, with tricks and skill, Impey was much more fast and direct, although he did have a knack of beating a player and then going around the houses somewhat so he could have another go at beating them again. His goal at Coventry at the end of August 1992 put us top of the Premiership for a brief time and he was named Player of the Year ahead of Les Ferdinand and others in 1994/95. Was spotted in a pub buying drinks for QPR fans after we had sealed this year’s Championship at Watford.
Scored 13 goals in nearly 200 appearances for QPR after signing from Yeading who have since merged with Hayes.
8 – Alan McDonald, 1981-1997
From here on it gets a little bit more tricky. By my reckoning we have McDonald, Bradley Allen, Kevin Gallen, Jan Stejskal, Gary Penrice and Darren Peacock to squeeze into three remaining spots. I’ve gone for McDonald first of all because he was the leader, the captain and the rock at the heart of QPR’s most successful team in the modern era. He also liked to elbow Mark Hughes in the face repeatedly which made for great entertainment. Wasn’t the quickest, but he was reliable and hard as nails. Rangers missed him whe his tendency to pick up nasty long term injuries struck him. Since the Premiership days the club has shit on him twice – first bumming him off to Swindon without so much as a goodbye handshake when Stewart Houston believed he was past it, then hiring him as assistant manager to Gary Waddock and dumping him without ceremony after only a few months. That’s certainly no way to treat one of the club’s great players, but he got his own back somewhat on his first return to Loftus Road where he played in goal for an hour after a red card and kept a clean sheet in a 1-0 away win.
More than 400 appearances for Rangers in over 16 years at Loftus Road, won 52 caps for Northern Ireland into the bargain. A terrific servant to the club.
9 – Bradley Allen, 1988-1995
This one is open to debate, because I’ve gone for Allen ahead of Gallen and Penrice. Bradley hit the wall somewhat around 1995 time – first Gerry Francis stopped picking him and then Ray Wilkins clearly didn’t rate him at all. But prior to that he was an England Under 21 international and a deadly finisher. His skilful hat trick at Everton stands out but the 1992/93 and 1993/94 seasons are littered with fine Allen finishes, lots of them bearing all the hallmarks of his brother’s clinical style in the penalty area. In my opinion, we grossly underused him at Loftus Road when we were struggling and then relegated, and should not have allowed him to join Charlton as easily as we did. He scored on his return to W12 with the Addicks, and was well liked at Grimsby before drifting out of the league.
Scored 27 goals in 81 appearances for Rangers, went on to play for Charlton and Grimsby before brief spells with Peterborough, Bristol Rovers, Hornchurch and Redbridge. Now writes for the QPR programme, works for BBC LDN and has coached Spurs junior sides.
10 – Darren Peacock, 1990-1994
Finally I’ve included Darren Peacock who, by the time he left QPR, was a fine, reliable and powerful centre half. His trademark long hair made him something of a cult figure at Rangers and Newcastle but his penchant for slipping onto his arse and costing us goals sees him bumped further down the list than I might have liked when I originally sat down to write this. Bobby Gould picked up Peacock from Hereford at the same time as Andy Tilson arrived from Grimsby during a massive defensive injury crisis in Don Howe’s reign. That lower league rawness shone through in the early Premiership days, a ridiculous mistake leading to a Dalian Atkinson goal at Aston Villa was not an isolated incident. But it’s noticeable as the tapes go on how the mistakes become fewer and further between and are then totally eradicated altogether. This of course led to big spending Newcastle picking him up for more than £2m. QPR replaced him with Karl Ready and immediately lost to Oldham, Leeds and Sheff Wed 4-1, 4-0 and 3-1 which rather tells its own story. A decent eye for goal at the other end from set pieces as well.
126 appearances and six goals for Rangers before going on to play for Newcastle, Blackburn and Wolves. Forced to retire through serious back problems in 2000.
Karl Ready has copped some stick on LFW this week, mainly because he replaced Darren Peacock and wasn’t even close to being good enough but also because we then subsequently had ten years of his mediocre/crap centre half play to endure. That theme of allowing a good player to leave and then replacing him with a kid cropped up more and more as I watched back through the tapes – culminating in relegation. Michael Meaker got game time after Sinton left, and scored some decent goals, but the Loftus Road boo boys always had it in for him. Trevor Challis, Matthew Brazier and Alan McCarthy appear as Rangers decline, which tells its own story. Steve Yates never settled or won over the fans, Gregory Goodridge was all pace and nothing else and Simon Osborn I believe would have been a successful signing for us had he not shared a position with ray Wilkins who, despite his position as manager and advancing years, wanted it back when he was fit and sold Osbourn just seven months after buying him to get it. I liked Osborn and wished we’d kept him.
That leaves two players who I wanted to make special mention of before we concluded. Ned Zelic, who Rangers spent the best part of £2m of the Les Ferdinand money on, remains the only Australian not to settle in West London. In fact he went further than that, saying he’d rather give up football altogether and work on his father’s brick yard that continue to play for QPR. Ray Wilkins described him as “versatile as an egg” when he signed him and to be fair Zelic went on to enjoy a successful career in European football in Germany, so he could obviously play a bit. When I first started running this site I used to post pictures of cult heroes at the top of the message board with details of their career. When we’d run through about 40 of them we decided to start naming and shaming ‘cult zeroes’. Mark Hatetley was first I believe, another name for this section, but then came Zelic. Within three days of it being posted, and I still don’t know to this day whether it was a wind up although I’m inclined to think it wasn’t, Zelic got in touch with me personally saying he always regretted how he’d behaved at QPR, and saying he paid his signing on fee back in full when he left. I think he’d have been a good player for us if he’d stayed and played, so maybe Wilkins wasn’t that far off a decent team in W12 after all.
And finally, finally, the last word of the week has to go to Devon White. Only QPR could have the greatest striker in England at that time, and cover for his injuries with a big electrician from Nottingham. Described in the Times after his debut in the 1992/93 season as “as tall as a lamp post and about as mobile” White was clearly not the most talented footballer to ever grace the earth, but he scored impressive and important goals for QPR in the top flight. The modern day Premiership would never support a player like that in a million years these days, and given the pleasure he brought me as a supporter back in the day perhaps it’s a poorer place for that.
So it’s fixtures tomorrow, follow @loftforwords on Twitter and we’ll hold hands and try and plot where 42 points might come from together.
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