...from the discussions had recently regarding the board's lack of football nous; I recently came across this article that was produced in "Kenneth Wolstenholmes book of world soccer" produced in 1968. It makes for really good reading and should be presented to TF as something to aspire to.
Apologies in advance for the length of post but I'm not sure how to link to PDF documents.
"Rally round the Drum at . . ., 2.3o p.m. next Saturday."
That is the cryptic advertisement which appears in each edition of the Queen's Park Rangers programme. It is an invitation for all the loyals to meet and cluster round those super enthusiasts who go to all games armed with big base drums which beat out the cheering rhythm for the Rangers, London's new glamour team.
The rise of Queen's Park Rangers has been staggering. From the beginning of time they have been regarded almost as the poor rela¬tions of London. Nearby Chelsea and Fulham have always stolen both the spectators and publicity, and the Rangers' home at Loftus Road has been regarded as a soccer back¬water. Even the move not so long ago to the more spacious but less homely White City was a disastrous failure.
Perhaps that was the trouble–the White City wasn't homely enough. For Rangers must be football's most homely club. They still cannot believe that they have had so much success. In season 1966-67 they won the Third Division title and also the Football League Cup, and all last season were on or around the top of the Second Division. Yet they still could hardly believe it. Their enthusiastic chairman, Mr. Jim Gregory, said three-quarters the way through the season, "We reckon we now have a fine chance of promotion to the First Division." He seemed startled when it was pointed out to him that the Rangers had been in with a fine chance right from the very start.
Nobody thought the Rangers' Third Division success was a fluke, but few expected them to tear the Second Division apart be¬cause of their ill-luck during the close
season. Frank Sibley had to have a cartilage operation, and even when he returned to the side he had to return to hospital for yet another operation. Jim Langley at long last reached the end of his illustrious career and departed . . . to be the player-manager of the Southern League side, Hillingdon. But worst of all there was Rodney Marsh.
Rodney, the apple of every Rangers afficionado's eye, broke a toe in pre-season training and had to sit on the sidelines while his colleagues proved to all and sundry that they really could cope with better-class football.
Marsh's absence gave chances to others on the Rangers' books. There was Alan Wilks, a fast developing striker, who got his oppor¬tunity and he more than maintained the progress he had shown the previous season. Ian Morgan was, at long last, given the chance to prove that he is as good as his twin brother, Roger.
These two constituted Rangers' secret weapon. Nobody can tell them apart, and with the pair of them in the forward line even the best of defences was befuddled. And if it wasn't befuddled by the likeness of the two, it was befuddled by the skill of them. People looked and realized that perhaps it is not, after all, good policy for clubs to sell their young stars for inflated fees.
When they were in the Third Division, Rangers refused a big bid from Newcastle United for Roger Morgan. At the time it looked madness, but on reflection one can now wonder where Rangers would be if they had taken the Newcastle money and allowed Morgan to go North-East, along with Marsh. Probably still in the Third Division.
Fortunately for Rangers, they have a far-sighted Board of Directors and progressive men at the head in manager Alec Stock and coach Bill Dodgin. They knew that it was no use producing players for other clubs, just as they knew it was no use keeping players too long. That is why they allowed Langley to go and why they parted with one of the crowd's biggest favourites--Mark Lazarus.
Stock and Dodgin are two of the real moderns. They know that clichés are all right, but they don't win matches. They had a wonderful crop of youngsters on which to build. Peter Springett–who went to Shef-field Wednesday in exchange for his brother Ron, the English international–Frank Sib¬ley, Tony Hazell, Ian and Roger Morgan, Ron Hunt, David Clement and Mike Leach were all in the 1964 Youth side. They repre¬sented a foundation as good as any you would find in the Football League.
But you cannot live by youngsters alone, and Rangers didn't try. They bought people like Les Allen, who had helped Spurs win the double; Keith Sanderson, that cultured former amateur; Ian Watson; Alan Harris, who had experience with Chelsea and Coventry City; Jim Langley, whose career had taken in Leeds United, Brighton and Fulham; and Rodney Marsh.
Marsh was one of those signings out of the blue. At Fulham he had not always shone. He was an individualist, and Fulham were not particularly fond of individualists. To make things worse, he received a blow on the head in one league game and took some time to recover. Fulham, believing that here was yet another player who would never make it, sold him to nearby Queen's Park Rangers for a paltry JJi5,000.
It turned out to be an inspired buy. Marsh rapidly developed into not just one of the most promising players in the country, but one of the most exciting. He was flamboyant, like George Best: he was a match winner like Bobby Charlton. His goal in the Football League Cup Final of 1967 was a memorable one. He took on man after man in a cheeky dribble which we all thought was bound to end any time now. But it didn't end, and
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Marsh finished with a perfect shot which sneaked into the net just inside the post.
A few weeks later, playing for Young Eng¬land in the traditional annual game against England, he repeated the performance and brought the whole of Highbury to its feet. It was a performance which stamped him as the sort of player the fans love to see. The fans prove that by their eerie chant of "Rod . . . ney ! Rod . . . ney!" whenever and wherever he plays.
Two other great characters are the Morgan twins, Ian and Roger, who were born in Chingford in Essex, and who were taken to the Rangers direct from the Walthamstow Schoolboys team. Both were able cricketers as well as football players, and although Roger developed the quicker, Ian has now caught him up. They must now be the most dangerous pair of brothers in the country.
If you visit the Rangers ground you see both sides of the fence. Should you invade the managerial office you would find that both Mr. Stock and Mr. Dodgin are out-and-out professionals. After each game they discuss the play thoroughly and they are never side¬tracked by such irrelevancies as "the ball didn't run for us" or "we were unlucky". They both coldly and coolly examine the game from every angle.
But the overall picture of the club doesn't change, win or lose. The crowd is a noisy but friendly one, and the ground is so compact that everyone seems to know everyone else. And the crowd is so close to the players–even the front row of the Directors' Box is almost on the touchline–that every witticism from the crowd is plainly heard by the players.
Queen's Park Rangers, once the Cinder¬ella club of London, has, by clever blending of carefully bought experience with home¬grown talent, become the leaders of fashion, and people who were once regulars at Stam¬ford Bridge and Craven Cottage now confess to following the drum. Which just goes to prove that little clubs can grow up as long as they have the sort of leadership Rangers get from chairman Jim Gregory, manager Alec Stock and coach Bill Dodgin.
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