As QPR prepare to welcome Swindon to Loftus Road on Tuesday night, LFW looks back at a memorable cup match between the two from 1993, and pays tribute to Alan McDonald who played for both clubs.

Recent Meetings

Swindon Town 2 QPR 3, Tuesday August 12, 2008, League Cup first round

QPR were embarking on their first full season under the bombastic ownership of Flavio Briatore when they pulled Swindon Town out of the hat in the first round of the League Cup. Rangers, with Iain Dowie in charge, were handing out lucrative contracts left right and centre and made headlines with the capture of Spanish youngster Daniel Parejo on loan from Real Madrid. He was joined by a host of other weird and wonderful acquisitions from other clubs belonging to friends of Briatore — Emmanuel Ledesma came in from Genoa, Sam Di Carmine from Fiorentina, and Dowie was the unlikely man ordered to bring them all together and form a team. Swindon were in League One but with hot property Simon Cox in attack represented a potential banana skin for the R’s who have always been prone to an early round upset in this competition. That looked on at half time when Cox and his striker partner Billy Paynter scored in the final ten minutes of the first period to give Swindon a 2-1 lead after Angelo Balanta had opened the scoring for the visitors. But Rangers turned it back around in the second half, with Ledesma particularly mesmeric, and goals from Dexter Blackstock and Damien Delaney immediately after the restart secured safe passage. Rangers went on to beat Carlisle and Premier League Aston Villa in that year’s competition before losing 1-0 against Man Utd at Old Trafford in round four.

Swindon: P Brezovan, J Smith, H Aljofree, S Morrison, K Casal, J-P McGovern (L Peacock, 84), M Timlin (C Easton, 74), L Nalis, A McNamee, B Paynter, S Cox

Subs not used: K Amankwaah, P Smith, B Joyce, C Kennedy, C Allen

Goals: Cox 34, Paynter 41

QPR: L Camp, D Delaney, M Connolly, K Gorkss, D Stewart, L Cook, D Parejo, M Leigertwood, E Ledesma (M Alberti, 78), D Blackstock (S Di Carmine, 70), A Balanta

Subs not used: G Ainsworth, A Bolder, P Ramage, R Cerny, P Agyemang

Goals: Balanta 32, Blackstock 46, Delaney 54

Bookings: Connolly, Ledesma, Balanta

Previous Results

Head to Head >>> QPR wins 41 >>> Draws 23 >>> Swindon wins 35

2008/09 http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/4049/qpr-secure-sho 2 QPR 3* (Balanta, Blackstock, Delaney)

2003/04 QPR 1 Swindon 0 (Rowlands)

2003/04 Swindon 1 QPR 1 (Rowlands)

2002/03 Swindon 3 QPR 1 (Shittu)

2002/03 QPR 2 Swindon 0 (Gallen, Langley)

2001/02 Swindon 0 QPR 1 (Thomas)

2001/02 QPR 4 Swindon 0 (Gallen, Doudou, Burgess, Thomson)

1999/00 QPR 2 Swindon 1 (Ready, Beck)

1999/00 Swindon 0 QPR 1 (Langley)

1998/99 QPR 4 Swindon 0 (Kiwomya 2, Steiner, Rowland)

1998/99 Swindon 3 QPR 1 (Sheron)

1997/98 QPR 1 Swindon 2 (Quashie)

1997/98 Swindon 3 QPR 1 (Peacock)

1996/97 Swindon 1 QPR 1 (Hateley)

1996/97 QPR 1 Swindon 3* (Brazier)

1996/97 QPR 1 Swindon 1 (Murray)

1996/97 Swindon 1 QPR 2* (Dichio, Impey)

1993/94 QPR 1 Swindon 3 (Ferdnand)

1993/94 Swindon 1 QPR 0

1992/93 QPR 3 Swindon 0** (Ferdinand 2, Penrice)

1972/73 QPR 5 Swindon 0 (Bowles 3, Francis, Givens)

1972/73 Swindon 2 QPR 2 (Busby, Leach)

1971/72 QPR 3 Swindon 0 (Marsh 2, Venables)

1971/72 Swindon 0 QPR 0

1970/71 QPR 4 Swindon 2 (Venables 2, Clement, McCulloch)

1970/71 QPR 1 Swindon 2** (Marsh)

1970/71 Swindon 1 QPR 0

1969/70 Swindon 0 QPR 0

1969/70 QPR 2 Swindon 0 (Wilks, Clarke)

1966/67 Swindon 1 QPR 1 (Wilks)

1966/67 QPR 3 Swindon 1 (Lazarus 2, R Morgan)

1965/66 Swindon 2 QPR 1 (Keen)

1965/66 QPR 3 Swindon 2 (L Allen 3)

1962/63 Swindon 5 QPR 0

1962/63 QPR 2 Swindon 2 (McCelland, Large)

1961/62 Swindon 0 QPR 0

1961/62 QPR 6 Swindon 1 (Lazarus 2, Towers 2, Barber, Evans)

1960/61 Swindon 1 QPR 0

1960/61 QPR 3 Swindon 1 (Angell, Barber, Evans)

1959/60 Swindon 2 QPR 1 (Andrews)

1959/60 QPR 2 Swindon 0 (Longbottom, Whitelaw)

1958/59 QPR 2 Swindon 1 (Angell, Tomkys)

1958/59 Swindon 2 QPR 0

1957/58 QPR 2 Swindon 1 (Locke 2)

1957/58 Swindon 1 QPR 1 (Angell)

1956/57 QPR 3 Swindon 0 (Quigley 2, Temby)

1956/57 Swindon 1 QPR 0

1955/56 QPR 1 Swindon 0 (Cameron)

1955/56 Swindon 0 QPR 1 (Smith)

1954/55 QPR 3 Swindon 1 (Smith 2, Pounder)

1954/55 Swindon 2 QPR 0

1953/54 QPR 0 Swindon 2

1953/54 Swindon 0 QPR 1 (Cameron)

1952/53 Swindon 1 QPR 3 (Hatton 2, Smith)

1952/53 QPR 1 Swindon 1 (Addinall)

1947/48 Swindon 0 QPR 0

1947/48 QPR 0 Swindon 2

1946/47 Swindon 3 QPR 2 (Durrant, Hatton)

1946/47 QPR 7 Swindon 0 (Pattison 2, McEwen 2, Hatton, Mills, Powell)

1938/39 QPR 2 Swindon 1 (Bott, Mallet)

1938/39 Swindon 2 QPR 2 (Bott, Lowe)

1937/38 QPR 3 Swindon 0 (Cheetham, Bott, McCarthy)

1937/38 Swindon 1 QPR 3 (Cheetham, Bott)

1937/38 Swindon 2 QPR 1** (Cape)

1936/37 Swindon 1 QPR 1 (Fitzgerald)

1936/37 QPR 1 Swindon 1 (Lowe)

1935/36 QPR 5 Swindon 1 (Cheetham 2, Lowe 2, Abel)

1935/36 Swindon 2 QPR 2 (Crawford, Lowe)

1934/35 QPR 1 Swindon 1 (Blake)

1934/35 Swindon 3 QPR 1 (Reed)

1933/34 QPR 1 Swindon 0 (Eaton)

1933/34 Swindon 3 QPR 1 (Emmerson)

1932/33 Swindon 0 QPR 0

1932/33 QPR 4 Swindon 2 (Goddard 2, Gofton 2)

1931/32 Swindon 1 QPR 2 (Goddard, Cribb)

1931/32 QPR 1 Swindon 2 (Lewis)

1930/31 QPR 1 Swindon 2 (Daniels)

1930/31 Swindon 4 QPR 1 (Coward)

1929/30 QPR 8 Swindon 3 (Goddard 4, Rounce 3, Coward)

1929/30 Swindon 2 QPR 2 (Coward, Howe)

1928/29 Swindon 2 QPR 1 (Dickenson og)

1928/29 QPR 4 Swindon 2 (Rogers, Burns, Goddard, Kellard)

1927/28 QPR 0 Swindon 1

1927/28 Swindon 0 QPR 2 (Swan, Johnson)

1926/27 QPR 0 Swindon 1

1926/27 Swindon 6 QPR 2 (Goddard 2)

1925/26 Swindon 2 QPR 0

1925/26 QPR 1 Swindon 1 (Middleton)

1924/25 QPR 1 Swindon 0 (Pierce)

1924/25 Swindon 5 QPR 3 (Myers 2, Johnson)

1923/24 QPR 2 Swindon 2 (Birch, Davis)

1923/24 Swindon 0 QPR 0

1922/23 Swindon 1 QPR 0

1922/23 QPR 0 Swindon 2

1921/22 Swindon 2 QPR 0

1921/22 QPR 0 Swindon 0

1920/21 Swindon 0 QPR 1 (Gregory)

1920/21 QPR 1 Swindon 0 (Chandler)

1907/08 Swindon 2 QPR 1** (Walker)

* - League Cup

** - FA Cup

Memorable Match

QPR 3 Swindon Town 0, FA Cup third round, Monday January 4, 1993

The 1992/93 season was the first year of the Premier League and, according to Sky, the year that football was actually invented. QPR were founder members of the top division, and one of the best sides in it as it would turn out with Gerry Francis’ side finishing fifth and boasting the outstanding talents of Les Ferdinand, Andy Sinton, Clive Wilson and David Bardsley among others.

Swindon probably should have been in the top flight that season themselves. Managed by former QPR midfielder Ossie Ardiles they’d beaten Sunderland in the 1990 Second Division play-off final to gain their place at football’s top table. However, the club had been dogged by newspaper investigations throughout the campaign with The People first of all alleging that chairman Brian Hillier had put a substantial amount of money on Swindon winning the Third Division in 1987 as an insurance policy to cover the potential player bonuses that would be owed. It then emerged that Hillier had also backed against his side in an FA Cup game with Newcastle which they lost 5-0 but the worst was still to come.

In January 1990 another People article alleged that Swindon had engaged in illegal, undeclared payments to their playing staff. Hillier, former manager Lou Macari and club captain Colin Calderwood were all arrested and questioned by the Inland Revenue and although Calderwood was released without charge Hilier was eventually jailed. The Football League demoted Town two divisions, reduced to one on appeal, which left them back where they’d started.

By 1992/93 the recovery was well underway under the player management of former England midfielder Glenn Hoddle. A third round tie at Queens Park Rangers pitched him against another veteran, and a former international team mate, Ray Wilkins. With that battle in mind, a potential upset on the cards, and both teams renowned for playing excellent football, Sky Sports moved the game to Monday night and screened it live.

Swindon had a selection headache before the game, with Calderwood suspended (this time for on-pitch reasons). That left them short of centre halves so David Mitchell, Scottish-born Australian international striker, moved to play in the middle of defence and mark the in form Les Ferdinand. He partnered Shaun Taylor with Hoddle employed as a deep lying sweeper behind the pair. Welsh international Paul Bodin returned from a three month absence at left back, former QPR youth team graduate David Kerslake started on the wing, and with Spurs loanee Andy Gray cup tied there was a place in midfield for a young Kevin Horlock.

Sky had come looking for an upset, and they could well have had it had Swindon taken several gilt edged opportunities in the opening 20 minutes. Steve White could hardly believe his luck in the fourteenth minute when Ian Holloway inexplicably passed him the ball on the edge of the QPR penalty box, clear of the last man. But with only goalkeeper Tony Roberts standing between him and the goal he lashed the chance over the bar.

Within a minute they were in again. This time White and Roberts clashed seeking to reach a low cross from the right first, the ball came loose and fell right at the feet of White’s strike partner Craig Maskell. The Swindon man even had time to take a touch and set the chance up for himself but having done that he then, unbelievably, rolled the ball wide of the empty net from 12 yards out.

But QPR had beaten Everton 4-2 at Loftus Road on Boxing Day and sat seventh in the Premier League. This was a formidable Rangers team and they showed their teeth for the first time in the twenty first minute when Ian Holloway crossed from the right and Ferdinand rose to head home in typically emphatic fashion.

The R’s then won the ball back immediately from the kick off when Hoddle showed his age with a loose touch. Holloway got going down the right again, this time sending in a low cross which tempted goalkeeper Nicky Hammond from his line to parry. The ball fell plum for Gary Penrice but his low shot deflected behind for a corner. Swindon had three goes at clearing the set piece but couldn’t get out of their own box and when Darren Peacock teed up Holloway for another searching cross Ferdinand emphatically powered a second goal in as many minutes home from close range.

Ferdinand was well in the mood by now, tormenting Mitchell and anybody else that stood in his way. Once again the R’s won the ball back from the kick off, this time Ferdinand powered down the right and Sinton closed in on his far post cross but could only win another corner off Kerslake. This one fell to McDonald at the far post and he saw a shot blocked away by a defender on the line. Wilkins took the resulting corner from the other side and with Swindon wilting under pressure and completely failing to deal with any sort of quality from wide areas the ball fell to Penrice and he struck home a third with a low shot that Hammond really should have saved.

Swindon could have been 2-0 up, instead they were 3-0 down and Rangers had scored three in five minutes.

That was the end of the scoring — Rangers had finished the job clinically, Swindon were happy to limit the damage. Typically the R’s lost at home to Manchester City in the next round, and when Swindon won a place in the Premier League for the following season they exacted their revenge by completing their only double of the campaign over QPR. The R’s lost 1-0 at the County Ground despite playing for 75 minutes against ten men, a result that prevented them from going second in the league, and followed that with a 3-1 loss at Loftus Road later in the campaign. Swindon won just five times all season and finished bottom having conceded more than 100 goals — but they beat QPR twice.

QPR: Roberts; Bardsley, Peacock, McDonald, Wilson; Barker, Holloway, Wilkins Sinton; Penrice, Ferdinand

Subs: Impey, Maddix

Swindon: Hammond; Hoddle, Mitchell, Taylor; Kerslake, Hazard, Horlock, Bodin; Ling, White, Maskell

Subs: Summerbee, Murray

Referee: Ken Redfern (Whitley Bay)

Highlights >>> QPR 4 Swindon 0, 1999 >>> QPR 1 Swindon 2 (Alan McDonald in goal), 1998 >>> QPR 3 Swindon 0 FA Cup 1993 (full match) >>> 3 Swindon 0 FA Cup 1993 (highlights)

Connections

Alan McDonald >>> QPR 1981-1997, (coach) 2006 >>> Swindon 1997-1998

Legendary former QPR captain Alan McDonald played for the club for 16 years at the highest level, winning 52 caps for his country along the way. In 1997, scandalously in my opinion, he was not retained by then manager Stewart Houston and left on a free transfer for a single season at Rangers’ First Division rivals Swindon Town, famously returning to Loftus Road and donning the goalkeeping shirt following a red card for Fraser Digby and helping to secure a 2-1 win for the visitors. He returned in 2006 for a brief stint as assistant manager to Gary Waddock. He died, aged 48, of a heart attack while out playing golf in June last year. The following is an extract from the tribute piece myself and Paul Finney from Indy R’s wrote for LFW at the time of his death. Rest in peace Alan.

Alan McDonald was part of my childhood.

Every other Saturday my dad would park me in the corner of The Goldhawk with comic books and other distractions and then just after 2pm I’d set off on the long, slow walk to Loftus Road with my granddad who, by the time I was old enough to go to the football with him, was less than steady on his feet. We’d wait on the wall around Batman Close for my dad to catch us up and then we’d make our way up to the back of P Block together as a family. For those unfamiliar with the arrangements in the Upper Loft you enter via the turnstiles on South Africa Road and then, if you’re in the blocks at the far end, walk all the way along the corridor underneath the stand to reach your seats. You could set your watch by my dad, so we’d always begin fighting our way along that corridor at the same time. The public address system would begin announcing the QPR team as we entered at one end, and would have just finished naming the substitutes by the time we climbed the steps and caught sight of the pitch for the first time.

“Number two is David Bardsley, three is Clive Wilson, four Ray Wilkins, number five and captain Alan McDonald.”

‘Twas ever thus, and in my youthful naivety I thought it would be like that forever.

Once in our seats we’d sit and watch that QPR team take on all comers, with McDonald the talismanic leader at centre half. Teams that the boys at school supported like Manchester United and Tottenham would come to W12 with players like Mark Hughes and Jurgen Klinsmann and be given a thorough examination by Gerry Francis’ talented side. McDonald was consistently magnificent. He was as hard as nails, his elbows-first battles with Hughes were legendary and QPR v Everton was probably the only time in a season you’d see Duncan Ferguson matched physically, but he was also a very fine football player indeed. As the Premier League began to evolve and teams started shopping abroad for an array of technically gifted attacking talent McDonald never looked out of place.

The one time my family’s pre-match routine was broken was an FA Cup Third Round tie with non-league Aylesbury United in January 1995 when I was the team mascot. There was an odd feeling to that game, with all hope of one of the biggest upsets in the cup’s history extinguished by the decision to switch it from Aylesbury’s Buckingham Road ground to Loftus Road. It became a question of ‘how many’ rather than ‘what if’ and the atmosphere in the tunnel before the match was relaxed to say the least.

A little after 2pm, while the mascots were being shown around the dressing room area, I became embroiled in a prank concocted by Rufus Brevett and Trevor Sinclair who decided it would be a lovely idea to give me, as the QPR mascot for the day, a shirt of my choice from the kit room. Sinclair suggested Les Ferdinand’s and told me to run off and put it in my backpack upstairs, which I duly did. Some 50 minutes later all hell was breaking loose in the tunnel with the teams ready to emerge and Ferdinand standing there in just his shorts demanding to know where his shirt had gone, much to Sinclair’s amusement. McDonald, leading the team out as ever, soon turned round and told them to “stop pissing about now” because it was now time to get serious. McDonald is remembered by all his team mates as the dressing room practical joker, often at the heart of such pranks himself, but when the game kicked off it was a serious business regardless of the opponent.

Ferdinand’s shirt retrieved and now out on the field McDonald was similarly annoyed to find there were no footballs around to warm up with. As a result Macca and I embarked on a jog up and down the Loftus Road pitch, me standing all of four and a half feet tall and him running in his trademark thumbs-up style.

Rangers were playing an Isthmian League side that day, and won 4-0 in second gear, but McDonald approached the match and his personal duel with Aylesbury’s record goal scorer Cliff Hercules as he would any other game. QPR meant everything to that man and he played every game as if it was his last for the club. He epitomised everything good about the QPR sides of the 1980s and 1990s; unheralded and probably relatively unknown among supporters of other clubs, but a brilliant top flight defender in his day and highly respected by the players he faced each week.

Woe betide anybody who crossed him — linesman Roger Furnandiz’s decision to award an injury time penalty against him at Newcastle’s St James Park for a questionable handball in 1994 turned out to be one the club’s greatest recent moments when goalkeeper Jan Stejskal turned Malcolm Allen’s kick aside to seal a 2-1 win but before it was taken McDonald had to be restrained by Ray Wilkins and Clive Wilson as he attempted to get to the linesman and tell him exactly what he thought of the decision.

He didn’t score many goals himself — more often than not his role at our attacking corners was to flick a near post cross onto the far for the likes of Les Ferdinand and Darren Peacock to attack — but when he did they tended to be important. On the way to the 1986 League Cup final he headed home an extra time goal at Stamford Bridge to set us on the way to a win against Chelsea. Few people on the QPR staff will have been as hurt and disappointed as McDonald was by the subsequent final collapse against Oxford United. Two years later he bagged another late header to seal a 2-2 FA Cup replay draw with Man Utd at Loftus Road.

Personally the one I remember him best for was a last minute header in another FA Cup replay at Huddersfield towards the end of his time at QPR. Fortunate to even secure a replay, newly relegated QPR were labouring against a poor Huddersfield team at the half finished McAlpine Stadium until, with the last kick of the game, McDonald steamed into the area in typical style and almost ripped the net off the back of the posts with a thumping header. In amongst the many message board tributes the idea that McDonald felt glancing headers were for lightweights made me laugh, and is especially apt when recalling that goal. It was cold, and dark, and late, and Macca was sick of the sight of Huddersfield bloody Town, so he went and sorted it out himself and we all went home happy.

He was, of course, also an accomplished international player, winning 52 caps for Northern Ireland at a time when Northern Ireland were actually half decent. They qualified for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico with a 0-0 draw against England at Wembley. That result saw both countries through and there were suggestions of a fix floating around but McDonald, still only 22 years old at this stage and winning only his second cap, stood in front of the television cameras after the game and told anybody who believed it was a fix to “come and see him”.

I know having spoken to many of the Northern Irish QPR fans that McDonald was a big part of the reason they came to follow Rangers.

It’s hard to talk about McDonald without referring to his addiction to nicotine, which was so severe he’d sit in the dressing room toilets at half time puffing away, but I always find such references inappropriate in cases when somebody has died tragically young, and at 48 McDonald is no kind of age, from something where smoking is known to be a contributory factor. That particular vice, amusing as the stories may be, is not something to be held up or celebrated at a time like this.

Nor is it really the time or the place to go into any detail on how QPR treated one of their greatest ever players in more recent times, but like the smoking it’s impossible not to mention it in passing. McDonald left Loftus Road in 1997 to join Swindon Town on a free transfer. The manager at the time Stewart Houston believed McDonald’s lack of pace was becoming an issue and he spent £1m replacing him with Steve Morrow. Northern Irish heritage was just about all those two players had in common and the way Houston and QPR shifted McDonald out was an absolute disgrace — not only did he deserve much better after 16 years of service, but he was still a far better player than Morrow or anybody else at Rangers at that time when he left. He played against us at Loftus Road for Swindon once, famously going in goal for an hour of the game after a sending off and keeping a clean sheet in a 2-1 away win.

He returned to Rangers as assistant manager to his former team mate Gary Waddock in 2006 but was sacked in 2007 when Waddock was moved aside in favour of John Gregory. That appointment of Gregory instead of Waddock was the right thing to do at the time and preserved QPR’s Championship status, but again the way McDonald was treated in it all left a hell of a lot to be desired. He went onto win the Northern Ireland premier division as manager of Glentoran two years later.

On Saturday morning he went out to play golf, and never came home.

Others >>> Charlie Austin, QPR 2013-present, Swindon 2009-2011 >>> Leon Clarke, Swindon 2011-2012, QPR 2010-2011, (loan) 2006 >>> Jamie Cureton, Swindon 2005-2006, QPR 2004-2005 >>> Tony Thorpe, Swindon 2005-2006, QPR 2003-2005 >>> Aaron Brown, QPR 2004-2006, Swindon 2005-2007 >>> Pat Kanyuka, QPR 2004-2008, Swindon 2008-2009 >>> Danny Murphy, QPR 2000-2003, Swindon 2003 >>> Eric Sabin, Swindon 2001-2003, QPR 2003-2004 >>> Rhys Evans, QPR 2001-2002, Swindon 2003-2006 >>> Darren Ward, Swindon 2012-present, QPR (loan) 1999-2000 >>> Neil Ruddock, Swindon 2001-2003, QPR (loan) 1998 >>> Fraser Digby, QPR 2001-2003, Swindon 1986-1998 >>> Roy Wegerle, QOR 1990-1992, Swindon (loan) 1988 >>> Ossie Ardiles, Swindon 1989-1991, QPR 1988-1989 >>> David Kerslake, Swindon 1989-1993, QPR 1984-1989 >>> Terry Fenwick, Swindon 1993-1995, QPR 1980-1987 >>> Brian Williams, Swindon 1978-1981, QPR 1977-1978 >>> Don Rogers, Swindon 1976-1977, QPR 1974-1976 >>> Peter Eastoe, QPR 1976-1979, Swindon 1973-1976 >>> Allan Spratley, Swindon 1973-1974, QPR 1969-1973

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Pictures — Action Images

Photo: Action Images

QPunkR added 10:40 - Aug 27 Always love re-reading your piece on Macca, Clive. The absolute epitome of a Rangers legend, still sadly missed, and my favourite all-time player ahead of the likes of Sir Les and Sinclair
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