Gallen's late heroics preserve long unbeaten record - History Friday, 18th Mar 2022 14:18 by Clive Whittingham With Peterborough back in town on Sunday we're looking back to a meeting from 2004 when an injury time Kevin Gallen strike helped preserve an unbeaten QPR home record which eventually stretched for 16 months. Memorable MatchQPR 1 Peterborough 1, Friday February 20, 2004, Second Division The team Ian Holloway won promotion from the Second Division with was formidable at home. From a 1-0 loss to big-spending Wigan on March 22, 2003, they didn’t lose at Loftus Road again in the league until Derby won there 2-0 on August 21, 2004, by which time a whole season had passed and Rangers had been promoted to the Championship. The 2002/03 season ended in W12 with a 1-0 play-off semi-final win at home to Oldham, remembered fondly by everybody who was there for one of the great nights at the old ground, and an atmosphere like few others in that corner of West London before or since. It wasn’t enough to inspire the team to a final win against Cardiff in Cardiff, but the canny additions of Gareth Ainsworth, Martin Rowlands and Tony Thorpe for the following campaign and a 5-0 opening day win against Blackpool to kick things off it looked full steam ahead for automatic promotion. Rangers absolutely motored through that winter. They won 11 and drew two of 15 games, with one of the two defeats coming at Grimsby in the FA Cup. Oldham, at Ice Station Zebra on December 20, the only side to beat QPR in the league between Port Vale on October 21 and Bournemouth on January 24. That loss at Dean Court, however, had immediately followed a typical Olly cup capitulation in the Football League Trophy at Southend, and also saw star defender Danny Shittu sidelined for the rest of the season with a ruptured ACL. Rangers drew at Brentford, and lost rather chaotically in a shambolic 4-2 at Chesterfield’s old Saltergate as a wobble well and truly set in, but the home record was maintained through a 3-2 victory against Notts County. High in the league and apparently invincible on their own patch, Rangers drew the Sky cameras down to the third tier for a Friday night meeting with Peterborough United. Barry Fry’s men tended to go through a season in fits and starts, and would finish this one just two places and two points above the relegation zone. But they’d held Rangers to a goalless draw in the first meeting at London Road, and came closer than just about anybody else that season to winning an away game in Shepherd’s Bush. Giant striker Clive Platt strode through the Shittu-sized hole in Rangers’ backline to head in the opener a minute before half time. In an effort to wrest back the initiative, Holloway made all three of his substitutions on the hour — spicing up the attack with Thorpe and new signing Jamie Cureton, and adding Australian Richard Johnson to the midfield instead of the more defensive minded Steve Palmer. Disaster struck almost immediately, however, with troubled Clarke Carlisle immediately pulling up lame, effectively leaving the team down to ten men for the final half hour. Carlisle reverted to auxiliary striker, and Rangers went unashamedly long. Posh seemed quite happy to cope with this until deep into injury time when the centre back’s nuisance value finally paid off, sending a ball bouncing through for Kevin Gallen to run onto a produce exactly the sort of composed, accurate finish you’d long come to expect of the Rangers stalwart. Rangers got out of jail again the following week. Trailing 1-0 at home to Port Vale they fought back to lead 2-1 only for Adrian Littlejohn to net a last minute equaliser. From the kick off Martin Rowland’s brilliance set up a dramatic winner for Cureton at the Loft End. They would, in fact, only lose two more games that season, at Bristol City and Plymouth, and no team in the division lost fewer than their seven overall but too many draws kept them shy of the top spot. Victories in the final two matches at home to Swindon and away at Sheff Wed were enough to hold Bristol City at arm’s length and win promotion after three years at that level. QPR: N Culkin, T Forbes, A Gnohere, C Carlisle, G Padula, M Rose (T Thorpe, 59), M Bircham, S Palmer (R Johnson, 60), K McLeod, K Gallen, P Furlong (J Cureton, 59) Subs not used: E Sabin, D Marney Goals: Gallen 90 Posh: M Tyler, A Newton, S Burton, A Legg, M Arber, G Jelleyman (T Williams, 25), S Thomson, S Jenkins, C Woodhouse, A Clarke (D Farrell, 75), C Platt Subs not used: R Logan, C Willock, C Kanu Goals: Platt 44 Attendance — 13,276 Classic encountersLFW regular and AKUTR’s columnist Dave Barton has set up a QPR Memories YouTube channel, with a mixture of clips, classic games, and old highlights packages. His three recent meetings with Posh are embedded below, give him a subscribe on YouTube or follow @QPR_Memories on Twitter. Recent MeetingsPeterborough United 2 QPR 0, Saturday February 5, 2022, FA Cup fourth round Joe Ward’s strike off a loose ball in the first half, and Ricky-Jade Jones’ accurate finish on the counterattack in the second, was enough for Peterborough to secure a second quickfire home win against QPR and ditch the R’s out of the 2022 FA Cup. QPR missed a catalogue of chances at 0-0 but were never really in the game once they’d fallen behind — Posh went on to win a money-spinning fifth round tie at home to Man City. Posh: Benda 7; Ward 6 (Coulson 65, 6), Kent 7, Edwards 7, Beevers 7, Mumba 6 (Thompson 90+2, -); Fuchs 6, Norburn 6, Poku 6 (Brown 57, 6); Marriott 5 (Jones 65, 7), Clarke-Harris 4 (Szmodics 45, 5) Subs not used: Brown, Grant, Knight, Cornell, Randall Goals: Ward 25 (unassisted), Jones 71 (assisted Mumba) Bookings: Clarke Harris 29 (foul), Edwards 45 (foul), Fuchs 63 (foul), Jones 83 (foul), Norburn 87 (foul), Thompson 90+6 (time wasting) QPR: Marshall 5; Odubajo 6, Sanderson 6, Dickie 5, Dunne 6, Wallace 6 (Adomah 45, 6); Amos 5 (Hendrick 45, 6), Johansen 6 (Dozzell 62, 4), Chair 6 (Thomas 62, 5); Austin 4, Dykes 5 Subs not used: Kakay, Barbet, Ball, Walsh Bookings: Dunne 43 (dissent), Dozzell 90+2 (foul) Peterborough United 2 QPR 1, Saturday October 23, 2021, Championship In front of an enormous away following, QPR took the lead at lowly Peterborough with Ilias Chair following in Richard Langley’s steps by scoring direct from a corner. Things went badly awry after that though with Harrison Burrows able to equalise almost immediately and then with men committed forwards looking for a late winner Rangers were caught on the break for an injury time winner by Siriki Dembele. Rangers had conceded 22 goals in 16 league games at this point and with Yoann Barbet the furthest man forward when Dembele scored it felt like there was a bit of sea change at this point and we’ve been getting more and more defensive ever since. Peterborough: Cornell 6; Thompson 7, Edwards 6, Beevers 6; Ward 6 (Kanu 54, 6), Norburn 8, Taylor 6 (Butler 89, -), Burrows 7; Grant 6 (Coventry 67, 6), Dembele 7, Szmodics 7 Subs not used: Kent, Knight, Tomlinson, Blackmore Goals: Burrows 56, Dembele 90+1 (assisted Norburn) QPR: Dieng 6; Adomah 6, Dickie 5, Dunne 5, Barbet 5, McCallum 5 (Willock 82, -); Ball 6 (Amos 59, 6), Johansen 5, Chair 7; Dykes 5, Austin 4 (Gray 67, 5) Subs not used: Kakay, De Wijs, Archer, Dozzell Goals: Chair 50 (unassisted) QPR 2 Peterborough United 0, Tuesday August 14, 2018, League Cup First Round Steve McClaren’s QPR made short work of League One Peterborough in the first round of the League Cup in 2018/19. Despite starting the season with two league defeats, the R’s were 2-0 up against Posh within six minutes as Luke Freeman scored within the first 90 seconds and Pawel Wszolek followed that up a couple of minutes later — both off assists from former London Road favourite Conor Washington in what would turn out to be one of his final appearances for the club. QPR: Lumley 6; Kakay 7, Leistner 7, Baptiste 6, Bidwell 6; Scowen 8, Cousins 6; Osayi-Samuel 5 (Eze 67, 6), Freeman 6 (Manning 77, 6), Wszolek 7; Washington 6 (Smith 83, -) Subs not used: Ingram, Hall, Smyth, Sylla Goals: Freeman 2 (assisted Washington), Wszolek 5 (assisted Washington) Peterborough: Chapman 5; Naismith 6, Bennett 6, Tafazolli 6, Denton 6; Ward 6 (Cooper 73, 6), Woodyard 6, O’Hara 6, Cooke 5 (Cummings 46, 5); Dembele 7, Toney 4 (Godden 78, 6) Subs not used: Buckley-Ricketts, Reed, Yorwerth, O’Malley Previous ResultsHead to Head >>> QPR wins 10 >>> Draws 9 >>> Peterborough wins 9 2021/22 Peterborough 2 QPR 0** * - League Cup ConnectionsTom Williams >>> QPR (loan) 2009, (loan) 2002-2003 >>> Peterborough 2007-2010, 2003-2004, 2001-2002 Peterborough’s man of the match that fateful night at London Road was flying winger Tommy Williams, who torched QPR’s defence and had a hand in all four goals. The former West Ham trainee’s form caught the eye of Championship side Birmingham who shelled out £350,000 for him in March that season. That, in turn, opened a window up in the summer for Ian Holloway and QPR to take him on loan and add to his first team experience for the 2002/03 season. He made his debut in the 3-1 home win against Chesterfield on the opening day of the season, and scored his first goal for the club in a 3-0 Loftus Road success against Huddersfield. Williams was a key part of the team that died on its arse before Christmas - losing 3-0 at Notts County, 4-0 at home to Cardiff, and in the FA Cup to Vauxhall Motors in the same disastrous November week — but came roaring back to form in 2003 culminating in a memorable play-off semi-final victory against Oldham. Unfortunately, the Hollywood ending wasn’t to be as QPR lost to Cardiff in Cardiff in extra time, and Williams will unfortunately go down in Rangers infamy for taking on a shot from a tight angle after a mazy run through the home defence, when a simple cut back to Paul Furlong would have presented the veteran striker with an open goal to win the game. That did not go down well in the dressing room afterwards, if stories on the Open All R’s Podcast from Marc Bircham and others is to be believed, but nevertheless Williams was invited back on loan the following August and made another four starts and one sub appearance for Holloway as the team set off towards automatic promotion at the third time of asking.
Williams’ nomadic career then took in another stint on loan at Peterborough, where he played against Rangers in a 1-1 draw at Loftus Road that featured an injury time equaliser from Gallen. He played for Barnsley, Gillingham, Kenny Jackett’s Swansea, and Wycombe before yet another loan at London Road that led to a permanent move back to the Posh. There followed a bizarre and unexpected return to W12. QPR were back in the Championship, and in the money, by this point following a takeover by Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone. Manager Jim Magilton had got the team playing scintillating football through September and October, with a 5-2 home win against Barnsley a particular highlight preceding a remarkable week where Preston (4-0), Reading (4-1) and Derby (4-2) were smashed off the park inside seven days. A 2-1 win at Sheff Wed followed away wins at Scunthorpe, Cardiff and Derby already registered and yet during that international break it was not only deemed necessary to add Williams on loan from Peterborough and Steven Reid from West Brom, but to tear the team up to accommodate both of them in the line-up for what turned out to be a poor 2-0 loss at Doncaster — Adel Taarabt among those dropped to the bench as part of that, Ale Faurlin then removed at half time to get the Moroccan on. Off the side of a cliff we went once more. A 5-1 home defeat by Middlesbrough and 3-1 loss at Watford in the same weekend saw Magilton headbutt Akos Buszaky in the dressing room at Vicarage Road and lose his job. Paul Hart and then Mick Harford oversaw a nine-match losing run which plunged the R’s into relegation trouble and included another infamous defeat at Peterborough — 1-0 this time, with red cards for Mikele Leigertwood and Peter Ramage. Following that five-game third spell at QPR, Williams went on to endure brief and unsuccessful stints at Preston, Bristol City, Colchester, Walsall and Notts County. A career that includes time at 20 different clubs, including Arizona Utd in 2016, ended with an ongoing player-coach role at celebrity-driven Eastern Counties side Hashtag Utd Others >>> Dominic Ball, QPR 2019-present, Peterborough (loan) 2017 >>> Michael Doughty, Peterborough 2017-2018, QPR 2010-2017 >>> Conor Washington, QPR 2016-2018, Peterborough 2014-2016 >>> Hogan Ephraim, Peterborough (loan) 2017-2018, QPR 2007-2014 >>> Brian Murphy, QPR 2011-2015, Peterborough (loan) 2003 >>> Chris Plummer, Peterborough 2004-2007, QPR 1994-2003 >>> Adam Miller, QPR 2004-2006, Peterborough (loan) 2005 >>> Callum Willock, Peterborough 2003-2006, QPR (loan) 2002 >>> Tony Scully Peterborough 2003, QPR 1998-2001 >>> Bradley Allen, Peterborough 2002, QPR 1988-1995 >>> Steve Morrow, Peterborough (loan) 2001, QPR 1997-2001 >>> Dominic Iorfa, Peterborough 1992-1994, QPR 1990-1991 >>> Colin Clarke, QPR 1989-1990, Peterborough 1981-1984 >>> David Seaman, QPR 1986-1990, Peterborough 1982-1984 >>> Dave Methchick, QPR 1968-1970, Peterborough 1967-1968 >>> Dick Whittaker, QPR 1963-1964, Peterborough 1960-1963 >>> Arthur Jefferson, QPR 1936-1950, Peterborough 1935-1936 If you enjoy LoftforWords, please consider supporting the site through a subscription to our Patreon or tip us via our PayPal account loftforwords@yahoo.co.uk. Pictures — Action Images The Twitter @loftforwords Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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