With Swindon Town at Loftus Road on Tuesday night for a League Cup second round clash, LFW looks at the Robins’ complex recent history on and off the field.

Overview

Back when football was played with a big, heavy ball with a shoe lace tied through it, QPR and Swindon were Third Division South bedfellows. You cannot even begin to imagine the sinking feeling I got this afternoon when calling up the head to head record between the two for the history column to find that the two sides had met 99 times through history. Did somebody say there was a Bank Holiday today?

In more recent times they’ve clashed more sporadically, and usually when heading in opposite directions. Both clubs have been rather prone to a boom and bust culture where takeovers by businessmen promising to deliver the earth to Shepherd’s Bush or Wiltshire quickly give way to visits from administrators and banking types when it all goes wrong.

Swindon were one of the original financial bad-boys of the modern era. Promoted to the top flight via the play offs in 1990 they were subsequently relegated back from whence they came by the Football League after a series of newspaper investigations uncovered financial irregularities. Chairman Brian Hillier had not only backed his team to win the Third Division in 1987 — he needed the winnings to cover the players’ bonuses if it came to past — but had also backed against them in an FA Cup game against Newcastle which they lost 5-0. It later transpired that he’d been making undeclared payments to players and he was jailed after an Inland Revenue investigation.

Rangers had a flurry of games with the Robins in 1993 and 1994 as the Wiltshire side recovered from that crisis to reach the big time with Glenn Hoddle as player manager. They were well beaten by Rangers at Loftus Road in the FA Cup in 1993 but exacted revenge a season later by completing the double against Gerry Francis’ side. The first defeat, 1-0 at the County Ground, was particularly galling because Rangers would have gone second in the Premier League with a victory and Swindon hadn’t won any of their first 16 matches at the higher level. They only won five games in total that season, two of them against QPR, and as if to open old wounds QPR then took that 16-match winless record and beat it last season.

The sides met ten times in four years between 1996 and 2000. Initially newly relegated Rangers were splashing the cash after Chris Wright’s takeover but when that led to financial ruin, Swindon regularly took the opportunity to profit from Rangers’ impoverished state. Mark Walters and Peter Thorne were persistent pests to QPR and the R’s won just one of the first seven meetings of that particular spell.

The boot was back on the other foot in the early 2000s down in the third tier. Swindon are one of those clubs that never seems more than six months away from a financial crisis, while QPR were seen as a big name at that level with Ian Holloway trying to mastermind a promotion. Swindon were beaten 4-0 at Loftus Road on the second coming of Kevin Gallen, and crucially 1-0 in 2003/04 when Martin Rowlands’ goal kept the Super Hoops on course for the Championship. But at the County Ground they rejoiced in roughing Rangers up.

A 3-1 defeat in 2003, despite Danny Shittu scoring first for Holloway’s team, was hard enough to take but it came as a double blow to QPR. Eric Sabin, Swindon’s French forward, terrorised Rangers to such an extent that day the R’s returned in the summer to buy him only to then find that his performance had very much been a case of a dog having its day. Still, for all the suffering at his hands the Loftus Road season ticket holders had to endure the following year his last second strike to win a league game at Grimsby proved crucial when the medals were handed out at the end of term. The London side had to settle for a point at the County Ground the following year, thanks in no small part to boyhood QPR fan Sam Parkin who kept up his impressive scoring record against the club he claimed to support with a fine header.

For all their problems, Swindon have developed a knack of picking up talented strikers like Parkin. He was sold for very useful £550,000 fee to Ipswich but Town were able to go out and find Simon Cox in Reading’s reserve team a couple of years later to continue the trend. Cox was the main danger the last time these sides met, in the first round of this competition in August 2008. He scored as well, giving Swindon a 2-1 half time lead, but goals from Angelo Balanta, Dexter Blackstock and Damien Delaney saw the R’s safely through.

With £1.5m pocketed from Cox’s sale to West Brom in 2009 Swindon promptly went out and discovered Charlie Austin. Like Cox he’d been released by Reading as a junior, before kicking around the semi-professional game, turning out for his hometown team Hungerford before transferring to Wessex League Premier Division team Poole. His goal scoring exploits there were hugely impressive: he got 46 in 48 appearances in 2008/09 while working part time as a bricklayer and then got 18 goals in the first 11 games of the 2009/10 season. In the intervening period League One side Bournemouth showed interest and would have signed Austin after a successful trial had their financial constraints not placed them under an ill-timed transfer embargo.

So back to the building sites and salubrious surroundings in the Wessex League it was. But his record was always likely to attract attention and when Swindon chief scout Ken Ryder pitched up at a match in which Austin scored four times he was immediately invited to the County Ground for a trial. That trial period included a reserve game with Swansea where he hit a hat trick and Swindon manager Danny Wilson subsequently offered the striker a deal through to the end of the 2009/10 season. Swindon’s scouting is now QPR’s gain, with Austin leading the line at Loftus Road.

It’s the sort of club where there always seems to be something going on. Sometimes that’s a normal football something, like an exciting striker emerging onto the scene, but quite often it’s out of the ordinary. Former QPR chairman and MD combination Bill Power and Mark Devlin ran Swindon for a while and were lucky to live through the experience after being involved in a light aircraft crash while making their way back from a league match at Hartlepool.

Swindon were the club that gave Paolo Di Danio his managerial break, which sparked debates about his fascist political beliefs on the serious side, and several amusing public clashes with his players on a lighter note. Rangers got rid of big, fat, lazy, useless Leon Clarke to the Robins during Di Canio’s time there, but he proved to be rather too big, fat, lazy and useless for the Italian’s liking and after kicking off with a fitness coach on the field after a cup defeat, Clarke was ousted after just two matches of his Swindon career. And then there’s the League One Wes incident, which frankly I could watch on a loop for days at a time.

Thrown together by another cup draw, QPR find Swindon in a peculiar situation. Unlucky to lose on penalties in a play-off semi final at Brentford last season their manager Kevin MacDonald, whose pedigree for developing young players at Aston Villa was superb, nevertheless left the club just six months into his reign over the summer. Swindon started the season under caretaker charge and that man Mark Cooper, a sort of non-league Michael Appleton who has a decent reputation and keeps getting jobs for reasons that aren’t immediately apparent, has ended up with the job permanently almost by default.

There’s yet another complex boardroom situation which the Swindon fans will fill us in on shortly, and an odd director of football set up that’s seen them become a sort of Spurs B Team. Little is known about chairman Jed McCrory, a Luton fan more likely to be found down the pub before the game than entertaining in the directors’ lounge, and the term ‘non-disclosure agreement’ is now common parlance among supporters suspicious of the man who owns their club. McCrory says such an agreement is the reason for the so-called secrecy. Throw in the fact that his first job has been to slash costs, particularly with the playing budget, because of the money Di Canio was allowed to lavish on it by the previous owners and he was never going to be winning popularity contests.

By way of extra interest they’re now the latest club to give the game’s current scumbag of the moment Nile Ranger another opportunity to further his ego and bank balance. It’s rarely dull in this part of the world.

Interview

Struggling to find a Swindon fan on the Twitter to do our usual pre-match interview, LFW braved the Town End Forum with a set of questions for our opponents on Tuesday. Thankfully we got some very decent responses, a selection of which are pasted below and the rest available on the above link. Thanks to all the Swindon fans who helped out…

Sorry to start with Paolo Di Canio but.... Paolo Di Canio, what did you make of his appointment to begin with and his reign overall?

“Gave the club a boost when appointed after relegation. Not the first big name untried manager we have had but this one caused more of a stir than previous ones with the fascist undertones, sponsors pulling out and a division in the fanbase over him being given the job. I was never a lover of Di Canio but you can’t argue with his record during his time here - a lot of the actions we took as his love of Swindon he has repeated at Sunderland already so just his way I guess.”

“The appointment was exciting, caused some divide (fascist) but after relegation it provided a much needed boost. He did well on a massive budget and high agent fees (for his agent). Some loved him some didn't. It was never dull.”

“It was either going to be brilliant or a disaster. In the end we got both, although the disaster is more the benefactor backing out leaving us with a salary base that could not be supported. There's also a lot of revisionism that means Di Canio is now regarded as a cunt who is the ruination of the club.”

And what was the inside track on his departure? We all heard his, very public, reasoning for it but what really happened? Were you sorry to see him go? What was the general consensus on him?

“Doubt we will ever know the complete story but it appears the old board were looking to sell up due to not wanting to keep ploughing money into the club. Matt Ritchie was sold to provide a bridging budget between old board leaving and new one taking over. Di Canio didn’t take kindly to the player sale allegedly behind his back and started throwing toys and ultimatums about. The takeover took a long time for the FL to ratify and Di Canio gave a deadline when if it wasn’t done he was. That deadline came and went and so did Di Canio. Since he left we have learnt a lot more about the massive budget and high wages he was offering players as well as paying off those he had given decent contracts to who were shit. It’s no wonder old board had enough as the budget was unsustainable. We are still left with some of his high rollers who we are still paying despite not even having a squad number.”

“There is no "inside track" only theories. I believe that he left following the realisation that due to Black pulling out, he would no longer be able to have the same level of control over the football club as was allowed to him by Wray - his vision was no longer possible. I'm certain he felt very aggrieved by the sale of Ritchie but didn't understand the necessity of it at the time. In hindsight I feel that although he was hugely successful during his time here, we are still recovering from the fallout of high wages and a scattergun approach to recruitment.”

What went wrong with Kevin MacDonald? Good pedigree, and although the form at the end of last season wasn't great you could easily have beaten Brentford in the play offs, then suddenly he was gone. Why? Jumped or pushed?

“Nobody knows what happened. The club cited personal issues at the time but we have never heard from the man himself. He came with a good pedigree but managed, in my opinion, to take a promotion winning team and turn it into a playoff losing one. Rumours abounded that he wasn’t happy about the players coming in and that he had no say though I doubt we will ever know.”

“I honestly haven't got a clue. The fans were on his back immediately and despite our comeback in the semi-final, he never really got a fair chance. The prospect of working under a DoF who signs players - primarily from Spurs - may have been a reason for his departure but given that we'd signed three players on loan from Spurs at the end of last season, I fail to see how it came as a surprise to MacDonald and why he felt the need to depart so suddenly. Personally, I was looking forward to seeing what he could do with this squad given his record at Villa.”

“MacDonald inherited someone else's team and the fans got on his back from day one. It’s clear the Spurs influence was there. When we needed experienced pros we got kids on loan.”

Who came in and who left during the summer player wise? Were you sorry or glad about anybody in particular incoming or outgoing?

“Bought two loaned four from Spurs’ youth set up plus a couple of other young players from elsewhere. A lot of the previous squad released/paid off/sold/left to languish without a squad number. Alan McCormack (Brentford) is probably the only player we really miss at this time. More than a few of the others flattered to deceive and are plying their trade at lower division clubs. Of those who came in most of the ex-Spurs have potential to be really good players but a long way from the finished article for a couple. Ranger is the latest and appears to be what we have been lacking up front though not 100% match fit yet.”

Where is the team weak and where is it strong? Who should we be wary of and who should we be targeting?

“Very young, quite small and lacking goal threat. Trying to play a good passing game though; Ryan Mason, Massimo Luongo and Alex Pritchard can all be useful.”

“Its now essentially a new team who should wear nappies not shorts - nappies with a cockerel emblem or in Ranger's case a nappy that stays on at the sight of a woman. There is very little experience there. It could come good. It could go to shit. We've had both in most games this season.”

“Team play a neat passing game even if a little slow at times. Still gelling as a unit which shows but has potential to be a decent side. Depending on who plays LB that can be our weakest area, Midfield full of flair but lacking a bit of bite at times. We have been toothless upfront with few recognised strikers on the books - made worse by just releasing one on a season long loan to Yeovil - though Nile Ranger has come in as an option and has looked good so far.”

So Mark Cooper is in charge now - is he simply there because all other options were exhausted? What do you make of him?

“Cooper is another appointment that split fans - hired as a number two to MacDonald suddenly found himself in the hotseat. Players seem to like him and his methods as obviously do the board. Fans opinion varies with many not wanting him thinking of him as the cheap option and only got the job as already in place. Many prepared to give a chance too. As it’s obviously not his team we feel he is in more of a coach’s role than that of the traditional manager.”

“Probably a cheaper option. Working under certain constraints, seems like a good bloke that the players like. Too soon to judge results.”

“Cooper was in the right place at the right time by default. If MacDonald had departed during the close season I believe we'd have someone else in charge but given that Cooper had spent the summer looking after a young and inexperienced squad and subsequently took charge of the side in competitive matches due to the drawn out managerial search it meant that continuity was a sensible option. I think it's far too early to judge him but equally don't think he's as bad an appointment as others seem to think.”

Opinion of your board of directors?

“Hmmmm hard to sum this up; some hail as saviours others as outright crooks. With the budget cuts needed after the previous season it was always going to anger a lot of fans. Some of their business ideas look good going forward but sometimes things don’t seem to stack up. Our chairman seems more at home down the pub or on twitter making an ass of himself. Jury is still out on them.”

“Their ideas are sound but their methods have been poorly communicated and more drastic than some felt necessary. Our chairman is a wideboy, our DoF is worryingly in the shadows and the board has changed frequently enough since their arrival that I'm struggling to recall off the top of my head who are currently directors.”

“At one extreme they are the saviours of the club and no criticism should be given - they should be allowed to do what they want. At the other extreme you've got a chairman who is prone to bullshit and thinks he's one of the lads and has a penchant for being a complete twat on Twitter. You then have a rarely seen investor as Director of Football who is playing Football Manager with STFC despite being a tax exile and only allowed in the UK for 90-days. The final member of the board is an Indian who counterbalances the possible cowboys. She is an expert in PR and journalism but given the PR coming out of the club she may as well be there making the tea and doing the laundry. Those are the three we know about. Cooper has alluded to there being others but transparency is not a word the board recognise, in my opinion. So benevolent individuals taking unnecessary stick or dangerous chancers who will ruin the club - take your choice.”

Ambitions for this season and beyond....

“Mid-table finish looks about the level we are currently playing towards despite our chairman’s optimism of promotion this year. If we can keep the bulk of our loan players longer than this season by reloaning or buying then the future will look rosier. Balancing the books playing budget wise has already begun in earnest so a sustainable future is something we all want going forward whatever league we are playing in.”

“I've got no expectations but don't think we'll be embroiled in a relegation battle, possibly a flirtation with the bottom four but on the strength of other's opinions we sound likely to pick up some fortunate wins but lose unceremoniously in games we ought to win. Beyond this season, I'm hoping the club can become sustainable and stable and that we can secure a talented group of youngsters to blood.”

Links >>> Official Website >>> The Town End forum >>> Swindon Mad >>> The Wash Bag blog >>> Red Army forum >>> Swindon Advertiser local paper

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Photo: Action Images

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