Yeovil Town's first ever league visit to Loftus Road provides QPR with the perfect chance to make amends and give a proper memorial and tribute to the club's greatest ever manager Alec Stock.

Recent Meetings

Yeovil Town 0 QPR 1, Saturday September 24, 2013, Championship

QPR were still in their play-badly-and-still-win phase when they travelled to Yeovil for a first ever league meeting back in September, as opposed to the current trend of playing badly and losing. The R’s were indebted to Rob Green, who made a string of fine saves to keep the hosts at bay, and Charlie Austin, who ultimately won and converted a match winning penalty a quarter of an hour before the end in front of a boisterous away following of nearly 2,000 QPR fans. Referee Gavin Ward going some way towards making up for his previous horrendous handling of QPR fixtures at Reading and Portsmouth.

Yeovil: Hennessey 6; Ayling 6, Fontaine 6 (Dawson 37, 6), Seaborne 5, McAllister 6; Edwards 6, Upson 7, Ralls 7, Davis 7; Grant 7 (Hayter 79, 6), Williams 6 (Ngoo 79, 7)

Subs not used: Dunn, Ofori-Twumasi, Foley, Hoskins

Bookings: Ralls 29 (foul), Upson 86 (taking a free kick while Gavin Ward was still dusting the sand out of his lady parts)

QPR: Green 8, Simpson 6, Dunne 7, Hill 7, Assou-Ekotto 6; Carroll 5, Jenas 5; Phillips 6, O’Neil 6, Traore 6; Austin 8

Subs not used: Murphy, Ehmer, Henry, Faurlin

Goals: Austin 75 (penalty, won Austin)

Bookings: Austin 32 (foul)

Yeovil Town 3 QPR 0, Tuesday October 16, 2001, Football League Trophy

For QPR, competing in the Football League Trophy just six years after they’d been a Premier League team was something of a humbling experience. They could therefore have done with drawing one of the many other lower league teams who also saw the competition as something of a pain and a distraction but instead pulled Gary Johnson’s Yeovil side in the first round. This was the year that the top half of the Conference was also included in the draw and so for the Glovers having a former top flight team coming to Huish Park was a big deal regardless of the competition, and a chance for them to add to their considerable legacy of cup upsets. Yeovil were chasing the Conference title at the time and had won four of their last seven with two draws prior to QPR’s visit. Rangers meanwhile had just been relegated and manager Ian Holloway had been forced to put a squad together from a starting point of just eight senior professionals while the club was in administration. It was all a recipe for disaster for the Londoners who were 1-0 down at half time thanks to a goal from Chris Giles and then imploded in the final ten minutes when Kim Grant doubled the lead, defender Aziz Ben Askar was sent off and Giles snuck in a third in injury time.

Yeovil: C Weale, T Schram, G Haveron, T White, A Tonkin, N Crittenden, L Johnson, A Turner, M McIndoe, C Giles, C Alford (K Grant, 78)

Subs not used: S Thompson, A Lindegaard, M Cooper, S Collis

Goals: Giles 37, 90, Grant 80

QPR: C Day, M Bignot (Doudou, 68), B Askar, S Palmer, P Bruce, M Perry, A Bonnot (H Barr, 68), M Rose, K Connolly, A Thomson, S Wardley (R Pacquette, 59)

Subs not used: F Digby, D McEwen

Sent off: Ben Askar 83

Attendance: 2,879

Previous Results

Head to Head >>> QPR wins 2 >>> Draws 0 >>> Yeovil wins 1

2013/14 Yeovil 0 QPR 1 (Austin)

2001/02 Yeovil 3 QPR 0*

1987/88 Yeovil 0 QPR 3**

* - Football League Trophy

** - FA Cup

Connections

Alec Stock >>> QPR (player) 1938-1939 >>> Yeovil Town (player manager) 1946-1949 >>> QPR (manager) 1959-1968

Alec Stock is another example of a man who makes QPR fans of my generation believe they were born far too late. There have been some truly wonderful people and talents serving our club over the last 100 years or more, and sadly almost all of the best ones were before our time.

Stock was a player at QPR initially — arriving at Loftus Road in 1938 after spells with Tottenham and Charlton elsewhere in London. He made his R’s debut against Reading in February 1938 and, playing at inside forward, scored 14 goals in 58 appearances before the Second World War put paid to the football. He would go onto reach the rank of major in the Royal Armoured Corps.

Aged 26, the Somerset born soldier was taken on as player manager of Southern League outfit Yeovil Town and in 1949 the village team pulled off one of the greatest FA Cup upsets of all time by knocking Sunderland out of the competition — a result helped by a goal from Stock, playing on despite struggling with wartime shrapnel in his leg, that started a long tradition of cup upsets inflicted by Yeovil on teams from higher divisions. They’d beaten Second Division Bury in the previous round too.

An eclectic managerial campaign then took in two spells at Leyton Orient either side of 53 days as Arsenal’s assistant manager and, bizarrely, three months in charge of Italian side Roma. A man of principal, he’d been lined up to replace Tom Whittaker at Arsenal but walked away from the opportunity after being asked to go and watch a reserve match elsewhere rather than the Gunners first team, and then after one defeat in his first 11 Roma games resigned again when the board of directors tried to dictate team selection. Oh for a meeting between Stock ad Flavio Briatore.

His near ten-year stint at QPR began in 1959 and his impact shaped the club from a Third Division South mainstay into a regular in the top two divisions, with a major domestic trophy thrown into the bargain.

Initial results were nothing to write home about. Rangers were eighth in the Third Division at the end of his first season in charge — below Grimsby Town, Bury, Brentford and Shrewsbury among others — and they followed that up with finishes in third, fourth, thirteenth and fifteenth. But Stock was developing a youth set up behind the scenes way ahead of its time, and woul eventually produce Frank Sibley, Tony Hazell, the Morgan twins and Mick Leach. When used-car-salesman-come-garage-mogul Jim Gregory bought into the club in 1964 the stage was set for a remarkable surge up the leagues.

Stock used Gregory’s money to tempt maverick striker Rodney Marsh from near-neighbours Fulham for £15,000 in March 1966 and he is widely regarded as one of the club’s best ever players — he would eventually score 134 goals in 242 senior appearances for the R’s.

Marsh scored 44 goals in 1966/67 as the R’s won the Third Division by 12 clear points in an era of two points for a win, and took the League Cup as well, beating top flight side Leicester, big spending Second Division outfit Birmingham, and finally First Division West Brom in the final at Wembley. Rangers trailed 2-0 at half time that day but scored three unanswered goals in the second half to lift the club’s only major honour to date.

While hosting the QPR Player of the Year award back in 2010, Marsh regaled the fans in attendance with a story about how, as a Third Division striker, he’d been offered a sum of money by a tabloid newspaper to put his name to a story telling Alf Ramsay he was ready to play for England. Marsh sought advice from Stock who told him to do no such thing. Marsh picked the paper up the following day to find the story in there anyway, with quotes from Stock instead. Famously, Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse’s Ron Manager character is said to be based on Stock.

They made light work of the Second Division in 1967/68, roaring straight through to a second consecutive promotion in second place behind Ipswich Town — only the second team in history to do so - and so took their place at English football’s top table for the first time in the club’s history in 1968/69.

Sadly internal politics saw him resign without ever selecting a top flight team at Loftus Road and the club was relegated in dead last place with just four wins to their name under the guidance of first Bill Dodgin, then Tommy Docherty and finally veteran player Les Allen. Stock’s last competitive game in charge of Rangers turned out to be an extraordinary promotion sealing game at Aston Villa.

The weekend before Rangers, and third placed Blackpool, had both won by two goal margins against Birmingham and Derby respectively. It meant that the R’s travelled to Aston Villa ahead of the Tangerines on goal average only, with Pool away at Huddersfield on the final day. At half time QPR trailed 1-0, and Blackpool led by the same score. Leach’s controversial equaliser — Villa claimed it hadn’t crossed the line as it bounced down off the bar — raised hopes but Blackpool raced off into a 3-1 lead and were already celebrating promotion on the pitch as the time ticked down to zero with QPR still deadlocked in the second city.

There was a final twist right at the death though, as Villa’s Keith Bradley turned a clearance past his own goalkeeper to win the game for QPR — a disastrous own goal that earned him a kiss from several QPR players in the ensuring on field carnage.

Stock fell ill that summer with acute asthma and took time off while Dodgin assumed caretaker control, but Gregory sacked him upon his return saying he was unfit to work and appointed Docherty instead. Docherty, infamously, lasted just 28 days in his first spell only to return in 1979, leave for nine days in May 1980 and then get sacked again in October that year.

Stock won a promotion with Luton, and went to an F Cup final with Fulham, in his subsequent managerial jobs, and briefly returned to QPR as a director, and caretaker manager, in the 1970s, but cared for neither role.

Speaking to this weekend’s match programme, Frank Sibley reflected on the man who gave him his debut at Rangers aged just 15, breaking the record for the club’s youngest ever player which still stands to this day.

Sibley said: “Alec had a unique style. He wasn’t a coach-type manager. But he knew how to manage men and that has been proven as he did very well at Queens Park Rangers. Alec was a very honest and intelligent man. He used to frighten us at times. But he was a real good bloke.” I will always remember that I got injured in the semi-finalwhen someone ran their stud right down my right thigh. So Ron Woolnough, our physio, said to Alec Stock, ‘Alec, he’ll have to come off. He’s losing too much blood.’ But Alec came over to me and he said, ‘You’re alright son, aren’t ya?’ And I replied, ‘Yes, Alec.’ That was the sort of bloke he was. He commanded total respect from all his players.”

It’s wonderful to see QPR making an effort this weekend to remember arguably the greatest manager in the club’s history. Somebody who shaped the QPR we see today out of something that was little more than a ramshackle lower league outfit. But, typically of the modern day Rangers, it’s only come after a damaging newspaper article outlining just how badly Rangers mistreated him in his latter days.

When he fell ill in the late 1990s Yeovil and Fulham arranged testimonial games and fundraising dinners — QPR were invited to take part and ignore the requests. It’s a tale told time, and time and time again by the club’s former players — Dave Thomas notable amongst them — and something that Rangers are only now, largely thanks to the efforts of Ian Taylor and the club’s media team — slowly starting to get to grips with in a small way. Stock died in April 2001.

Rangers would do well to remember Stock and others like him much more often, and those currently mistreating the club as a cash cow to top up their pension, or a play thing to advertise Far Eastern airlines, would do well to remember just how many wonderful people worked so bloody hard to get this club where it is today.

Memorable Match

Yeovil Town 0 QPR 3, Saturday January 9, 1988, FA Cup Third Round

It took Yeovil Town 108 years to finally make their way into the Football League in 2003 but they had long been feared by league clubs in cup competitions.

Playing on the infamous Huish pitch, which sloped eight feet from one touchline to the other, they developed a giant killing reputation, most notably knocking out First Division Sunderland in 1947/48. Yeovil published their record against league clubs in cup competitions in the match programme when Jim Smith’s QPR came to town in January 1988 — the travelling R’s will have noted the names of Bournemouth (twice), Crystal Palace (twice), Exeter, Brighton, Bury, Southend (twice), Walsall and Brentford as well as Sunderland who’d all taken on Yeovil as heavy favourites and fallen over the years.

They’ll also have noted that Yeovil had played eight times in that season’s competition already just to reach the Third Round. Having started in the qualifiers against Gosport they’d needed replays to see off Waterlooville and Worcester, as well as beating Wimborne, Weymouth and Cambridge United — six of those games had been away from home.

So no easy task against the Southern League side then, and when the First Division R’s arrived to find a gale force wind whipping rain and sleet down a mudbath of a pitch even they must have feared an upset was on the cards.

But Smith had prepared his side well. They’d researched the conditions they would find at Yeovil and elected to drive 125 miles further on into Cornwall prior to the match to practise on the pitch of their non-league rivals St Austell which had an even bigger slope on it than Huish and was just as muddy. They even played a friendly down there, beating Truro Town 8-0 — when Mark Hughes talks about “meticulous preparation”…

Smith had lost Terry Fenwick to Tottenham in a £550,000 deal a month before the match but had quickly reinvested the money in Glasgow Rangers striker Mark Falco who scored twice here taking his tally to four goals in six appearances already. Nicky Johns had also arrived from Charlton for £60,000 and he kept a clean sheet with regular starting keeper Seaman out with a thumb injury.

There were, typically, a few early scares for Rangers. Fearns fired wide for the home team and then McGinley made the most of a slip by Paul Parker to curl a shot around Johns in the QPR goal but just past the bottom corner on the far side. A typically robust tackle from Gavin Maguire, replacing Fenwick at sweeper, gave Yeovil a free kick that Rutter met but volleyed wide.

But the natural order of things was restored right on half time when Dawews met a loose ball in the area with a deflected shot that came back off the post to Mark Falco and he slid in the opening goal of the game in front of the QPR fans massed on the terrace behind the goal.

The sides exchanged chances at the start of the second half — McGinley fired over when placed to do better, Bannister struck the crossbar with a header but had been flagged offside in any case. When Paul Randall went clean through on the goal it looked like the equaliser had arrived but he inexplicably sidefooted wide of the target when it seemed harder to miss.

But having won the toss and elected to go downhill in the second period Rangers were able to send speedster Wayne Fereday out with a hill and strong tailwind at his back to run at the tiring non-league players and ultimately a defeat was never on the cards.

In the end the second goal was embarrassingly easy — Falco controlling a low cross from Fereday and then calmly rolling the ball home after being allowed to turn in the heart of the penalty area.

That was the game over with little over ten minutes left to play but Rangers went for another anyway when Brock fed off Dean Coney’s touch back in the area and dribbled round the goalkeeper for a walk in third.

Yeovil: Iles, Sherwood, Ferns, Ricketts, Rutter, Cordice, Donnellan (Chandler), Wallace, McGinlay, Pearson (Noble), Randall

QPR: Johns, Dawes, Dennis, Parker, McDonald, Maguire, Allen, Fereday (Kerslake), Brock, Bannister (Coney), Falco

Attendance: 9,720

Tweet @loftforwords

Pictures — Action Images, Western Gazette

Photo: Action Images

smegma added 01:07 - Mar 14 I went to the FA Cup game and got soaked as it rained. Also went to the LDV game but decided to pay for a seat in the main stand as it again poured with rain. At half time the stewards allowed those getting drenched on the terraces to join us in the dry bit of the ground. My only memory was when their keeper came out of the box and hit his clearance straight to Karl Connolly. With the goal at his mercy, all he had to do was roll the ball into an unguarded goal from about 25 yards. The ball ended up by the corner flag.

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Spiritof67 added 11:10 - Mar 14 Good tribute for Alec Stock a manager who allowed his youth team to progress to play in the first team. In addition to Frank Sibley, Tony Hazell, the Morgan twins and Mick Leach, both Peter Springett and Ron Hunt progressed from the youth set up to play for the the R's at Wembley to win the cup that day. A possible lesson for the current crop of players we have, you can buy experience, but do they have the hunger, passion and desire for success?

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QPunkR added 11:58 - Mar 14 Great piece on Stock, Clive. Agree totally with your sentiment about those of our generation wishing we'd been about earlier to see many more real, proper Rangers heros.
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