As QPR prepare to host Fulham at Loftus Road on Saturday LFW looks back to a happier time when these two met in 1983, and at a player who played for both clubs that Rangers were too hasty to cast aside.

Recent Meetings

QPR 0 Fulham 1, Saturday February 25, 2012, Premier League

QPR fans were treated to the most farcical debut since Bob Malcolm when Samba Diakite took to the field in Rangers colours for the first time back in February. Having lost crucial relegation six pointers against Wolves and Blackburn in the two previous matches the R’s were in need of points but Andy Johnson had a header disallowed for a marginal offside decision inside a minute and with the time still in single figures Pavel Pogrebnyak waltzed around Kenny and opened the scoring. Any remaining hope quickly drained away when referee Phil Dowd was left with no option but to dismiss Diakite for two yellow cards before half time after half an hour of unchecked gratuitous violence. Things could have been worse had Dickson Etuhu shown more composure when played through on goal late in the second half but he rolled the chance wide.

QPR: Kenny 6, Onuoha 6, Ferdinand 6, Hill 7, Taiwo 5 (Traore 72, 6), Diakite 5, Barton 6, Wright-Phillips 5 (Buzsaky 83, -), Mackie 6, Taarabt 7, Zamora 6

Subs Not Used: Cerny, Derry, Gabbidon, Bothroyd, Smith

Sent Off: Diakite 33 (two yellows)

Booked: Diakite (repetitive fouling), Diakite (repetitive fouling)

Fulham: Schwarzer 7, Kelly 6, Hughes 7, Hangeland 8, Riise 6, Ruiz 6 (Duff 78, -), Murphy 7 (Baird 74, 6), Dembele 8, Dempsey 7, Pogrebnyak 7, Johnson 7 (Etuhu 81, -)

Subs Not Used: Stockdale, Orlando Sa, Senderos, Frei

Booked: Pogrebnyak (over celebrating), Dembele (foul), Riise (foul), Baird (foul)

Goals: Pogrebnyak 7 (assisted Dembele)

Fulham 6 QPR 0, Sunday October 2, 2011, Premier League

Neil Warnock said his QPR teams would take some thrashings in their first Premiership season, and he was proved more than correct early in October when an abject display resulted in a crushing 6-0 defeat at Craven Cottage. Optimism had been high before the game with a host of new players bringing about three excellent performances and five points from games with Newcastle, Wolves and Aston Villa but Fulham scored through Andy Johnson inside the first two minutes and kept scoring at regular intervals after that. Paddy Kenny embarked on a fool’s mission to retrieve a ball Fitz Hall should have cleared in the twentieth minute resulting in a foul on Johnson and a penalty from Danny Muprhy for 2-0 and Johnson made it three himself before half time. With Adel Taarabt substituted and allegedly standing on the Fulham Palace Road waiting for a bus Rangers shipped three more with Johnson completing his hat trick and Clint Dempsey and Bobby Zamora filling their boots in a rout.

QPR: Kenny 5, Ferdinand 5, Hall 4, Young 5, Orr 5, Faurlin 5, Derry 4 (Smith 45, 5), Wright-Phillips 5, Taarabt 4 (Campbell 45, 6), Barton 5, Bothroyd 4 (Mackie 72, 7)

Subs Not Used: Murphy, Perone, Buzsaky, Helguson

Booked: Hall (foul), Faurlin (foul), Wright-Phillips (dissent)

Fulham: Schwarzer 7, JA Riise 6, Hangeland 6, Baird 6, Grygera 7, Sidwell 8, Murphy 7 (Etuhu 83 6), Dempsey 6, Johnson 8 (Ruiz 75 6), Zamora 7, Dembele 7 (Sa 87, -)

Subs Not Used: Etheridge, Kelly, Senderos, Duff

Goals: Johnson 2, 38, 59, Murphy (penalty) 20, Dempsey 65, Zamora 70.

Booked: Sidwell (foul), Hangeland (foul)

QPR 0 Fulham 2, Wednesday January 31, 2001

In many ways Rangers’ relegation in the 2000/01 season was finally sealed in a 2-0 home defeat to Fulham at the end of January. That wasn’t necessarily to do with the result, because given the respective resources and starting elevens that was never really in doubt, but the legacy of the match would last long after the final whistle. After ten minutes England Under 21 international Clarke Carlisle was stretchered off with a ruptured cruciate knee ligament that would keep him out of the QPR team for more than a year and lead him into a personal battle with alcohol. Twenty minutes later Richard Langley followed him to hospital – incredibly with exactly the same injury. It almost seemed cruel when Fulham took advantage with goals from Peter Moller and Karlheinz Riedle. This was already a very poor QPR side, but shorn of Richard Langley and Clarke Carlisle it was doomed.

QPR: Miklosko, Perry, Plummer, Carlisle (Bruce 11), Baraclough, Langley (Kulscar 37), Rose, Peacock, Connolly (Ngonge 79), Kiwomya, Crouch

Subs not used: Harper, Morrow

Fulham: Taylor, Finnan, Melville, Symons, Brevett, Goldbaek, Davis, Clark, Fernandes, Saha, Moller (Riedle 70)

Subs not used: Hahnemann, Stolcers, Neilson, Sahnoun

Goals: Moller 45, Riedle 77

Booked: Davis

Previous Results

2011/12 QPR 0 Fulham 1

2011/12 Fulham 6 QPR 0

2000/01 Fulham 2 QPR 0

2000/01 QPR 0 Fulham 2

1999/00 QPR 0 Fulham 0

1999/00 Fulham 1 QPR 0

1982/83 QPR 3 Fulham 1 (Gregory, Sealy, Stainrod)

1982/83 Fulham 1 QPR 1 (Stainrod)

1979/80 Fulham 0 QPR 2 (Waddock, Burke)

1979/80 QPR 3 Fulham 0 (P Goddard, Allen, Currie)

1978/79 Fulham 2 QPR 0*

1972/73 QPR 2 Fulham 0 (Bowles, Clement)

1972/73 Fulham 0 QPR 2 (Bowles, Givens)

1971/72 QPR 0 Fulham 0

1971/72 QPR 1 Fulham 1* (Mancini)

1971/72 Fulham 2 QPR 1* (Clement)

1971/72 Fulham 0 QPR 3 (Saul, McCulloch, Matthewson og)

1970/71 Fulham 2 QPR 0**

1948/49 QPR 1 Fulham 0 (Ramscar)

1948/49 Fulham 5 QPR 0

1931/32 QPR 3 Fulham 1 (Wiles, 2, Haley)

1931/32 Fulham 1 QPR 3 (G Goddard 2, Cribb)

1930/31 Fulham 0 QPR 2 (G Goddard, Coward)

1930/31 QPR 0 Fulham 2

1929/30 Fulham 0 QPR 2 (G Goddard, Rounce)

1929/30 QPR 0 Fulham 0

1928/29 Fulham 5 QPR 0

1928/29 QPR 2 Fulham 1 (G Goddard, Young)

1905/06 Fulham 1 QPR 0

Connections

Heidar Helguson >>> Fulham 2005-2007 >>> QPR 2008-2012

One of the most galling things about watching QPR at the moment is the sheer amount of players they've got rid of recently who would happily have stayed and are showing at their new clubs exactly what Rangers are missing. The R’s have even contrived to engineer a bizarre situation where they only have one fit out-and-out striker left to select from, but do actually own the form forward in the league below. Whether you think DJ Campbell is up to Premier League football or not is largely irrelevant at the moment because he's surely better than nothing, and QPR have nothing to choose from in attack if Djibril Cisse and Jamie Mackie don't do the business.

The most infuriating case for me though remains that of Heidar Helguson. The bad, sad and lonely soles like myself who spent last Friday evening prior to a long trek up to Wigan watching Blackburn v Cardiff on the television may well have found it difficult to sleep afterwards without the aid of copious amounts of drink. Helguson was absolutely magnificent at Ewood Park , comprehensively dominating Scott Dann and creating a situation where Craig Bellamy and the other City players could pretty much do as they pleased. He won every 50/50 ball, every flick on and rarely misplaced a pass. He finished the evening with three assists in a 4-1 away victory for a Cardiff team that very closely resembles our own title winning side from two years ago – and not just because they also have Matt Connolly and Tommy Smith among their ranks.

In the farewell article I wrote for this site in the summer, when Rangers decided that just weeks after renewing Helguson's contract they were in fact happy to sell him to Cardiff instead, I called him Heidar The Great Unappreciated Striker. Apart from Watford , his first English club where he has scored 75 goals in 228 appearances across three spells and is still adored by the supporters, Helguson has never been that popular at any of his clubs.

Fulham brought him in from Watford for £1.3m when Chris Coleman was in charge but he was rarely first choice and often injured and scored 14 times in 37 starts across two years. The most telling statistic was the 26 outings he made from the substitutes bench, rather hinting at how Coleman and Fulham saw him. Sammy Lee took him to Bolton in 2007 but was quickly replaced by Gary Megson who didn't fancy Helguson at all and used him only in emergencies – six starts, four sub appearances (but still two goals) in 18 months rather told its own story.

Perhaps Helguson just wasn't cut out for the Premier League; perhaps he was just a very decent Championship player. QPR certainly hoped so when they took him, on loan initially, in November 2008 shortly after the appointment of Paulo Sousa as manager. Even then, the DVD extras on The Four Year Plan film reveal that sporting director Gianni Paladini had rather ended up with Helguson after setting his favoured contacts the task of finding a "striker who is fit". When you hear Arouna Kone say that Wigan had been tracking him for three years before signing him this summer and then you see QPR ringing round favoured agents asking who they've got on their books that isn't injured it's very revealing. And heartbreaking actually, revealing and heartbreaking.

Nevertheless they dropped on with Helguson who was, is and remains a superb all round centre forward. Sadly he began his QPR career by missing a series of sitters: he rolled the ball wide of an empty net from 20 yards out on his debut at Crystal Palace and then contrived to kick the ball straight at the stricken Sheffield Wednesday goalkeeper Lewis Grant when faced with an almost open goal three yards out at Hillsborough shortly afterwards. But Helguson always looked quality to me, and one of his biggest attributes was that he never let his misses – and there were plenty – affect him mentally. He would always be in there looking for the chance, whether he'd missed his previous eight or not. Rangers, in much the same way as they've done this season with DJ Campbell, ended up with a bizarre situation where they had Marcus Bent and Tamas Priskin on loan contributing nothing while Helguson was temporarily back with Watford and scoring more than any other QPR player for one of the Hoops' near relegation rivals.

Thankfully Neil Warnock recognised the Icelandic international's talent and he really came of age, as so many QPR players did, in the promotion season of 2010/11 when he scored 15 times for club and country in 39 appearances, more often than not playing as a lone striker with a detail of bringing people like Adel Taarabt and Wayne Routledge into the game, rather than actually scoring a bag full of goals himself.

Warnock foolishly discarded Helguson at the start of the Premier League campaign, even preferring Patrick Agyemang to him in the early games presumably because he was quicker, and actually only restored him to the team for a home match with Blackburn at the eleventh hour when DJ Campbell picked up a knock. But Helguson scored in that match and again the following week in a 1-0 win against Chelsea . He was magnificent in a 3-2 home defeat by Man City – scoring fortuitously in the second half – and quite brilliant the following week at Stoke where he scored two great striker's goals despite playing the whole game with a nasty facial wound that would have had lesser men calling for a substitution when it happened early in the first half.

There was a lot of talk about Grant Holt last season, but Helguson was more prolific than him and just about every other striker in the division in the months from September to January. He scored nine times in 15 appearances before an injury curtailed his season and with QPR getting ideas above their station and signing Bobby Zamora to replace him while he was out he was allowed to leave this summer.

He has eight goals in 22 appearances for Cardiff already, and at least that many assists besides. At 35 years of age you can see the conventional logic in allowing him to move on, but Oakland Athletics coach Billy Beane made his living out of getting his team to compete with those who spend vastly bigger amounts of money by picking up players just like Helguson who have been written off by the rest for no reason other than age, weight, lack of pace etc. Finding players like Helguson is exactly what QPR should be doing, and yet having found one who proved that he could still do the business in the top flight they got rid of him for peanuts. It's criminal really.

Cardiff are technically just one place below QPR in the league rankings now and there looks to be a very good chance that the two clubs will swap places in May. While QPR fans wake to read articles about Helguson's replacement Bobby Zamora - £6m transfer fee, weekly wages six times as much as his predecessor at a conservative estimate – saying how he doesn't really like football, doesn't eat lunch with the team, doesn't like being at QPR and so on, Helguson calmly gets on with being a superb professional and wonderful player at the club Rangers palmed him off to.

Sometimes it's hard not to think Rangers are getting everything they deserve this season.

Others >>> Andy Johnson Fulham 2008-2012, QPR 2012-present >>> Bobby Zamora, Fulham 2008-2012, QPR 2012-present >>> Lee Cook, QPR (loan) 2002-2003, 2004-2007, 2008-present, Fulham 2007-2008 >>> Zesh Rehman, Fulham 2004-2006, QPR 2006-2009 >>> Stephen Kelly, QPR (loan) 2003, Fulham 2009-present >>> Callum Willock, Fulham 2000-2003, QPR (loan) 2002 >>> Paul Peschisolido, Fulham 1997-2001, QPR (loan) 2000 >>> Iain Dowie, Fulham (loan) 1989-1990, QPR 1998-2001, (manager) 2008 >>> Rufus Brevett, QPR 1991-1998, Fulham 1998-2003 >>> Ray Wilkins, QPR 1989-1994, (manager) 1994-1996, Fulham (manager) 1997-1998 >>> Robbie Herrera, QPR 1988-1993, Fulham 1993-1998 >>> Leroy Rosenior, Fulham 1982-1985, 1987-1988, (loan) 1990-1991, QPR 1985-1987 >>> Paul Parker, Fulham 1982-1987, QPR 1987-1991 >>> Dean Coney, Fulham 1980-1987, QPR 1987-1989 >>> Rodney Marsh, Fulham 1962-1966, QPR 1966-1972 >>> Bobby Keetch, Fulham 1964-1966, QPR 1966-1969 >>> Jim Langley, Fulham 1957-1965, QPR 1965-1967 >>> Dave Metchick, Fulham 1961-1964, QPR 1968-1970

Memorable Match

These clubs may only be separated by a couple of miles of West London, but competitive meetings between them have been few and far between down the years. Certainly none were as important as the clash at Loftus Road in 1983 when Rangers needed a win against fellow promotion chasers Fulham to seal the Second Division title.

In front of more than 24,000 fans at Loftus Road Rangers surged into an early lead on their plastic pitch when midfielder, and future R’s manager, John Gregory raced through the wide open spaces of the Fulham defence to finish confidently from the edge of the penalty box. Gregory’s performances that season earned him an England call up at the end of the campaign for the summer tour of Australia.

The visiting defence didn’t improve much thereafter, Tony Sealy making the most of acres of space and slack defending to hammer a volley into the roof of the net from 12 yards out. Rangers now two to the good, with the time barely out of single figures.

The Whites held out until half time without further damage but the words of manager Malcolm McDonald had barely left his lips during the break when Rangers made the game safe. The trademark set piece during Terry Venables’ reign at Loftus Road saw a ball lobbed into the near post for giant defender Bob Hazell to head on and with the Fulham keeper inadvisably rushing out to try and beat the former Wolves man in the air the goal was left open for Simon Stainrod to nod home, unmarked, from close range.

Welshman Gordon Davies pulled a goal back for Fulham 20 minutes from time, seizing on a rare lapse in QPR’s defence to finish past Hucker from a tight angle, but the game was well and truly up when Ray Lewington hacked into the back of Stainrod and was sent off.

Rangers eventually finished ten points ahead of Wolves who were second that season, a title winning triumph that many attributed to the unfair home advantage afforded to them by the plastic pitch. However Rangers finished the season with ten wins and four draws away from home, rather putting paid to that idea. Fulham finished fourth, a single point behind the other promoted side that year Leicester City.

Influential chairman Jim Gregory tried to sell a controlling interest in the club to manager Terry Venables as it prepared for life in the First Division but a deal was never struck and 12 months later, after a successful return to the top flight, Venables was taken from QPR by Spanish giants Barcelona. Imagine that.

QPR: Hucker, Neil, Hazell, Fenwick, Wicks, Dawes, Sealy, Waddock, Gregory, Flanagan, Stainrod

Highlights >>> QPR 3 Fulham 1, 1983

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Pictures – Action Images

Photo: Action Images

nat_tv_griff added 21:19 - Dec 13 That was a grim night back in 2001... Feel we will scrape that win come Sat tho !
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Irish_Hoop added 22:19 - Dec 13 God I'm getting old - I remember the 1983 game fondly. The date jarred though, I'm sure it was a bank holiday Monday. Sure enough on checking, I'm right!
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AgedR added 23:26 - Dec 13 Me and my Dad in the Loft (Dad was, and still is, a Lillywhite and will be in the away end on Saturday). We actually had a truely great team and manager that year (how about a special on the Partizan Belgrade double header with that side a couple of years after Clive; QPR in absolute epitome). Fulham deserved to go up that year and, because of family ties, I have always had a soft spot for them, despite recent, frankly silly, acrimony. That said, time to move over on Saturday Dad. Fuxk your ambition song, we'll always be bigger than you!

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Myke added 23:30 - Dec 13 I never knew butch managed Fulham
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Northernr added 23:35 - Dec 13 Initially as manager with Kevin Keegan as 'chief operating officer' or some such nonsense. Keegan replaced him.
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TacticalR added 23:39 - Dec 13 Johnson gets a hatrick against us, then we sign him, then he disappears with injury. It feels like he's done us twice...and people are complaining about Granero! Perhaps it was one of Helguson's advantages that he was so underrated - the oppo didn't know who they were dealing with and would get caught out by his headers.
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SonofNorfolt added 01:54 - Dec 14 If Helguson had never been given a chance for another go at playing for us, he could, quite comfortably, gone down in history as one of our worst forwards ever. 2009 onwards, a hero. It's a shame he got an injury when he did, he'd probably still be here otherwise.
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shooters47 added 07:50 - Dec 14 Clive, wish the eleven from 83 was starting tomorrow even the age they are now!! Not sure I would replace any of them with the lot that will start!!
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richranger added 16:10 - Dec 14 Couldn't agree more about Helguson. At times last year he was terrific, especially against Man City at home, when he won every ball in the air. Letting him go was stupid in the extreme.
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