 Thursday, 7th Jul 2011 01:00 by Ross Smith In the third part of his week long series for LFW Ross Smith recalls our last Premiership campaign, and the return of Gerry Francis. Down and out – 1996After 13 successive seasons in England’s top flight, QPR were relegated on April 13, 1996 after defeating a West Ham team with nothing to play for 3-0 at Loftus Road. Unfortunately results elsewhere in the division condemned Rangers to the Premier League trap door and a slippery downhill ride to near oblivion. Finishing nineteenth after a disastrous season with Ray Wilkins in his first full season in charge most Rangers fans would have no hesitation in admitting that come the end of that season, they were simply not good enough to stay in the division. Les Ferdinand was sold for a club record transfer fee received £6m but the pre-season looked promising - Danny Dichio and Kevin Gallen were knocking in goals as the 1995/96 season warmed up. Relying on youngsters such as those two for the majority of the goals was always going to be a big ask though, so Wilkins decided to bring in some experience to help QPR's attack. In came his one time Glasgow Rangers team mate, Mark Hateley for a staggering fee of £1.5m. That was a lot of dough to be spending in 1996, even more so for QPR to be spending considering Hateley was a 34 year old has-been. I can't believe someone upstairs didn’t have a word Butch's ear about it and perhaps if Rodney Marsh was appointed as Director Of Football, then that is one alarm I would have begged him to sound. Glasgow Rangers must have been laughing hysterically. In Wilkins’ defence, Hateleye had netted 21 goals for Glasgow Rangers the season before, but I believe back then it wasn’t so apparent just how God damn awful the other ten teams in the SPL actually were. This strange decision smacked of someone clearly out of their depth when it comes to managing a club rather then a coaching role that Wilkins now finds himself in more often than not. Hateley was plain useless for QPR: old, knackered and clearly only there to pick up a decent wedge before retirement. As a replacement for Les, well he'd be out injured for a month just reaching to tie Ferdinand’s boots. The recruitment of Hateley has to go down as one of the worst signings the club has ever made, and God have there been a few. For that sort of money when the club desperately needed to get it right Hateley was wrong for QPR on so many levels. Another Wilkins signing was the now legendary Ned Zelic, one of the few Australians who couldn’t settle in West London - yes I know that line’s been waffled out more times then a London cabbie’s take on foreigners. Zelic was signed for a fee of £1.25m and was mooted by Wilkins to be as “versatile as an egg”. To me eggs are one of those things you usually put in your weekly shopping trolley automatically because you never know when they might come in handy. More often then not you end up chucking them out because either you never got round to having them at the weekend for breakfast or you just couldn’t be arsed to make Yorkshire puddings when Aunt Bessie’s take five minutes straight from the freezer. Regularly they get chucked in the bin when past their due date along with the cucumber, browning lettuce and squidgy tomatoes I never seem to finish, and I’m left thinking what a waste of bloody money they were. Unfortunately for Wilkins and QPR, if Zelic was to be compared to eggs and the many uses that they bring to the cookery world, then he was one of those that’s gets thrown out because you realise when you actually got round to needing one, the bastard thing’s rotten. Zelic played four times for Rangers in an injury plagued spell which he couldn’t wait to put behind him. We thought he was shit and he thought we were shit, and the whole Zelic saga was another big cock up. The season started with a narrow one nil reverse to reigning Champions Blackburn at Ewood Park. The first home match of the season was where I realised all was not well. Ranger's were completely out played in every department, and soundly thrashed by a Wimbledon side containing Dean Holdsworth in attack, waltzing through the non existent Ranger's back line like they weren’t there. I sat in the Ellerslie Road stand that night for the first time ever, as I arrived there late having been stuck in traffic in my mates Fiat Uno which he'd just got, having recently passed his driving test. The Loft End was either sold out or possibly members only back then. I traveled with my mate and his Wimbledon supporting girlfriend. Oh the humiliation afterwards. Thankfully having been at College in 1995/96, I’d taken a Saturday job on at WH Smith in Putney so could only make the odd midweek match unless I was lucky enough to swap my Saturday shift with one of the Sunday staff, so as a consequence I didn’t have to sit through much further punishment. The season went on, and the bad results kept on coming. The games we'd once hung our hat on we were losing, including our usual bankers away at Everton and Southampton. The Man Utd late leveler by tosspot Cantona in the second year of added on time really took the piss to the next level and sucked the life out of any possible confidence and belief left in the squad. Rangers needed a win away at fellow strugglers Coventry to keep fate in their own hands. They lost and went into the next week needing the teams around them to stay true to form and lose whist we beat West Ham in the process. QPR won but so did everyone else. We went down at Loftus Road that Saturday afternoon. I didn’t realise until I was walking back to my mate's car outside the ground, and heard someone else's radio nearby, no mobile phones back then. On MOTD that night, Wilkins was spotted laughing at the final whistle. What could there have been so funny at that moment for him to find funny? Did someone say to him, "Ray true to your words, you signed that Bum Hateley. Here, a bet's a bet; have a go on my missus? Was he that deluded by then he simply didn’t care, or was it one of those, "I don't know how to react, I'll let my body do what it wants while I shrivel up and die inside" moments? It should have been, and Wilkins should have been sacked in the dressing room after that game.QPR never recovered from that relegation and the negative fallout that followed would last for nearly a generation. Gerry returns 1998After relegation, QPR steadily got worse with bad mistakes in the transfer market and even worse managerial appointments. Our best chance of getting back to the Premiership came in the pivotal first two seasons when new owner Chris Wright of Chrysalis Records was able to splash some cash. Record signings Gavin Peacock, John Spencer and Mike Sheron came on board as well as Trevor Sinclair being offered a lucrative new contract that was really way too much for a club in the second tier of English football to be handing out. Such was the desperation to get Premiership football back at Loftus Road, that these goings on were never fully put under the investigation spotlight as they would be by all us fans today. The Departure of Ray Wilkins a few weeks into the 96/97 season saw Chris Wright appoint former Arsenal assistant Stewart Houston as manager and in a bizarre switch of roles, his manager at Arsenal Bruce Rioch arrived as his assistant. Despite the money spent on players, Houston’s tenure as QPR manager was a disaster. The club failed to make the playoffs in the first season outside the Premiership and in the second season, horrifically under performed. They were joint top in September but went on a horrendous run that cost Houston his job and saw them eventually fighting against relegation. Ray Harford was his replacement and somehow managed to avoid a second relegation in as many years as the season’s survival battle went down to the wire. The 1997/98 season started badly for Rangers. The money had gone and the inevitable clear out of players began - most noticeably Trevor Sinclair to West Ham for a knocked down price in a cash plus players exchange. Iain Dowie and Keith Rowlands coming the other way. Summer signing Richard Ord, who was brought into to harden up the defence, was injured in pre-season and never played the game again. Harford was quoted in the press as saying, “I’ve been told by the board that there is no more money to spend. Yes I know we are in for a difficult season but in the circumstances I would consider avoiding relegation by one place and the club saving a million pounds in the process, a success”. This was the first time I remember it being made public that Rangers were skint. The fans though were not happy with what Harford had said and saw it as an apparent lack of ambition. After an alleged attack on his car outside the ground after a thrashing at Oxford, Harford was out on his arse at Loftus Road barely two months into the new season. Iain Dowie was put in temporary charge and in his first game, oversaw a rare win at Molineux with a 2-1 win against Wolves where a Mike Sheron finally did something for his money and bagged a brace. On 16 October 1998 Queens Park Rangers announced that Gerry Francis was to return as Director of Football at Loftus Road in a coaching role. Ironically to take up a position that had caused him to resign from the club four years earlier. Unfortunately for Gerry, things had not worked out for him after he resigned in 1994 and joined Spurs, and he was sacked as manager there and was now looking for work. QPR seemed too much of a temptation for him to turn down. Although what he probably found when he turned up for work on his first day, was a world of difference to what he had walked out on. He openly admitted that he had no idea who was who at QPR so after his first game in charge at home to Birmingham live on Sky Sports, he set to work on finding his best team. QPR lost the game 1-0 and seeing Tony Scully blow numerous one on one situations, must have given him a brief feeling of regret in taking on the job on. Results did start to pick up though; even Chris Kiwomya contributed to some vital wins in November. But again Rangers struggled in the latter stages after New Year and the fate of the club came down to the last game of the season, where Rangers had one task to ensure survival. Beat bogey team Crystal Palace at home. QPR emphatically beat Palace 6-0 and secured their place in Division One in front of a sold out Loftus Road crowd who streamed onto the pitch at the final whistle in an outburst of emotional relief and jubilation. When the celebrations and hysteria finally eased, Francis announced that the rebuilding of his QPR team would start immediately. 400 Twitter followers achieved, but we’re pressing on for more. Follow us @loftforwords Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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