 Thursday, 16th Jun 2011 21:04 by Clive Whittingham LoftforWords' look back at QPR's four seasons in the Premiership is nearing its conclusion. The penultimate part focuses on the ten best matches the R's were involved in during their time in the top flight between 1992 and 1996. Top Ten Best... Premiership matches1 - QPR 4 Spurs 1, 1992 Tottenham are now one of the main players in the Barclays Premiership, and took on the best Europe has to offer last season in the Champions League. But back in the day they, along with Arsenal and Chelsea, were just another London club we would finish above in the table and take points from on regular occasions. The 1992 thrashing of Spurs at Loftus Road was arguably our finest performance in our four Premier League years. Spurs spent plenty of money back then, they’d splashed £2.3m out on Teddy Sheringham from Nottingham Forest shortly before this game and he opened the scoring with a scrambled Loft End effort in the first half after a vintage Darren Peacock slip, but they worked their way through an alarming amount of managers and lurched from one crisis to the next under the chairmanship of first Irving Skolar and then Alan Sugar. They bit off more than they could chew in this game as well as Gerry Francis’ team ran riot in the second half. It was a day for unlikely goals from unlikely sources and Rangers equalised through Ian Holloway who hit a half volley down into the sodden pitch and celebrated raucously as it bounced over Torsvedt and into the Spur net. Tottenham had gone, mentally and physically, and Ranger went into the lead a short time later after a prolonged period of pressure where Dennis Bailey saw a shot blocked and then worked it wide to Sinton whose cross was headed into the net by Ray Wilkins stooping low on the edge of the six yard box. Sinton was the supplier of the third as well, pulling down a cross from Impey and firing it through the goal mouth for Penrice to lash in from close range. And Penrice was just as emphatic with his gratuitous smash into the roof of the net for the fourth goal as well, David Bardsley with the assist that day. Personally it was a day punctuated by my dad vomiting everywhere – he blamed a fried breakfast, rather than the beer – but the game is one I remember to this day. Fantastic stuff. 2 - Newcastle 1 QPR 2, 1993 The dramatic conclusion to this match led our Greatest Moments countdown earlier this week, but the match in its entirity was an absolute cracker as well. The background was that Newcastle had just been promoted as First Division champions with Kevin Keegan performing his first 'Geordie Messiah' routine and promising to lead them to a Premiership title. Andy Cole was the star turn in the Magpies' attack and St James' Park, still with a vast terrace at one end that included a pen for away fans in the corner, was rammed after years of 14,000 gates and less. QPR meanwhile had finished fifth the year before and were flying high again after a poor start to the campaign. Les Ferdinand was the star attraction but he had missed two QPR games in the lead up to this game and been withdrawn from the England squad for a crucial World Cup qualifier on the Wednesday night with a back injury. He wasn't expected to even travel with his team mates for this one and indeed when the QPR fan arrived at the game his name wasn't on the coupon for first goalscorer - a puzzled bookie offered odds of 9/1 when asked for a price launching a stampede of QPR fans in his direction when the news came through that Les would start. This was probably his finest display in a QPR shirt, and onl served as further encouragement to Keegan who would spent £6m on him 18 months later. He scored the first within ten minutes, pinging a low drive off the base of Mike Hooper's post and into the net off the post at the other side after rolling along the goal line. Newcastle equalised in the second half through Malcolm Allen but a gravity defying leap from Ferdinand a minute later set Bradley Allen up for a hooked finish from close range to put Rangers back in front. Despite a late barrage from Newcastle anything other than Ferdinand ending up on the winning team would have been a travesty - and when linesman Roger Fernandez awarded a highly debatable Newcastle penalty in injury time against Alan McDonald it seemed as though we'd get just that. Step forward big Jan Stejskal with that save, and the final whistle followed a second later. Ferdinand said: "I'd been having treatment on the injury for two weeks. On the Saturday when we play away from home we train a bit on Saturday morning. Gerry said: 'How does it feel' and I said it felt stiff. He asked me to play for 45 minutes and said if I did that he would be happy. I played for 90 minutes and it went well." 3 - Norwich 3 QPR 4, 1994 The idea that Gerry Francis would sit and look at a winning lottery ticket for a week thinking of all the problems he would face if he claimed the money is one I’ve ventured already in copy this week with regard to his cautious introduction of Kevin Gallen to first team affairs. Looking down this list of great games, a substantial amount of them came after Rangers had fallen behind and then had the leash removed as they went in search of an equaliser. How much better off would we have been had Gerry been more willing to go for victories more often rather than being so cautious? Probably a harsh argument to explore. Anyway one such day where a quiet second half and first goal against blossomed into an all singing, all dancing, hooped festival of football was at Carrow Road towards the end of 1993/94. QPR don’t have a good record in carrot crunching land and when Ian Crook crossed for Efan Ekouko to head home and give Norwich a half tme lead it seemed like business as usual. But in the second half Rangers, in an unusual blue and white hooped with blue shorts (rather than white) ensemble took the game to the home side and ran out miraculous 4-3 winners. First Simon Barker turned the ball in from Wilkins’ corner, and although Ekouko put Norwich back in front with a spectacular 30 yard lob on the run over Jan Stejskal who had a rush of blood to the head and came to meet him miles out of his penalty area, Penrice headed in a second equaliser after Devon White flicked on at the near post. Penrice doubled his total and put Rangers in front for the first time when Sinclair broke up a scrappy passage of play and accelerated into space before delivering the perfect cross and although Mark Bowen scored a fine goal for the hosts in injury time the goal of the game from Rangers had been scored in the meantime. Any goal from Devon White is amusing, but to see him stride onto a through ball from Holloway like an ungainly giraffe and confidently stroke the ball past Bryan Gunn and into the net from the edge of the area was really quite something. He ran to the Rangers fans, pumping his fists and showing his bright white teeth in a broad smile as the away end threatened to descend into complete euphoria. A fantastic awayday was had by all. White only tended to play when Les Ferdinand was injured, and at the start of the following season that was the case. News came through to the pub that there would be no Ferdinand for the game, and that Sieb Dykstra would be making his debut in goal in front of the rightly maligned Tony Roberts. “Never fear,” said the travelling party, “big Devon will fall over the ball from a yard out and score the winner like he did last year.” And indeed he did, although this time it was in the wrong net to put the seal on a Darren Eadie dominated 4-2 defeat. 4 - QPR 4 Everton 2, December 26, 1992 One fixture that is being mentioned repeatedly in the “what are you looking forward to most” threads on our message board at the moment is the away trip to Everton – a proper old club with a proper stadium full of character. There’s little wonder QPR fans are drawn to games with the Toffees because our record against them in the Premiership is remarkable (we even beat them 3-0 at home just before we were relegated) and there are two matches with Everton in this countdown. On Boxing Day 1992 Howard Kendall brought his Everton side to W12 to take on Gerry’s men. The game had been progressing nicely, with nothing out of the ordinary. Ferdinand and Barker were both denied by tremendous saves from veteran goalkeeper Neville Southall and Rangers seemed to be having marginally the better of things until midway through the first half. Then, the whole game changed. A ball over the top of the always rather one paced Dave Watson had the Everton captain in trouble – running back towards his own goal chasing a bouncing ball with Les Ferdinand providing a menacing running mate. Southall recognised the danger and sprung from his line but he came too far too soon and a situation quickly developed where the goalkeeper was outside his area, Watson was accelerating towards him, Ferdinand had pound signs in his eyes and disaster was inevitable. Watson headed the ball to Southall who instinctively caught it three yards outside his area. New rules brought in that summer made it a mandatory red card, referee Gerald Ashby obliged and Everton were forced to introduce young Australian Jason Kearton for his debut from the bench – he would go on to play for many years, including several times against Rangers, with Crewe. Kearton started well, saving the resulting free kick from Bardsley, and later denying Simon Barker with a fine save from a flying header. However the rebound from that second chance fell loose to Ady Sinton who scored from close range and then in the second half Kearton showed his naivety by coming right out into the same sort of territory Southall had perished in, allowing Penrice to round him and find the empty net from an acute angle. Things went from bad to worse for Everton when Paul Rideout was sent off and Sinton made it 3-0 with a low finish from Bardsley’s cross. So far, so one sided. But Kendall threw on young Stuart Barlow, who like Kearton would go on to enjoy great times a division lower with Tranmere, and he beat the offside trap to score once, then unbelievably lobbed in a heavily deflected second after Vinny Samways had powerfully robbed Sinton of possession in his own half. The ultimate comeback was on for the nine men, and it needed Sinton’s only ever senior hat trick, finished with a powerful first time volley from the edge of the box, to calm the nerves and seal the points. 5 - Everton 3 QPR 5, Easter 1993 Sinton’s was the first in a unique run of three hat tricks in three games by QPR players against Everton. A season later Bradley Allen crafted a wonderful treble for himself in a team performance that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a highlights compilation of some of the Dutch total football sides of yesteryear. In the intervening period the Toffees fell victim to Les Ferdinand who, fresh from a hat trick against Forest on Easter Saturday, bagged another three two days later at Goodison Park. Andy Impey opened the scoring from long range but Tony Cottee headed in an equaliser from a corner to restore parity. From then on it was the Ferdinand show – his first effort was a powerful, determined strike after he reached a loose ball in the area, the second a relative tap in after Southall dropped a cross at his feet, and the third a beautifully crafted goal after nice build up by Sinton and Allen that even drew applause from Everton fans behind the goal. They weren’t so fulsome with their praise when David Bardsley drilled in a free kick to make it 5-1 and although Stuart Barlow once again and Precki added some respect to the scoreline Rangers were magnificent and thoroughly deserved a 5-3 victory. 6 - QPR 3 Leeds 2 It’s easy to forget, given how it turned out with him blowing the Ferdinand money and relegating us, that when Ray Wilkins was appointed as manager it was a decision met with almost unanimous support from players and fans. He’d actually been linked with the job way back when Trevor Francis left and he had just arrived from Rangers and although by the time Gerry resigned he was actually playing for Crystal Palace his return, in a bright red suit jacket, was seen as the right course of action. His first game at Loftus Road was a fixture with Leeds. Rangers had obviously gone through a terrible upheaval, hadn’t started the season very well at all, and had lost their previous two away games at Newcastle and Blackburn conceding six on the process. This was a ding song encounter in the best Rangers style with Les Ferdinand hammering in the first goal and then made it two from a Kevin Gallen cross. Simple? Not on your life. After half time Gary Kelly played Brian Deane into the right channel and his low cross was farcically turned into his own net by Alan McDonald, who nutmegged Dykstra more perfectly than he ever could have managed had he intended to do so. Gallen restored the two goal lead when he went round Lukic and then calmly controlled the ball on the byline on his thigh and then hooked it into the roof of the net. Brian Deane ensured a nervous finish by making it 3-2 but the R’s hung on to get Wilkins off to a winning start. 7 - West Ham 0 QPR 4, 1993 The conventional wisdom now seems to be for promoted sides to strike while the iron is hot and get as many points on the board early on in the season as possible. Hull stayed up in their first season after an unbelievable start that had them fourth in the lague after ten games, despite only winning once in the entire second half of the season. But back in the day I remember it often being said that the best time to play the newly promoted sides was early, before they had fully adapted to the pace of the new league and so it proved here with a demolition of the newly promoted Hammers at Upton Park. The Hammers finished second behind Newcastle in the First Division the year before to take their place in the top flight, but made a nervous start to life back at the top table with a 2-0 home defeat by Wimbledon on day one followed by a win against Sheff Wed, a defeat by Leeds and a draw at Coventry. Despite that there wasn't much indication of what was about to come their way as Gerry Francis' men rolled into town. Indeed by half time it was only 1-0 to the R's, Darren peacock powerfully heading home Ray Wilkins' corner, but Rangers cut loose in the second half. A beautifully executed free kick routine saw Wilkins chest a Bardsley delivery off to Penrice who knocked it in behind a static backline and Ferdinand nipped in to toe it past Miklosko and in. Then Peacock caused more problems from a corner, this time flicking on for Penrice who controlled, swivelled and smacked in a third. And finally Ferdinand raced into a through ball from Trevor Sinclair, tormented Miklosko by pushing the ball past him, dribbling back on himself, taking the keeper on for a second time and then finally finishing powerfully into the gaping net as the home fans sang "what a load of rubbish" at their beleaguered players. 8 – Arsenal 1 QPR 3, New Year’s Day 1994 There’s just something about games over the holiday period that stir something in the soul. We have a Boxing Day and a New Year’s Day game in this countdown and there have been some belting Christmas fixtures for Rangers down the years. This game, in 1994, is forever remembered as the game when John Jensen finally scored after the thick end of 100 games for the Gunners without a goal. The morning papers splashed pictures of him everywhere and the vast majority of the column inches were reaction to the Jensen goal with only passing mention to the fact that QPR actually won the game. Even the bloody You Tube footage available now only has the Jensen goal. Somebody should have pointed out that with Tony Roberts in goal, goals against QPR should probably only have counted half – this was the day the A Kick Up The R’s issue with the headline “maybe we should start using a ball with a bell in it” dedicated to our beleaguered and rather accident prone keeper was released. Kevin Gallen gave Rangers a first half lead from a Ferdinand cross bringing to an end a run of four straight 0-0 draws between the sides. Jensen equalised but rookie goalkeeper Vince Bartram shipped late goals to Impey and Allen to seal a superb QPR win down at the Clock End. 9 - Leeds 1 QPR 3, 1995 A rare entry from our relegation season, but an equally rare win at Elland Road back in the days when it was still fairly intimidating rather than half closed. Leeds had been the champions of England in the last season of the old First Division but had found themselves overtaken by Manchester United, big spending Blackburn and even QPR, Villa and Norwich as the Premiership had sprung into life. By 1995 they were a steady midtable side with a smattering of flair players like Tony Yeboah and Phil Massinger - the latter had scored twice in a 4-0 demolition of Rangers on this ground the year before. QPR arrived sporting their navy blue and white pin striped away shirt for the first time (Ash named it his second favourite kit of the era in a run down earlier this week) having made a poor start to the season - Wimbledon and Sheff Wed had already won comfortably at Loftus Road and the R's were struggling without the now departed Les Ferdinand. Ray Wilkins entrusted Danny Dichio with the job of replacing Ferdinand and while that was a tough ask that he wasn't really up to, he did have a reasonable season for player of his age and experience. He was magnificent here, nipping in front of Lukic to lob in from a tight angle in the first half and then ramming home a second in the second half after Lukic had turned aside Sinclair's well struck drive. By that stage Sinclair had scored himself, a six pass move was continued when Simon Osbourn launched into a powerful tackle on the edge of the area and the ball fell to Sinclair who finished well. A late David Wetherall header ruined Jurgeon Sommer's debut clean sheet but another away win a week later against Bolton boosted morale and expectation among the QPR fans before a dire winter ensured relegation after all. Lukic got his revenge with an oustandin individual display that included a penalty save in a 2-1 win for Leeds at Loftus Rod later that season. 10 - QPR 3 Middlesbrough 3, 1992 QPR’s finish of fifth in the Premiership, top London club, in 1992/93 has always been hailed as a great achievement but were it not for a Sky hoodoo and an unfathomable ability to leak stupid goals it could have been so, so much better. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that we could have been runners up that year. Few games summed up the Achilles heel of that side more than the October home match with newly promoted Middlesbrough. Few could have foreseen the cliff-hanger outcome at half time when Rangers trailed 1-0 to centre half Alan Kernaghan’s headed goal from a Jimmy Phillips corner but an astonishingly good header from Ferdinand, who rose above Kernaghan to find the bottom corner with Andy Sinton’s cross from 15 yards out, seemed to set Rangers on course for the victory they were expected to achieve. Not so, from the kick off the defence capitulated again and Tommy Wright raced in to put Boro back in front. Rangers came back a second time when Gary Penrice chased a lost cause into the corner, hooked the ball back over Derek Whyte’s head as he tried to shepherd it out for a goal kick, carried the ball into the six yard box and then rolled it gently past Horne in the Middlesbrough goal who should have done better. Having fought so hard to get back in the game twice Gerry Francis must have been tearing his hair out at the marking which allowed Falconer to sail in round the back of the defence and head home a third Boro goal with six minutes remaining. This all preceded an astonishing passage of play in stoppage time where Impey saw a bullet header from Bardsley’s deep cross tipped onto the underside of the bar by Horne, bounce down on the goal line and then out again. Boro failed to clear and as Sinton swooped he was felled for a last gasp penalty which he converted himself. A superb game, fiercely entertaining, but the latest in a long line of missed opportunities that season. A few that didn’t make it… The completion of the double against Arsenal in the 1993/94 season, again by a 3-1 scoreline, was on the shortlist but not selected. As was one of my all time favourite QPR performances in the 2-1 home win against Liverpool on Monday night football which I excluded because of the circumstances surrounding the game that lead to the departure of Gerry Francis. The first half of Les’ Easter hat tricks, a 4-3 win against Nottingham Forest where Rangers led, trailed and finally won, also made the short list along with the Bradley Allen hat trick game at Goodison. Strangely a defeat almost made the ten, Les’ return to W12 with Newcastle when he got away from Danny Maddix once all afternoon and scored. Ragers actually played superbly well that day, Ferdinand’s replacement Danny Dichio in particular and his brace seemed set to seal a point for the R’s until Sommer and Ready got in a dreadful mess at the Loft End and presented Keith Gillespie with the softest winning goal of all time. Later that season Sommer made amends with an astounding goalkeeping display in a 1-0 win at home to Aston Villa which was also considered. Own Goals and GaffesThe laughable Alan McDonald own goal against Leeds in Ray Wilkins’ first home match in charge brought back memories of a few other disasters both for and against during our stay in the Premiership. Les Ferdinand has been mentioned in God like terms a fair bit this week, but he got in on the act at the wrong end with a fine glancing header at Wimbledon one wet and rainy Monday night in late 1993 – Alan McDonald got him out of jail with an equaliser at the other end. There was also a head in hands moment for Steve Yates against an eventually relegated Ipswich side at the start of the 1994/95 season – Boncho Genchev scored the other in an abysmal 2-1 defeat. But in happier circumstances Andy Pearce’s ridiculous sliced clearance at the Loft End for Coventry sent the ball into the net in our favour despite him facing, and kicking, in the opposite direction. Paul McGraph for Villa in 1993 in a 2-2 draw was one of two disasters he had against Rangers, the other was allowing Dichio to nip in behind him and score at the start of 1994/95 (drink is not your friend children) and Phil Gee for Leicester at Filbert Street on a night when Rangers had Trevor Sinclair sent off and conceded an equaliser in stoppage time also raised a smile. Tweet me @loftforwords, it's better than work. QPR’s Premiership Years Links >>> Best goals scored >>> Best Moments >>> Best opponents >>> Worst Kits >>> Best Kits >>> Worst Moments Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
You need to login in order to post your comments |
   Blogs 31 bloggersQueens Park Rangers Polls[ Vote here ] |
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.We in turn value your personal details in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
