 Tuesday, 14th Jun 2011 21:44 by Clive Whittingham QPR slipped out of the top flight just as the influx of talented foreign players was really stepping up, but still faced a plethora of seriously talented opposition players during their time there. Top Ten Best… Players we faced1 - Alan Shearer (Blackburn) I couldn’t help but smile when a home match with Blackburn Rovers in 1994 was introduced on the season video as the clash between QPR and “the twenty million pound team.” These days you get one decent player for that amount, but back then Blackburn were the Chelsea and Man City of the day, riding their way to an eventual title winning season on the back of Jack Walker’s steel fortune. Shearer was the headline purchase, £3.6m plus David Speedie from Southampton in 1992, and having given QPR fans a taste of what was to come in his Saints days with a goal at Loftus Road in the 1991/92 season he ripped Rangers apart time and again in the Premiership with Blackburn. In 1993/94 he rather cheekily, and somewhat illegally, made the most of Karl Ready’s naivety to collapse on the edge of the area and then curl the ball straight into the net with a quick free kick while Tony Roberts was still aligning his wall. Given Roberts’ tendency to build a wall and then stand behind it so he couldn’t see anything he’d probably have scored anyway but that was hardly the point. A year later, shortly after Gerry Francis’ departure, Shearer scored a hat trick in a 4-0 demolition of Rangers at Ewood Park that included a 30 yard pile driver in off the underside of the bar. Then at the start of the 1995/96 relegation season, on the opening day in fact, he conned referee Alan Wilkie into awarding him a penalty with a laughably theatrical dive over the back of David Bardsley as the ball flew in the opposite direction. QPR would be further aggrieved that match when Trevor Sinclair went through on goal only to be chopped down by Tim Flowers – the keeper was sent off, but by the time the free kick was taken Rovers had brought a replacement on, and brought the other nine outfield players back to defend it. Still, with seven Premiership goals against Rangers in eight encounters over four years it’s hard to argue he wasn’t consistently our toughest opponent. 2 - Ryan Giggs (Man Utd) Back in the days when Imogen Thomas thought her clunge was just for pissing out of Ryan Giggs was actually known for being an outstanding footballer - rather than a womanising, sex addicted, super injunction seeking Welsh equivalent of Tiger Woods. He’s played the game for so long, and reinvented himself so often, it’s almost difficult to remember what he was like back in the day. These days Giggs often plays in the centre of midfield, using his left foot like a magic wand to spray the ball this way and that in a cultured, almost artistic, manner. But when the Premiership first began he was an out an out winger; lightening fast and full of tricks. QPR never got to grips with him or Man Utd – Giggs has three Premiership goals against Rangers to his name including an outstanding individual effort at Loftus Road in February 1994 when he collected the ball midway inside the QPR half and ghosted past three players before hammering in his second goal of the game. Shame he doesn’t have the same control his knob. 3 - Matthew Le Tissier (Southampton) I find it impossible not to warm to Matthew Le Tissier – I liked him when he played, and I like him as a pundit. Even though he had a knack of scoring against QPR with monotonous frequency he was pretty entertaining with it – I remember a night match at Loftus Road where the referee held up his corner for some reason or other and he sat on the wall in front of Ellerslie Road and chatted with the QPR fans behind him for a minute. People said he lacked ambition by staying with Southampton, but he was clearly happy there and never went off to his regular suitors Man Utd and Chelsea in pursuit of greener grass and crisp bank notes. Throughout our time in the top flight he virtually ran the BBC Match of the Day Goal of the Season competition by himself. England never could find a proper use for his skills – justifiably refusing to build their side around him in the same way Southampton did – but he shone in an England B international at Loftus Road against Russia, scoring a hat trick in a game that also featured Paul Murray and Nigel Quashie would you believe. He was Southampton’s Les Ferdinand and it was no surprise to see them relegated within a couple of years of his retirement. He scored from close range in a 3-1 defeat on the opening night of the Premiership at Loftus Road, and repeated that feat in the quick fire return fixture at the Dell, which Rangers also won, three weeks late. In the relegation season of 1995/96 he registered a much more typical long range free kick that flew in past Tony Roberts from an impossible angle after David Bardsley had been harshly sent off for a non-existent elbowing offence. 4 - Dennis Bergkamp (Arsenal) Bergkamp only arrived on these shores at the start of the 1995/96 season when Bruce Rioch splashed £7.5m of Arsenal’s cash on the non-flying Dutchman. He scored 122 goals in 239 games for his boyhood club Ajax, winning the Dutch and UEFA Cups, before Inter Milan paid £12m for him and team mate Wim Jonk (who ended up at Sheff Wd bizarrely). He never settled at the San Siro despite another UEFA Cup win, playing in the same team as our former charge Mauro Milanese. It took him seven games to score his first goal for Arsenal, against Southampton, so at the time Rioch’s gamble looked risky but slowly Bergkamp crafted an image as one of the greatest players in the history of the English top flight, specialising in outrageous goals of quite supreme skill and vision – usually against Leicester. Whenever I saw Bergkamp live he strangely reminded me of standing behind the first tee at St Andrews one horrible Thursday morning watch Ernie Els about to set off on his first round of the British Open. It was still dark, the wind was whipping rain off the sea, a large gallery of early risers huddled together for warmth. Els calmly picked up his club, drew it three quarters of the way behind his back as if he could barely be bothered to lift it, swung lazily through an planted the ball plum centre of the fareway the best part of 300 yards away, then strolled off. It was easy for him, and it always looked easy for Bergkamp. He scored a goal at the School End at Loftus Road in 1996 that looked so simple despite it being anything but. A low, hard cross was fired in from the right and although Bergkamp had made a run into the near post the ball was actually slightly behind him. In one fluid movement he stopped, positioned his body, reached his leg back and hooked the ball powerfully into the roof of the net with no backlift whatsoever. Perhaps QPR should take the appearance of prolific Dutchmen at Loftus Road as a sign of impending doom, like Déjà vu in the Matrix. That Bergkamp goal was one of the last we conceded before being relegated from the Premiership. Five years later Bergkamp was back at Loftus Road with Arsenal, playing an exquisite role in the 6-0 destruction of another QPR side destined for relegation, this time out of the First Division. 5 - Teddy Sheringham (Spurs) Urgh, I loathe Teddy Sheringham. Kept Ferdinand out of the England team despite being an inferior player, and then joined Man Utd which immediately qualified him for the sycophantic do-no-wrong media coverage that comes with all players who pull on the red shirt and walk out at the “Theatre of Dreams.” I didn’t want to include him at all, and was pleased when my trawl of the season videos quickly turned up a penalty miss at White Hart Lane against Tony Roberts. But Sheringham had scored against Rangers at Loftus Road before that (albeit in a 4-1 defeat) and he scored later in that away match, and kept bloody scoring. He got seven Premiership goals against the R’s in total, and had already scored a couple against us for Forest in the old First Division days He left Forest in August 1992, after scoring the first televised Premiership goal against Liverpool, for £2.1m and Forest were subsequently relegated. All of this is pointing towards me being wrong as usual, and Sheringham being a damn fine player. His final act at Loftus Road as a Premiership player was to cynically dive over the back of Karl Ready in a Monday night football game that Rangers had led 2-0 but went on to lose 3-2. A very good player no doubt, but it’s making me feel angry and ill just writing about him so we move on. 6 - Peter Beardsley (Newcastle) Beardsley, like Matthew Le Tissier, was a difficult player and person to dislike even when he was taking QPR apart. He scored a fantastic goal at the School End for Newcastle, finishing off a one two with Andy Cole with a full volley off the underside of the bar in 1994 – a Super Sunday game memorable for, among other things, my Dad’s attendance less than 24 hours after his vasectomy. The spectacular goals continued a year later at S James’ Park when relegation haunted Rangers actually took a late lead through Ian Holloway only to succumbed to two splendid Beardsley goals in the last five minutes – although Andy Impey will know to this day that he had a chance to clear the ball away in the build up to the first one. When people thnk of Keegan’s Newcastle side first time round they talk about Ferdinand, Shearer, Asprilla, Ginola and others, forgetting just how good Beardsley was even then, at the end of his career. Four goals against Rangers in our Premiership years sees him ranked highly. 7 - Eric Cantona (Man Utd) And I’ll have to continue holding my stomach now as we move on to the player I hated most of any in our time in the Premiership. We know all about what Cantona was – maverick, genius, flawed, brilliant, turned a game at Old Trafford in 1993 where QPR had led through Bradley Allen completely on its head with a one man second half rescue act etc etc yadda yadda. Let’s just recount the story of the infamous goal at Loftus Road and move on because I couldn’t stand the twat then and time has done little to dim my disdain. QPR were propping up the bar in the last chance saloon when Man Utd came to Shepherds Bush in 1996. Games were running out for Ray Wilkins’ terribly naïve side and it was, by this point, the stage where unlikely results against superior opponents were required. There were none more superior at that time than Man Utd who arrived in the Bush chasing another league title – it wasn’t quite top v bottom, as whipping boys Bolton propped the table up, but it was as near as damn it. But QPR actually played well. Not only did they play well but they led going into injury time. Danny Dichio picked up a pass from Ian Holloway and curled it round Schmeichel – Dennis Irwin dived full length to clear it but could only divert it into the roof of the net. Rangers survived for the rest of the half and thought they’d done it. But referee Robbie Hart played, and played, and played, and played. We’ve all tutted and rolled our eyes at this ‘Fergie time’ concept over the years but this actually became farcical. Finally, just as the second reading of the classified football results was about to begin, Cantona stole in round the back and headed in an equaliser at which point Hart blew his final whistle before Rangers had even had a chance to move the ball out of the centre circle from the kick off. Robbie Hart is long since retired, the Durham official was in his last season at the time and legend has it that he was actually a Man Utd fan who was given the game as a special dispensation as one of his final outings. I don’t believe that, but I do believe I’d have difficulty applying the brakes in my car if I saw him crossing the road. He, and Cantona, broke my heart that afternoon and fostered a deep seated loathing of Manchester United that continues to engulf me to this day. If the residents of Barnet were wondering who that was wrapped in a Barcelona flag, playing Queen’s Barcelona at ear splitting volume, and hanging out of the window shouting pidgin Spanish in front of a pub of Cockney Reds during the recent hilarious Champions League final then look no further. It was me, and I’d do it again. 8 - Ruud Gullit (Chelsea) Of course most QPR fans feel the same way about Chelsea as I do about Man Utd. I’m starting to understand this now having lived here for a couple of months – I’ll never forget the three separate Chelsea shirted families in the Aberdeen Angus Steak House opposite Paddington station when we came back from Cardiff, all enjoying a meal while Chelsea were playing a home match five miles down the road, a match that was being screened live on Sky in the pub next door. Scum. But living in the north for the majority of my life, the hatred of our near neighbours passed me by somewhat. It does seem odd that their attendances could go from 8,000 people even in the early Premiership days, up to 42,000 now, and I dare say the majority of the current Stamford Bridge regulars started showing an interest around the time Ruud Gullit arrived. He played against QPR three times in our final Premiership season as Chelsea won twice at Loftus Road and drew with us at their place. The dreadlocks made him stand out a mile but he would glide around the pitch as if he was levitating a few inches off the ground and he just oozed class. Chelsea, with Gullit, Vialli and Zola, really stepped up the trend of bringing in foreign superstars to the Premiership and nearly bankrupted themselves doing it. 9 - Darren Eadie and Ruel Fox (Norwich) We finish with a couple of wild cards. QPR have been promoted this summer with Norwich City as our runners up, and although the Canaries have been back to the top flight for a solitary season since their 1995 demise I dare say their fans are approaching this new campaign with the same wide eyed excitement and nod to nostalgia that we’re doing. Like QPR, Norwich were surprise powerhouses in the early Premiership days –securing top five finishes and, in Norwich’s case, European football as well before inexplicably collapsing into the division below after one player sale too many. For us, Les Ferdinand’s departure brought about the end, for Norwich it was Chris Sutton. Like QPR, with Sinton, Impey and later Sinclair, Norwich possessed a couple of unbelievably skilful and effective wingers. Nobody, apart from perhaps Ryan Giggs, gave David Bardsley as tough a time in the Premiership as Darren Eadie whose career ground to a shuddering halt in the mid 1990s because of series injuries. Fox was their version of Impey, quick and deceptively good – he too should have made more of his career. 10 – John Sheridan, Chris Waddle, Mark Bright and Sheffield Wednesday in general What an absolute pain in the arse the Owls were for us the last time we were in the Premiership. It’s hard to imagine it now, as they languish in League One with Gary Megson at the helm, but Wednesday were knockout cup specialists and a damn fine team the last time we shared the top flight with them. Our old boss Trevor Francis was at the helm, which is probably what inspsired them to constantly beat QPR. Although Rangers did win their last two Premiership games at Hllsborough, from 1991 through 1994 it was an unmitigated tale of disaster for QPR. Chris Waddle was the headline grabber, and Mark Bright the frequent goalscorer, but John Sherdian was a class apart in the middle of midfield and Carlton Palmer always looked like a bloody world beater against us. We lost five consecutive games at Hillsborough, conceding 14 goals in the process including a 4-0 and a 4-1 defeat. They ended our promising League Cup run emphatically in 1992/93 and did so again at Loftus Road a year later, they won three of five Premiership era games in the Bush. It was inexplicable, a bogey team and a half. …and a few others for considerationChris Sutton is remembered more by the modern day supporter for his dreadful spell at Chelsea after a £12m move but earlier in his career, first for Norwich and then Blackburn, he was a prolific marksmen who won the Premiership. He scored against QPR for both clubs during our time in the top flight. Jurgeon Klinsmann didn’t score at all, mainly due to the fantastic man marking skills of Danny Maddix, but his overall contribution to a pretty dire Spurs team in the mid 1990s is worthy of mention. Likewise the performances of Crystal Palace goalkeeper Nigel Martyn, who played more than a fair role in the Eagles’ excellent run of results against Rangers that defied their status as a perennial yo-yo side. And our current assistant manager Keith Curle pops up repeatedly both as a composed defender, first class wind up merchant, and infuriatingly reliable penalty taker as you watch the season videos back through. Without wishing to stray too far into the ‘random Premiership footballer’ drinking game that I mentioned in the introduction to this week of fixtures Wimbledon’s Norwegian international Oyvind Leonhardsen scored three times against us in Dons colours, and Stuart Barlow had a bit of a knack against us as well – including two goals as a sub at Loftus Road in 1992 when Everton only had nine men left on the field. That match will feature in our ‘ten greatest games’ countdown tomorrow. Efan Ekouko was another Norwich, and later Wimbledon, player who became almost bull like at the sight of our blue and white hooped rag. Follow, follow, follow… follow @loftforwords on Twitter. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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