QPR face Lincoln City at Loftus Road on Saturday - a first competitive meeting since 1972 and first encounter as league equals since 1962.

Memorable Match

Queens Park Rangers 4 Lincoln City 2, Tuesday October 5, 1972, League Cup Third Round

We’re a little thin on the ground for history this week as QPR and Lincoln City meet for only the seventh time in their history, the first time since 1972, and the first time as league equals since 1962.

The last clash between these footballing titans came in the League Cup in the 1971/72 season. QPR had been transformed as a club by a surge through two promotions and a famous League Cup win at Wembley in 1967 under the great Alec Stock. A first ever tilt at the First Division had proven infamously too much too soon (just four wins all season long) but Jim Gregory’s inspirational chairmanship and the redevelopment of Loftus Road meant the 1970s would be a golden era for the club.

They finished fourth in Division Two in 1971/72, and then won promotion a year later second behind Burnley. This a team with up and coming stars like Phil Parkes, Dave Clement and Gerry Francis who would form the electric heart of the club’s outstanding 75/76 side which came so agonisingly close to winning the league championship under Dave Sexton, alongside some of the best of the 60s cup winners such as Rodney Marsh (16 goals for the season) and the Morgan twins.

For now, with another brilliant manager Gordon Jago in the dugout, Rangers had cruised through a second round game against Birmingham City with goals from Francis and Marsh to win a round three time at home to Fourth Division Lincoln. The Imps on a considerable slide from the Division Two high of 1961, finishing 24th and 22nd on three occasions in the bottom division and surviving the dreaded re-election process of the time.

There’s a phenomenal amount of detail on this game available from the Lincoln perspective from The Stacey West Blog who I’ve enjoyed collaborating with since their promotion in the summer. Their fortunes had improved rather leading into the game, up to seventh in the table and knocking out Third Division Blackburn in the prior round under the guidance of David Herd. They included a young Graham Taylor among their number.

Francis set up Ian Morgan for what felt like a routine first half opener before Freeman forced one over the line, possibly with his hand, from close range for an equaliser. Rangers were back in front before half time when Andy McCulloch scrambled one in from a corner. Marsh seemingly put the game beyond the visitors before half time with a penalty awarded for handball but Lincoln fought back in the second with a goal from Phil Hubbard to halve the deficit. Frank Saul, not a frequent scorer of QPR goals (six in total over two seasons) finally made sure of things with a fourth.

Sadly the R’s were eliminated in the next round by Bristol Rovers after a replay. They did go on and finish fourth in the league, mind.

QPR: Parkes, Clement, Gillard, Venables, Hunt, Hazell, I Morgan, Francis, McCulloch, Marsh, Saul
Sub: Ferguson
Goals: I Morgan, McCulloch, Marsh pen, Saul

Lincoln: Kennedy, Bloor, Taylor, McMahon, Branston, Trevis, Meath, Hubbard, Freeman, Gilliver, Smith
Sub: Kennedy
Goals: Freeman, Hubbard

Attendance: 12,723

Past Results

Head to Head >>> QPR wins 4 >>> Draws 1 >>> Lincoln wins 1

1971/72 QPR 4 Lincoln 2* (I Morgan, McCulloch, Marsh, Saul)
1961/62 Lincoln 0 QPR 5 (Lazarus 2 Towers 2, Collins)
1961/62 QPR 1 Lincoln 3 (Evans)
1948/49 Lincoln 0 QPR 0
1948/49 QPR 2 Lincoln 0 (Hatton, Gibbons)
1929/30 QPR 2 Lincoln 1** (Burns 2)

* - League Cup
** - FA Cup

Connections

Mark Kennedy >>> QPR (loan) 1998 >>> Lincoln (manager) 2022-2023

The appearance of the artist formerly known as Kyle Walker back at Loftus Road on Tuesday night sparked much (well, some) debate on just who was QPR’s greatest ever loan signing.

Walker is almost certainly the correct answer for his starring role in Neil Warnock’s 2010/11 promotion season – a three month stint that was enough to see him named in the club’s team of the decade at right back, such was his impact.

For fans of a certain vintage though, the name of Mark Kennedy always figures high in the thinking on this one. A teenage sensation in Mick McCarthy’s mid-90’s Millwall side which made a speciality out of big cup upsets against rival London sides (Chelsea and Arsenal high profile victims, Kennedy scoring the winner at Highbury), the Irish winger was picked up by Liverpool on deadline day 1995 for a fee eventually rising to £2.3m – then the most expensive teenager in British football history would you believe.

Liverpool were not the force then that they had been before or would be again but Kennedy nevertheless found first team opportunities limited (just five starts and 16 sub appearances across three years). QPR, meanwhile, were starting to get desperate. Relegated from the Premier League in 1996 they’d spent a significant amount of money on a substantial amount of tat under the ambitious but foolhardy ownership of Chris Wright. With a return to the big time, or anything close to it, proving beyond the disparate collection assembled for Stewart Houston and later Ray Harford, things started to head south on the league table and on the balance sheet.

Houston did appear to have briefly cracked it at the start of 1997/98 when another expensive summer intake, led by Mike Sheron from Stoke for a then club record fee, won five of six games through September to briefly top the table. But with the obscure relationship between him and assistant Bruce Rioch winning few training ground friends there would only be two wins in the next 14 games. He was dismissed in mid-November and although John Hollins got a bit of a cough out of the team during a popular spell as caretaker things continued to crater after the controversial poaching of Ray Harford from West Brom on the back of a boardroom promise earlier in the season that “I’d definitely get promoted with your strikers”. Ho, ho, ho.

Harford scraped a dire 1-0 home win against Bradford in a live Sky game but then went another eight without success. Kennedy was procured on loan from Anfield at the end of January and made an explosive impact in QPR colours. He scored two fabulous individual goals in a 3-2 home win against Crewe – the first, from the far corner of the penalty box, coming just seconds after Jason Kearton had made an incredible save to deny him from even further out

A week later he was setting one up for Iain Dowie at West Brom (the quality of the forward line had declined somewhat from its September highs) and there was the surprise 5-0 annihilation of Middlesbrough still to come in which the Irish winger played a starring role. Seven points which would ultimately go a long way to keeping Rangers up – they survived with one game to spare with six draws in a row culminating in the Jamie Pollock own goal at Maine Road, but won none of their final ten.

Unfortunately with the money spent and administration not a million miles away, finds to sign Kennedy permanently were not available and he would eventually move to Wimbledon for a couple of million quid. A decent but somewhat nomadic career never really hit the heights his teenage years had promised, though he had very decent spells with Wolves, Ipswich, Cardiff and Man City among others as well as winning 34 caps for the Republic of Ireland.

His Lincoln connection is less of a happy story. The Imps, steadily rising since the Cowleys had brought them out of non-league and back into the EFL in 2017, had won promotion into League One in 2019 despite the influential managerial duo moving on. Bank rolled by an insane run to the FA Cup quarter finals, Michael Appleton was able to slide into the hot seat at Sincil Bank, secure another promotion and then establish City in the third tier. A 17th placed finish in 2021/22 did not seem too bad in year three, but there was a mutual parting of the ways in may and Kennedy was the young, progressive choice to come in and replace.

Kennedy had cut his teeth and ‘done his badges’ in the systems at Man City, Ipswich and (briefly) Wolves as well as a stint assisting Lee Bowyer (rather you than me) at Birmingham City. Lincoln gave him a full time number one gig of his own for 2022/23 but progress remained disappointingly static. He managed 73 games for the Imps, winning 25 (34.2%) and finishing 11th in his one full season in charge. When they started the following year with a run of one win in eight he was dismissed and replaced by Michael Skubala.

The rest, for Lincoln at least, is history.

Others >>> Justin Obikwu, QPR 2026-present, Lincoln (loan) 2025 >>> Alfie Lloyd, QPR 2022-present, Lincoln (loan) 2026 >>> Mide Shodipo, Lincoln 2023-2024, QPR 2016-2023 >>> Charley Kendall, Lincoln 2023-2024, QPR 2016-2021 >>> Gareth Ainsworth, QPR (manager) 2023, 2003-2010, Lincoln 1995-1997 >>> Rob Dickie, QPR 2020-2023, Lincoln (loan) 2017-2018 >>> Macauley Bonne, QPR 2020-2023, Lincoln (loan) 2016 >>> Bruno Andrade, Lincoln 2018-2020, QPR 2010-2015 >>> Richard Pacquette, Lincoln 2012, QPR 2000-2004 >>> Pat Kanyuka, Lincoln 2011, QPR 2005-2008 >>> Chris Day, QPR 2001-2005, Lincoln (loan) 2004 >>> Ian Baraclough, QPR 1998-2001, Lincoln 1994-1996 >>> John Beck, Lincoln (manager) 1995-1997, QPR 1972-1976 >>> Devon White, QPR 1993-1994, Lincoln 1984-1986 >>> Steve Burke, QPR 1979-1986, Lincoln (loan) 1985 >>> Ray Harford, QPR (manager) 1997-1998, Lincoln 1967-1971

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Pictures - Ian Randall Photography

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