What a wonderful headline that is! The following match report was written by Reg Drury and appeared in the ‘News of the World’ the day after our historic win at Wembley in 1967:
‘Queen’s Park Rangers made a mockery of their Third Division status with a magnificent fighting comeback to win Wembley’s first League Cup final after being two goals down – both scored by their former outside-left Clive Clark.
Only in the delirium that followed England’s World Cup triumph has Wembley witnessed the kind of wild enthusiasm that climaxed this astonishing triumph by the little team from Loftus Road.
But Mark Lazarus’s winner in the 84th minute brought strong protests from Albion whose keeper was floored by Ron Hunt as Lazarus raced in to score.
Jimmy Hagan, Albion manager, refused to allow reporters to interview his team and said he did not wish to discuss the Sheppard/Hunt clash.
Rangers need not be overawed at the thought of entering the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. They had an Albion defence, so composed in the first-half, at panic stations for long spells.
Twice keeper Dick Sheppard saved his side with an outstretched leg to stop close range shots from Mike Keen and Lazarus following corner kicks by Les Allen.
But Rangers’ big breakthrough came after 64 minutes when the running battle between Lazarus and Albion skipper Graham Williams brought a free kick to the Londoners on the edge of the penalty area. Allen lofted the ball into the middle and Roger Morgan beat Sheppard with his header.
Eleven minutes later the rampant Rangers were level. And it was their stylish goal star Rodney Marsh who did the trick. Taking a pass from Keen in his stride, Marsh went past three opponents in almost nonchalant style and his low shot from 20 yards ripped into the net off the inside of a post.
Albion hardly knew what had hit them and, with six minutes left the rampaging Lazarus snatched the winner in a goalmouth melee. Keeper Sheppard was k.o’d as he was challenged by Rangers’ centre-half Hunt.
As the ball rebounded, Lazarus was on it in a flash to drive it into the net and referee Crossley waved aside all the Albion protests as he dramatically signalled the winning goal.
Yet nobody in the ground could have visualised such an ending at half-time. By then Clive Clark, the outside-left Rangers originally sold over six years ago, seemed to have ended the glory hopes of his old club.
Clark grabbed his goals with ease. The first was sparked off by West Brom right-back Bobby Cram and carried on by Bobby Hope.
The second was almost too simple to be true. With Jim Langley keeping the Albion attack onside, it was suddenly three against one and John Kaye and Tony Brown opened up the way for Clark to run on and beat Springett from a few yards.’
It was also noted that Reg Drury had predicted on 13th November that: ‘Best value-for-money bet at the moment are odds of 10 to 1 against QPR winning the League Cup. They are drawn at home to Carlisle in the quarter-finals and in their present form they are capable of landing the trophy.’
With 90 R’s fans in attendance last Tuesday evening, there was a very enjoyable ‘Stars of ’67’ event at Loftus Road, when Mark Lazarus and the Morgan twins spoke about our historic League Cup run.
Well done to the Club for organising this and hopefully there will be further similar events in the future.
Steve Russell
A nice piece Steve – I wonder if anyone took up Reg Drury’s tip in November 1966?! I thought the ‘Stars of ’67’ evening was excellent and agree that follow up events would be terrific