Independent Rs Messageboard

[Steve Russell]

My 69 Years Of Support For QPR FC - Part One

The date, Saturday 7th September 1957, Harold Macmillan the British Prime Minister informed me
that I had, “Never had it so good” and dressed in my smart short grey flannel trousers and school blazer
flushed with two shillings a week pocket money, perhaps he was right.

Furthermore, as a bonus, I was being taken to my first ever football match at Loftus Road, QPR v Brighton & Hove
Albion in Football League Division 3 (South)

My Father was a shift worker in those days and even worse, a Fulham supporter so I was attending the match with my
best friend, Mick Stone and his Father. Although Mick and I were both eight year olds, unlike me, Mick was already
hardened to R’s culture and adversity.

The previous week he had travelled to Southend to see us lose 6-0 and was around during the 1956/57 campaign to
witness the departure of our star winger, Mike Hellawell to Birmingham City. What, QPR FC selling their star wingers
to other Clubs? Can this be?

We stood over the top of the Ellerslie Road terrace exit and watched the white shirts/navy shorts of the Rangers lose
1-0 to the yellow shirts of the Albion. The red jersey of Keeper Ron Springett suffered minor bloodstains as he cut his
arm in a clash with a Brighton Forward..so as Mao Tse-tung once said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a
single step.”

Thereafter for the remainder of 1957 up to 1962, the Boys Pen was my domain. In those days, young kids could go to
the match with their friends. The admission was cheap and in the main we were all within easy walking distance from
the Ground.

The Journeymen team of the late 1950’s (no offence to Pat Woods, Tony Ingham, Keith Rutter, George Petchey, Peter Angell,
Ron Springett, Bobby Cameron, Pat Kerrins etc, you were all my heroes) evolved under the management of Alec Stock into
the nearly men of the early 1960’s.

Oh the pain of those promotion near misses in 1960/61 and 1961/62, Clive Clark, John Collins, Brian Bedford, John McClelland,
Bernard Evans et al, you deserved better reward and personally, I could have done without all that childhood trauma as well.

Yes, the great might have been. The taste of many a fine cheese roll from the Loftus Road Tea Bar and the exciting sounds of
the tannoy Pop Music (courtesy of WG Stores in Shepherd’s Bush Market) was not much compensation. Love is blind.

In any proper relationship, you have to accept ‘Warts and All’ but believe me folks, it was virtually ‘All Warts’ for the 1962/63,
1963/64 and 1964/65 Seasons. The fans hoped for the best and the players tried their best.

The Club made an attempt to move into an up-market venue at the White City. We even had a rich millionaire, John Bloom,
desperate to takeover.

Alas, success there was none. President Kennedy was shot but looking on the bright side, on that very same weekend, the
R’s came back from being 4-1 down to get a 4-4 draw at Luton!

Take a bow Stuart Leary, Terry McQuade and Malcolm Graham) and through it all our goal scoring icon, Brian Bedford, carried
on regardless.

It was still far too much teenage angst for me, surely better days were coming soon? Cilla Black seemed to think so and yes
a sweet Loftus Road lullaby was on its way.

Bernard Lambert (Kerrins)

Checking the record books, the attendance for Kerrins first game was 11,139 and the team lined up as follows:- Springett,
Woods, Ingham, Petchey, Rutter, Andrews, Kerrins, Longbottom, Finney, Smith and Angell. Cecil Andrews was nicknamed
‘Archie’ after the well known ventriloquist and moved to Sittingbourne after the arrival of Alec Stock.

Edward Smith was born in Marleybone and played part time as he owned a number of Newsagents in London. Charlie Finney
was born in Stoke and only played 10 league games for the R’s, scoring one goal before his transfer to Crewe Alexandria.

The other players who turned out that day are more familiar. The Brian Bedford pic is a Press photo from the match at
Loftus Road against Newport County in September 1960.

‘Quality, Progress, Realisation’ that’s what the 1962/63 Season Ticket application stated. Inside, were details of the
Stadium’s amenities such as:-

Continuous covering all round the Ground

Seats for nearly 11,000 and a “comfortable” capacity of 51,000

First class restaurants for meals before and after the game

Snack bars and licensed bars plus good sanitary arrangements

The White City’s centrally situated Olympic Enclosure offers access by lifts, escalators and stairs to wonderful lush lounges,
bars and buffets. There are 300 numbered seats in the heated, glass fronted enclosure. It was also stated that an Open Day
would be held when ‘interested supporters can inspect all facilities’

In stark contrast, just a few years earlier, the 1958/59 Handbook includes an article titled, ‘No More Drips’:-

‘Something of a major operation was carried out during the close Season when a complete new roof was fitted to the
Main Stand.

No more will Stand patrons have to turn their coat collars up when the rain is pelting down (an incessant drip down one’s
neck can be most irritating), no more will a shower of rust descend on the unhappy occupants when a hefty clearance results
in the ball thudding on sheets of corrugated iron which have long ceased to warrant the term ‘galvanised’. Instead a gleaming
new roof awaits them..’

The White City dream wasn’t to last very long but as the Club enters a new era it may once again signal further talk of moving
to a new Stadium?

[Conor Campbell]

Amazing to have followed the club for seven decades. You must have racked up a tonne of games.

Are you all from multi-generation QPR families or are any of of you the first / only R in your family?

[Steve Russell]

My Dad took me to my first game in 1958 whilst
we were living in the Bush.

He started following Rangers when the Club moved
to W12.

[Kerrins]

Connor My Grandfather (born in the reign of Queen Victoria) and my late father (born 1915)
were both Fulham supporters. Remember no QPR FC in the Shepherd's Bush area till 1917!
I am the original lol

[Bill Elkins]

A wonderful story of your young recollections Kerrins.

Personally I attended my first QPR game at age 13 with my Dad in 1960 v Southampton
(who eventually finished the season as Division 3 champions).

I stood in the old 'Boys Pen' as was called behind the goal, in what is is now commonly known
as the Loft, with Dad leaning on the wall just behind.

I still have the match programme which QPR lost 1-0. No change there then

[ESSEXURs]

I also started going to the Rs in the late fifties and I had an Rs supporting dad.
Bernie and I became regulars and “enjoyed” many away trips in those days.

I know my dad was a regular supporter for some years before I started and I always
regret not asking him about the early days. My family lived in several areas of West London
and my dad’s father may have supported Rs in the early days living in places like Latimer Rd.

Young Kerrins has beaten me to the reminiscing. I might still do one. You have been warned!

[Conor Campbell]

Great to hear how you are all so richly steeped in Rs histories and experiences.

I enjoy reading your accounts of days gone by.

[Steve Russell]

Part two...

A new dawn has broken has it not? These words which were spoken by Tony Blair in May 1997
would have been far more appropriate had they been said by a certain Mr J. Gregory, the ambitious
new Chairman at the start of the 1965/66 football Season.

Yes, ‘Uncle Jim’ was taking us forward big time! There were new signings, Langley, Allen, Sanderson,
Watson, Marsh together with fresh Youth players like, Sibley, Hunt, Hazell, Leach, the Morgan twins
and Peter Springett plus some ‘old school’ like Keen and Lazarus. Hooray! We had the team, we had
the fans and we had the money too!

The sighting shot of the 65/66 Division 3 promotion hard luck story, was followed by devastating direct
hits. Firstly, the Division 3 Championship and League Cup trophies of 1967 then the photo finish promotion
to our first ever top flight football in 1968. Hallelujah!

Unfortunately, we were promptly evicted from the ‘promised land’ in 1969. We were though, unlucky in
many games and were not as bad as our record suggests. Also, Rodney Marsh was missing for nearly six months.

We got away with his long term injury the previous Season but it was too much to ask amongst the elite.

In the 1970’s, my jacket lapels and ties got wider. My hair grew longer and my team grew even greater.
QPR FC were a force in the Land. Jago, Leach, Venables, Mancini, Parkes, Clement, Gillard, Masson, McLintock,
Webb, Thomas, Francis, Hollins, Bowles, Givens, Sexton, carve their names with pride.

Many of the best teams in England (and some in Europe too) were being taken on and beaten by a classy blue
and white hooped soccer machine from Loftus Road. This was indeed superb football of a type never before seen
by any R’s supporter but what happened to the just and proper reward? Wither the silverware we so richly deserved?

It was not to be found in the Division 2 promotion near miss of 71/72, the Division 2 second position of 72/73, the
6th Round, 2-0 FA Cup defeat to Leicester of 1974 and certainly not in the Football League Championship runners-up
spot of 1975/76.

They say that a week is a long time in politics but 15 minutes is an agonising eternity in an end of Season football
match you know!

There was no joy either in the League Cup semi-final replay defeat by Aston Villa nor the UEFA Cup quarter-final exit
to AEK Athens on penalties, both in the 1976/77 Season.

After the Lord Mayor’s Show came the lull which was followed by relegation from Division One. The stars of the
seventies had moved on and I too had moved on geographically speaking, to the wet of Manchester to a new residence
and a new career.

Was I leaving Rangers behind? Never on your life, I was taking Queen’s Park Rangers Football Club with me!

Bernard Lambert (Kerrins)