Just tortured myself by watching The Four Year Plan which got me thinking about the longevity of managers. Given we are now in the dreaded international break, I thought this might interest some of you. QPR's longest ever serving manager is.....drum roll........ No 1. Alec Stock. 9 years. 1959-68 with a win rate of 46.9% No 2. Dave Mangnall. 8 years and 60 days. 1944-52. Win rate 40%. No 3. Jack Taylor. 7 years. 1952-59. Win rate 34.6% No 4. James Howie. 6 years and 244 days. 1913-20. Win rate 36%. No 5. James Cowan. 6 years 242 days. 1906-13. Win rate 43.2% No 6. Ian Holloway. 6 years 161 days. 2001-06 and 2016 to present. Overall win rate 35.8%. Olly is the longest serving manager since Stock in 1968 and, given the current state of football, it seems unlikely that he could attain that level of longevity. Obviously I've cheated by aggregating Olly's two episodes of being QPR manager. Sadly, Olly has one of the worst win rates though there is some evidence that might change if we can maintain current form. At the other end of the spectrum, there are a few 'one day' wonders who were caretakers in between managers but the booby prize must go to Paul Hart who left after being proper manager for just 29 days. There is good evidence to demonstrate that Olly really is QPR through and through. I hope he can continue to improve things as we saw on Saturday. Disclaimer. All data from Wiki and not verified beyond that.
That’s all well and good, but could you now rank our managers by the only measure that matters. Girth.
I think that in Olly's defence, is that this time round he has financial restrictions on his head and has to cut the cloth accordingly, getting in freebies and off loading some of the purchases from the previous managers....sometimes players that nobody else really wants. when I looked at the, I was sure that Gerry Francis had been in charge longer that he had.
In addition to that in his first spell we had gone bust and were relegated and he had to build a new team entirely from scratch. Perhaps some forget just what a dire situation he guided us through. As they say, there are lies, damned lies and statistics...
I'll never forget his passion at the Oldham semi. 'This is a proper football club' screamed into the mic with hoarse voice and emotion.
The noise after the Furlong goal was something else. Never Experienced a roar like that before. Pundits go on about other clubs (Liverpool Kop blah blah blah) but that was something out of this World. As for Hollow and financial restrictions...I am glad we have never given him money TBH. I think he works best on small budget.
All the time we are the underdogs once again is fine for me ... that’s our position in life ... supporters just need to adjust from our recent funny times
