David Bardsley celebrates his 50th birthday today. Here is my tribute to one of QPR’s finest. Happy Birthday Bards. The early 1990s were a great time to be a QPR supporter, arguably this was our golden age. Don Howe’s astute guidance had securely established the club in the top flight, and the seemingly harsh decision to replace him with Gerry Francis had paid dividends with Rangers finishing 5th in the inaugural season of the Premiership. QPR boasted an impressive array of talent: the awesome attacking prowess of “Sir” Les Ferdinand who had scored 20 goals in only 37 appearance that season, the evergreen Ray Wilkins who was playing some of the finest football his career, skilful England winger Andy Sinton and the shockingly underrated left back Clive Wilson to name but a few. However the player that received the acknowledgment and acclaim of his fellow professionals by being selected for their Premier League Team of the Season was David John Bardsley. He is the only QPR player to have achieved this recognition. In the months immediately following his £475,000 transfer from Oxford United, David Bardsley must have been rueing his decision to join QPR. Despite ......... read on http://rollercoasterranger.wordpress.com/2014/09/11/david-bardsley-qpr-first-and-foremost/
That 92-93 season was my favourite, co-inciding with me being an university when it was still 6 quid to stand as a member if memory serves! Great times to be a supporter.
If you log the league positions of the London clubs from that period QPR were the 2nd best side in the top division and only just behind Arsenal. And they played beautiful football, week in week out. Thanks roller.
My last match before I left the UK was the beginning of the 92-93 season. We had gone to Man City for Sky's first Monday night game (1-1 draw, Andy Sinton) before hosting Southampton 2 nights later (night before my A-level results...). We had a great team then and the 3-1 result was capped off with this screamer from Dave Bardsley which was the last goal I had seen the Rangers score at Loftus Road (have only been back to London a handful of times) before seeing Charlie's brace against Wigan in the Play-off semi. Happy Birthday mate - you gave us great memories. I left the UK the following week with the Rangers top of the inaugural Premier League table... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVrjqSnb7IM
does he hold the record for shortest international career? didn't he come on as a sub and got injured after 10 mins or something? he never played for England again.
Left for Israel (am the son of israelranger from this forum). Have been back to England only a few times in the last few years and even less times in the football season. Saw a couple of terrible losses to Wimbledon and Liverpool away at the beginning of the 95/96 relegation season, a pretty good 0-0 with Ipswich the season Ipswich went up to the PL and the quite awful 2-0 loss at home to Swindon in the League Cup last year... until we got that penalty against Wigan in the semi, I literally thought I was cursed and would never see the Rangers score live again.... israelranger has us all well educated, my two eldest daughters came with him to London a few years back and saw us thrash Sheff Utd 3-0 in the Warnock promotion season and my son and nephew came over the summer, did the Loftus Rd tour and then gate-crashed outside the pre-season testing day at Saracens and got a great pic with Ale Faurlin and Richard Dunne (and SWP, but don't hold it against them). Proud to say that despite the distance and the lean years, my kids are all Rangers fans (5th generation in our family)
Thanks for the response rbs; and huge respect to you and your Dad for maintaining the faith/addiction across the generations, particularly in the days before 24/7 TV and internet coverage. PS my son had a season ticket with me for the 2012-13 season - saw us win twice all year and is convinced he is cursed, to the extent that he works most weekends rather than subject himself to further misery......you are not alone.
Thanks for posting that clip of Bardsley's goal against Southampton I mentioned, it is still just as good as I remembered. [video=youtube;yVrjqSnb7IM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVrjqSnb7IM[/video]
