https://amp.marca.com/futbol/premier-league/2023/12/13/6578b1bd22601dab398b45cb.html We've made the spanish press... Should be able to read it in English...
A trip back to 40 years ago. Great to see Charlo getting both of your goals. I played against him in a Schools Cup final, 48 years ago this month. We lost 0-3
Read this online today: QUEENS PARK RANGERS: Arguably the finest post-war team not to win the league and certainly the best of the 1970s, the agonisingly close-run title challenge mounted by QPR in 1975-76 was the culmination of four years’ work begun in early-70s by Gordon Jago and continued by former Chelsea boss Dave Sexton. After receiving £200,000 from Manchester City in March 1972 for Loftus Road leading man Rodney Marsh, six months later Jago reinvested £110,000 of the money in Mancunian maverick Stan Bowles who at the time was plying his trade with fellow Division Two outfit Carlisle United. Persuading Bowles to leave chilly Cumbria for the glamour of Goldhawk Road proved a masterstroke, ‘Stan the Man‘ added to a side already boasting the talents of future England internationals Dave Clement, Ian Gillard and midfield talisman Gerry Francis, along with experienced campaigners Mick Leach and former Spurs FA Cup winner Terry Venables. Their promotion bid enhanced by 17 goals from Bowles, QPR finished runners-up to Burnley in 1972-73. Progress continued in laudable fashion on their top-flight return, ending 1973-74 with a reputation for playing progressive football and on finishing eighth were the highest-placed London club – a feat they repeated the following season despite dropping to 11th. When 1975-76 dawned and with Sexton now in charge, whose transfer dealings had brought stylish Scottish midfielder Don Masson and ex-Chelsea man John Hollins to W12, the opening day saw perennial title challengers Liverpool arrive in sunny Shepherd’s Bush – where the visitors were ripped apart by an opening goal of free-flowing wonder. please log in to view this image Francis break: QPR win (Goal of the Season) title….. With perhaps the most eye-catching passage of ‘total football‘ ever produced by an English team, in five passes – all played to feet – the home side sweep from one penalty area to the other, skipper Francis advancing to score not only their first of the afternoon, but the BBC Match of the Day ‘Goal of the Season‘. That 2-0 victory over Liverpool set the tone for much of the dynamic, often inspired play, they would produce over the next nine months. From the end of January they embarked on a 15-match run that returned 13 wins and only one defeat – but the 3-2 Easter Saturday reversal at Norwich City was to prove fatal. Rangers returned to top spot by winning their final two games, which left Liverpool needing victory in the final game of the season away at Wolves – the fixture delayed ten days due to the Anfield side being involved in a two-leg UEFA Cup Final. After being made to sweat from Saturday 24 April to Tuesday 4 May when Liverpool visited Molineux, Rangers’ hopes of landing the title were raised when Wolves, needing victory to have any chance of avoiding relegation, took an early lead through Steve Kindon. But in the face of unrelenting second half pressure the home side finally succumbed. The QPR players, gathered in a BBC TV studio close to their West London base, could only watch in despair as Liverpool, with time running out, scored through Kevin Keegan, John Toshack and Ray Kennedy, securing by a point their first league title of the Bob Paisley era – Rangers’ tally of 59 more than enough to be champions the season before or the one after. It was not quite the last act for Sexton and his scintillating side, the following season they reached a League Cup semi-final where they lost to eventual winners Aston Villa and also endured UEFA Cup despair by exiting on penalties at the quarter-final stage – Bowles with 11 goals top scorer in the competition. After being split by the narrowest of margins in May 1976, QPR and Liverpool began moving in opposite directions. Twelve months after their epic two horse race, Liverpool retained the title and won their first European Cup, but on struggling to recover the fine form of the previous season, QPR finished 14th with over twenty fewer points. When Liverpool next lifted the title in 1979, Sexton had long since departed Loftus Road to replace Tommy Docherty at Old Trafford (by way of irony Docherty was in charge at QPR as the 70s came to a close), the team who came so close to becoming champions breaking up to the extent that Rangers were relegated at the end of 1978-79 – just three years after producing the most innovative football seen in England through the decade.
Early 70's.... First one I remember was simply the letters QPR on the shirt. I think 75/76 was the first time a badge appeared on the shirt.
