Ex-QPR Update: Flanagan Turns 55...Terry Mancini 'Flashback'...Lewis Hamilton Profiled

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Ex-QPR Mike Flanagan Turns 55 - Born November 9, 1952
Ex-Charlton striker, Flanagan was one of a number of Crystal Palace players signed by Terry Venables in December 1980 after he left Palace for QPR. Played up front or midfield. Palace paid 650,000 pounds for him in 1978. QPR paid 150,000 pounds for him.
Was part of QPR's FA Cup Final team and played in the Championship team the following season. Returned to Charlton in January 1984. Flanagan

Until the Summer of 2007, Flanagan was the Assistant Manager at Margate.

See Wikipedia on Flanagan

The Mail - Over the moon-ing: A brief history of the cheeky goal celebration By STEVE CURRY -
When Stephen Ireland celebrated his winning goal for Manchester City by dropping his shorts, he was following a trend that was set before a football was ever kicked in anger....
Joey Barton, Ireland's former colleague at Eastlands, famously bared his backside at Everton fans at Goodison Park after a Premier League game in September 2006 in which City had scored a late equaliser.
Merseyside Police investigated and Barton was not charged, although he was fined £2,000 by the FA for bringing the game into disrepute.
One of the most notorious cases of mooning involved former QPR and Arsenal centre half Terry Mancini, who famously stood in front of the directors' box at Loftus Road and bared his bottom at Rangers chairman Jim Gregory.
Mancini, one of the game's great characters in the Seventies, was in Dubai yesterday hosting an ex-footballers' golf tournament. He recalled: 'I can remember the occasion so vividly. It was in October 1974 and the chairman was blocking a proposed move I had been offered to join Arsenal.
'I had been out of the side and had just got back because of injury to David Webb. We beat Ipswich 1-0 with a goal from Gerry Francis and when the final whistle went my frustration over my move got the better of me.
'I ran in front of the directors' box and dropped my shorts. It did the trick because about three days later, I got the transfer.'
I covered that game and suggested in my match report that it was offensive only to Gregory and not to the fans. Arsenal asked if I would give evidence at Mancini's FA disciplinary hearing. The commission was chaired by the FA chairman Bert Millichip and I recall him asking me if I hadn't found Mancini's act offensive, what did I feel constituted an obscene act?
We discussed the topic for some time but it did not prevent Mancini from being given a two-match ban and a £150 fine.
At Highbury he became a teammate of the other notable soccer 'mooner' Sammy Nelson, although the Northern Ireland left back's indiscretion did not occur until five years later. Nelson had put through his own goal in the first half of the match against Coventry City and the North Bank had been quick to let him know what they felt about it.
So when he grabbed the equaliser in the second half he bared his pants — white Y-fronts with not a super-hero in sight — to the fans. As I recall, they were quite delighted with the gesture.
The FA thought otherwise and suspended him for two weeks as the club fined him two weeks' wages.
But the mass mooning performed by the Wimbledon players, led by Vinnie Jones in 1988, still takes top billing.
After Alan Cork's testimonial, nine of the team stood in the centre circle and dropped their shorts in front of the Plough Lane crowd.
John Scales, who was one of them, recalled that the team had won the FA Cup the previous Saturday and had been over-indulging in the product of their sponsor, Carlsberg.
'We had cans of the stuff coming out of everywhere,' he recalled. 'The partying after beating Liverpool at Wembley had gone on and on and was in its third day by then. We were egged on by the fans and were easy bait.'
Wimbledon were fined £5,000 for failing to control their players and each of the guilty nine had to fork out a further £750. The Wimbledon fans were less impressed when Paolo di Canio bared his behind at them nine years later after scoring for Sheffield Wednesday in a 1-1 draw at Selhurst Park. The Italian escaped punishment.
That is rather more lax than the $10,000 fine the NFL imposed on Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Randy Moss two years ago when he mimicked a moon without actually removing any clothing.
Mancini thinks the decision not to punish Ireland was correct, adding: 'Until you have played professional football in front of a big crowd you can't understand the buzz and the pleasure you get from scoring a goal. These things are spontaneous.
'Sadly, you don't see too many characters in the modern game. It is all taken so seriously now and the money being paid to players has divorced them from the personal contact we used to enjoy with the fans.' Mail
[Also: November 9 Guardian (non-QPR) "The bottom line is not a good Korea move
Bizarre shorts-related goalscoring celebrations are nothing new in football."

Daily Mirror - LEWIS HAMILTON PLAYS IN THE FA CUP.. FOR LEWES! By Mike Walters 09/11/2007
Lewis Hamilton drives a Vauxhall Astra, has no chance of winning Sports Personality of the Year and could be playing at full-back against Mansfield in the FA Cup tomorrow.
Until his namesake in a boilersuit hitched a lift in a fast car from the Formula One paddock and draped himself in chequered flags, the quickest man called Lewis Hamilton in this country was at Conference South minnows Lewes.
Rooks manager Steve King says 22-year-old Hamilton can sprint 100 metres in less than 11 seconds. And King's men are quietly optimistic of making a name for themselves against the League Two strugglers.
Hamilton, released by Derby and QPR as a teenager, said: "As you can imagine, I get a lot of ribbing about my name now - and there's a reminder of it every time I walk into the clubhouse.
There's a picture of the 'other' Lewis Hamilton, just after he's won a race, at the bar.
"Fortunately I haven't been stopped for speeding by the police - because if they asked, 'Who do you think you are? Lewis Hamilton?', I'm not sure they would believe me when I gave my name.
"I haven't had much grief off fans yet, although the bloke reading out the teams over the tannoy at Eastleigh announced my name and said, 'I bet he can go some'."
Mansfield will not relish facing Lewes, and could get another surprise.
"Lewis Hamilton isn't the only star name at Lewes," added King.
"We've got a 16-year-old striker called Muhammad Ali - and he looks nothing like a heavyweight champion. He's 5ft 4in and he's made three appearances for our first team already." Mirror