ALEC STOCK: Would Have Been 95 Today
- Alec Stock (RIP): Would Have been 95 Today...Flashback/Video of Alec Stock Talking about QPR Promotion Prospects in 1962!
Photo from the truly-amazing Bushman Archives. Bushman notes: Alec William Alfred Stock. Made his first appearance for the first team on 11th Feb 1939, against Swindon Town in a Division III Southern League match. Rangers won 2-1 with Bott & Mallett the goalscorers
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- The Answer to the Question: Will There be a QPR Player of the Year Dinner?
- 21 Years Ago Today: One of QPR's Finest Wins - Beating Liverpool at Anfield
- Flashback: Four Humorous/Satirical Videos re QPR
- Alec Stock (RIP): Would Have been 95 Today...Flashback/Video of Alec Stock Talking about QPR Promotion Prospects in 1962!
- Ray Wilkins: "Ray Wilkins: John Terry 'Should Have Been Kicked Out' Of England Squad By FA
- Next: Arsenal - Shared Players/Past Results
- An Arsenal Fan Perspective of Loftus Road
Bloomberg/Tariq Panja - QPR’s Beard Says Mittal’s Team Will Keep Players If Demoted
Queens Park Rangers chief executive officer Philip Beard says the Premier League team -- part owned by billionaire steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal and AirAsia Bhd (AIRA) CEO Tony Fernandes -- will keep most of its players should the club be relegated this season.
QPR is in danger of moving down to the second-division Championship. With eight games left in its season, the west London team is in the bottom three of the top English league even after spending millions on new talent and replacing its manager mid-season. It’s won just three games and lost seven since Mark Hughes replaced Neil Warnock on Jan. 10.
Fernandes led a group that in August bought a majority 66 percent stake from Formula One head Bernie Ecclestone and his partner Flavio Briatore. Since then the team’s bought eight players including strikers Djibril Cisse and Bobby Zamora.
“We were very active in the 10 days after the takeover in August and fairly active in January and I’ll stand behind every single one of those contracts irrespective of what happens,” Beard said during a discussion on team finance at the Soccerex conference in Manchester. QPR returned to the top division this season after 16-year absence.
“If we do not stay up, I anticipate the vast majority will stay at QPR to try and help us get back,” he said. “We’ve gone into this with our eyes wide open.”
Mittal is one of the world’s richest men. Unlike other wealthy owners in the Premier League like Roman Abramovich at Chelsea or Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nayhan of Manchester City, QPR’s owners haven’t spent lavishly on building their roster. Still, they’ve spent significantly more than Norwich and Swansea, the two other teams promoted last season. Those clubs are 14 points clear of the relegation zone after 30 games.
Stabilize
“Our aim is to find a stabilized position in the Premier League over next few years,” Beard said.
Even though Hughes’s appointment hasn’t led to improved performance, Beard said the team remained committed to the former Manchester City coach.
“I don’t regret at all the decision to change manager,” he said. “We’ve just got to focus on what we are doing and I think in Mark Hughes we have an excellent manager.”
Part of the plan is to build new training facilities and find a new stadium. Beard, who worked with Los Angeles-based Anschutz Entertainment Group Inc. earlier in his career, said he’d like to use examples learned at the Staples Center, home of basketball’s Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers and ice hockey’s Los Angeles Kings.
“It has to be an entertainment destination,” he said, saying though he had a preference for teams sharing stadiums, the competitive nature of English soccer meant it probably isn’t an option for QPR.
“I do think there’s a platform where discussions would take place on success and viability of ground-sharing but at the moment that’s very emotional for football fans,” Beard said. Bloomberg
PFA Give Me Football/Nick Howson
Premier League must retain relegation
Suggestion that relegation from the Premier League is selfish and preposterous'
hillip Beard, Queens Park Rangers' chief executive, has decided to use the Soccerex European Forum to comment on a concept so ridiculous, he's likely to have been wheeled away by men wearing white coats come the end of his spiel.
While the two day event has showcased the thoughts of Rafa Benitez and Patrick Vieira among others, it's for people like Beard that this conference isn't made for. Given a pedestal, he was unlikely to hold back.
Despite downplaying the suggestion, Beard said his club would vote for the removal of the relegation system in the Premier League.
Apart from the obvious distancing the Premier League would be making from the Football League, Beard's comments are full of hypocrisy. If he were say in the position of one of those club's in the Championship, he's be hugely dismissive of such a venture.
The benefits for a club like QPR or in fact for any of the current Premier League sides is that, without the fear of dropping into the Championship, clubs would have the financial backing of the Premier League for life.
Television money could be hoarded by those lucky 20, which would lead perhaps to overwhelming spending and serial mismanagement.
From the supporter point of view, any excitement of a relegation battle, or indeed a promotion campaign from the Championship, would be nullified.
Any fans of teams in the Championship would have to quickly come to terms with the fact their team can go no further, and with finances therefore at a premium, with no Premier League aspirations likely to lead to lower crowds, the competitiveness between the 72 sides is likely to decrease. The integrity of the football league would take a major hit.
And all this to help protect the country's richest sides from falling off their perch. If this is genuinely what the people who run clubs think, then the once noted beautiful game will have it's sole eroded away. Enjoy it while it lasts. PFA Give Me Football
Jacob Murtagh/Chronicle - Defender puts future on the line for QPR cause
CLINT Hill would readily sacrifice his QPR future if the club survives a torturous relegation battle and remains in the Premier League.
The selfless hero admits he would stand a better chance of a new deal if Rangers were relegated. But as it stands, he is set to leave Loftus Road when his contract expires in the summer after twice being knocked back when asking for a new deal.
But pride and duty sees the 33-year-old putting his own career on the back burner in order to help Rs beat the dreaded drop.
He told the Chronicle: “If we stay up I can see the club spending more money and getting in another five or six players.
“I would probably have a better chance of getting a contract if we go down. I've spent most of my career in the Championship – and know it like the back of my hand.
“Everyone is desperate for the club to survive. We've worked so hard to get here and we're doing all we can to stay up.”
QPR host high-flying Arsenal tomorrow a point from safety with eight games to play.
Hill is likely to be restored to the starting XI as boss Mark Hughes looks to shore up a back four ripped to shreds at Sunderland last weekend.
The Rangers defence will be tested to the limit again facing an Arsenal side averaging more than two goals a game.
And Hill revealed his PFA vote for player of the year went to a man who can inflict even more damage on the desperate Hoops.
Premier League's leading scorer Robin Van Persie might have got Hill's nod, but the converted centre-back has warned the Gunners will be in for a tough time.
He added: “Van Persie is one of the best strikers in England, if not Europe at the moment.
“His goals to games ratio is frightening, so we've got to try and stop him.
“We need to get tight, in their faces and upset them. We have to make it as difficult for them as possible.” Fulham Chronicle
London 24/Ian Cooper - QPR star demands unity in fight for survival
Shaun Derry admits: “You only get good team spirit through winning games”
Shaun Derry believes unity among the QPR squad will be the key if they are to escape relegation.
The Rangers midfielder admits that team spirit is lacking at Loftus Road on the back of a run of one win in the last nine games which has seen Mark Hughes’s side slide to 18th in the table.
However, with QPR’s home match against Arsenal on Saturday heralding the start of a difficult run-in, Derry is calling for every player to shoulder responsibility in the fight for survival.
“Clearly the games are running out but I feel the future is in our hands,” Derry told London24.com. “We are fully aware of the situation, and of the drastic consequences if we do get relegated.
“We haven’t had time to blend the squad together quietly; that’s not making excuses, it’s just a fact. Things like new owners, the new manager, new players; it is difficult to forge bonds with players when changes are happening. It has been difficult to say the least.
“You can only really get good team spirit and togetherness when you are winning games.
“No-one can say that we don’t have the talent within the squad, because we have. We have the depth in the squad, but it has all been down to being very inconsistent.”
Derry also believes that criticism of figures such as Joey Barton and Shaun Wright-Phillips is unfair, insisting that the team as a whole has failed to live up to expectations this season.
“Joey Barton has had a difficult season, but we all have. How can one person transform a football club on their own? It’s the team that gets success, individuals do not,” added Derry.
“We have all had a bad season, every single player has under-performed, and that’s why we are where we are. On paper we should not be down here, but we are. We have eight games – Joey as well – to try to get some form going.”’s London 24
RAVING ABOUT HOGAN EPHRAIM
BRISTOL EVENING POST - Ephraim could be the answer to City's prayers
COULD Hogan Ephraim be the creative midfielder Bristol City have been crying out for since Paul Hartley made the return journey to his native Scotland in the summer of 2010?
Awash with defence-minded midfield grafters, players who are adept to putting a foot in, breaking up play and off-loading the ball to a team-mate, City have still to find an individual capable of delivering a killer pass and empowering the strikers with any regularity.
That is until Ephraim breezed into BS3 last week, having joined the Robins on loan from Premier League strugglers Queens Park Rangers for the remainder of the Championship campaign.
While it would be ridiculously premature to draw comparisons between the 23-year-old Londoner and Hartley, the former England youth international did provide a creative energy from midfield that has been conspicuous by its absence at times this season.
Not only did Ephraim demonstrate a refreshing willingness to take on defenders and provide a steady flow of possession to lone striker Jon Stead when making his debut in last weekend's 1-1 draw against Middlesbrough at the Riverside Stadium, his ability to time his arrival in the penalty area to perfection enabled him to register City's first away goal in eight games since December 30.
If his performance provided a foretaste of what is to come every Saturday, then it is a crying shame Ephraim is only here until the end of the season.
But if City are to create the goal-scoring opportunities that will surely be needed if they are to avoid relegation, then they will have to utilise their latest loan signing to the maximum.
Invariably deployed on the left side of midfield in QPR's Championship-winning team, Ephraim, pictured, cut a peripheral figure at times last season and was dropped by former boss Neil Warnock.
Given that he was raised in the West Ham United academy, plying his trade in an advanced position in the middle of the park, his growing frustration with life at Loftus Road was perhaps understandable.
Derek McInnes handed him a central role on his debut and Ephraim did well enough to suggest he will line-up in a similar position against Derby County at Ashton Gate tomorrow.
"I think playing in behind the main striker is my best position and it was one I always played growing up as a youngster at West Ham," said Ephraim.
"I also played there for England in the various youth teams and it is where I feel most at home.
"Of course, I'm happy to do a job on the left wing if it means helping the team out, but I prefer to be in the middle.
"I'm comfortable in either position, but I tend to see more of the ball in the middle of the park and that role enables me to attack the penalty area more often."
Ephraim had featured on McInnes's wish-list for several months.
"It (the move to Ashton Gate) came out of the blue for me to be honest.
I had a call telling me an opportunity had arisen for me to join Bristol City and I was delighted," said the Londoner.
"I knew there was a long-standing interest there from the manager and it all got down pretty quickly after that phone call. I had no future under Neil Warnock, but the new manager (Mark Hughes) has been good to me.
"He has given me a new contract for another year and told me to go out on loan for the rest of the season and then see where I am in the summer." Bristol Evening Post
QPR OFFICIAL SITE - HEAD OF SPORTS SCIENCE APPOINTED
Posted on: Thu 29 Mar 2012
Mark Hughes has appointed Damian Roden as the Club's new Head of Sports Science.
Roden, who completed a Sports Science degree at the age of 20, spent four years working at Bolton Wanderers as First Team Fitness Coach under Sam Allardyce before teaming up with Hughes at Blackburn.
Roden followed Hughes to Manchester City where he remained for two years before being offered the opportunity to head up the Performance Department of the Australian national side.
When Gary Speed was appointed Manager of Wales, Roden was brought in as Head of Performance, but left the role following Speed's tragic death.
Hughes told www.qpr.co.uk: "Damian is acknowledged as one of the best guys in his field. Having worked with him previously I know what he offers.
"It is important that we have the right guys off the field as well as on it." QPR
- Forty-Three Years Ago Yesterday: Gerry Francis Made His QPR Debut (at Home to Liverpool)
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- Richard Langley, Guest-Writing for LoftForWords: "Facing the axe while beating the drop? Richard Langley guest column - ... How will Joey Barton react to being dropped? How can QPR beat relegation from the Premiership? Former QPR midfielder Richard Langley provides a player's point of view to LFW."
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Four Four Two "The 20 best Premier League kits - QPR (H) 1995/96" FourFourTwo-SOME OLD QPR VIDEO
- Video: 192 QPR vs Sheffield United
- Video II: 1923 QPR vs Sheffield United
- Video: 1962 QPR vs Newport
- Video: 1948: QPR vs Derby County
- Video: 1958 QPR vs Southampton
- 1962 Video Interview with QPR Manager Alec Stock
- Video: 1962 QPR vs Hinckley
- 1948: Athlete McDonald Bailey trains for Olympic competition: Sprinter Emmanuel McDonald Bailey begins training for the 1948 London Summer Olympics with the Queens Park Rangers football club
- VIDEO: Last Kick of the Game Winner for QPR - In 1974, QPR Played Coventry in the FA Cup Fifth Round. Moving Into Injury Time, at 2-2 Stan Bowles Took the Free Kick( Parkes - Hazell Mclintock Mancini Clement - Venables Leach Francis, Thomas Bowles Givens.)
- 1981: QPR Go Plastic - The Opening Game vs Luton
- Video (Silent): A Younger Jim Gregory Talking about Selling Phil Parkes (Lip Readers Only!)
- 1962 Brentford Fans Protesting Planned Merger with QPR
- Video: Martin Allen Being Fined for Being with His Baby: