Town v QPR - Yes! A home game!

Town v QPR - Yes! A home game! - Printable Version

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Town v QPR - Yes! A home game! - Lord Snooty - 01-02-2023

Huddersfield Town v Queens Park Rangers
The Sky Bet Championship
Saturday April 4th - 15:00 ko
at the Kirklees Stadium

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Huddersfield Town welcome Queens Park Rangers to the Stade de Kirklees on Saturday afternoon for our first home game since the 1st of January. This is unbelievably followed by another three away games, with Blackpool, Wigan and Stoke to be visited in the next few days.

Well, what a time to be a Town fan! Since that depressing home defeat on New Year's Day, our club has had a major overhaul. We have new owners, a new Director of Football and a new Head Coach. If only we could say this were true! Blush

So for now, it's the same old, same old. Except that we do have a few new players to look forward to seeing. Not one, but two goalkeepers, who have been brought in to replace last season's Player of the Season, Lee Nicholls. He's out for the season and so it would seem that experienced Czech Republic international, Tomáš Vaclík will be the one to replace England's Number One.

As for the rest of the line up, well, the lads performed brilliantly last week at Coventry, with much aggression and having performed superbly in training this week, it'll be an unchanged team. Doh

What line up would you choose if you were the Head Coach, dear reader? Personally I would go with..........

I have no idea! It's been so long since I've seen this shower play, I can't remember who's any use any more. Sorba Thomas has gone. We signed Anthony Knockaert ages ago, but apparently he's injured. Oh, wait a minute. That lad who couldn't get a game at Coventry. Martyn Waghorn, aye that's him. He might get a look in. And that Joseph Hungbo from Watford. He might get a game. Oh I don't know.

As for the Hoops. Well their star man, Lyndon Dykes, has been admitted to hospital this week. They're not saying why, but told him via Twitter to "Stay strong Lyndon. We wish our number nine a quick and safe recovery."

Yes, speedy recovery with whatever that is. Sad

As for the rest of them, Jamal Lowe, who has caused us grief before with Wigan and Swansea, has joined them on loan from Bournemouth. He started off his career at the QPR Academy.

Well, we've beaten them once already this season. Why shouldn't we beat them again? Tongue

A brief history of QPR: formed in 1886 when two teams merged. They were St Judes and Christchurch Rangers and the team became known as Queens Park Rangers, not because they played in Queens Park, but because most of the players came from that area. They turned professional in 1889 and joined the Southern League, winning it in 1908 and 1912. When the Football League was extended in 1920, QPR were elected in, as were most other Southern League teams, to form Division Three (South).

They had played in 20 different home grounds before settling on Loftus Road in 1917, but did return on a couple of occasions to White City in the hope of attracting larger crowds. They spent the whole time pre war in Div 3(S), but shortly after the war they won their first promotion. That was in 1947/48 when they won the Division Three (South) title under the management of Huddersfield Town legend, Dave Mangnall. He managed them in the 2nd division for four seasons before they got relegated again and then resigned. He did sign Tony Ingham before he left though and he went on to be their record appearance holder, with a grand total of 548 games.

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Tony Ingham

Mangnall had been manager for over eight years and the next one, Jack Taylor took over for the next seven. When he left, Alec Stock came in and was manager for nine years and those three are the longest serving managers of the club. They were placed in Division 3 when the two regionalised 3rd divisions were nationalised in 1958 and Stock won promotion for them in 1967 as Division Three champions. The star of that team was Rodney Marsh, scoring 44 goals in the campaign. Not only did they win the title that season though, they also won their one and only major trophy to date when they became the first 3rd Division team to win the League Cup (Swindon being the 2nd in 1969).

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Their opponents in the Final were First Division West Bromwich Albion and it was the Baggies who got off to the better start, leading 2-0 by half time with two goals from Clive Clark. Rangers weren't out of it though and after 63 minutes they were definitely back in it when Mark Lazarus crossed for Roger Morgan to head in. They were level on 75 minutes when that man Marsh equalised. They were on top now and took the lead seven minutes from time when some poor Albion defending allowed Lazarus to tap into an empty net. The same player almost made it 4-2 in the last minute but his shot hit the post. QPR had the trophy, but no place in Europe as being a 3rd division side they were denied entry to the Inter Cities Fairs Cup, their place instead going to Liverpool.

This was a great football team and they didn't stay long in the 2nd Division, winning promotion again straight away as runners up to Ipswich Town, to reach Division One for the first time. Unfortunately, the Board of Directors lost it's mind, firstly sacking Stock for being ill at the end of the promotion season. He was replaced by Bill Dodgin Jr, who stepped down to be replaced by Tommy Docherty, who in turn resigned saying he couldn't work with that Board and was in turn replaced by Les Allen as player/manager. Unsurprisingly with all this upset going on, they finished bottom of the table.

Allen signed Terry Venables from Spurs, but lost star man Marsh to Man City. However, Marsh's replacement was another star man of the 70s, the magical Stan Bowles. Gordon Jago took over from Allen and with Gerry Francis as skipper, they won promotion back to the top flight in 1973 as runners up to Burnley.

Dave Sexton took over as manager when Jago resigned in 1974 and he took QPR to their highest ever finish in 1976 when they finished as runners up to Liverpool. They were top of the league after finishing their 42 games, with the Reds still having one game to play, in the days before Sky insisted that everybody finish at the same time in a live televised game. They had to wait an agonising ten days for Liverpool, who had a two legged UEFA Cup Final to get out of the way first, played Wolves in their final league match. Wolves led for most of the game, but three late goals gave Bob Paisley his first league title at Anfield.

Th' Oops never reached such dizzy heights again. In the following season, they finished mid table, but did reach the quarter finals of the UEFA Cup in their first European campaign, losing on penalties to AEK Athens. They also reached the League Cup semis, getting beaten in a replay by Aston Villa. Sexton was then head hunted by Man Utd and the club struggled in the league, eventually getting relegated in 1979. The man Sexton replaced at Old Trafford was former QPR manager, Tommy Doc and he returned to Loftus Road for a season, getting nowhere significant and so in turn was replaced by former player Venables.

This was the era of the plastic pitch at Loftus Road, which proved to be somewhat of an advantage to them. They narrowly missed promotion, but did reach their one and only FA Cup Final in 1982. Their opponents were Tottenham Hotspur, who were the holders and huge favourites. Clive Allen, who would later go on to star at Spurs, was back at QPR for his second spell and was leading scorer. Unfortunately he got injured early on and had to be subbed in the second half, making Spurs even bigger favourites. They couldn't get there though and a dull 90 minutes finished at 0-0. Glenn Hoddle went and gave Spurs the lead ten minutes from time and the Cup was heading back to White Hart Lane. But wait! Rangers weren't done. Big Bob Hazell flicked on a near post header from a long throw in and Terry Fenwick nodded the ball in to equalise and take the Final to a replay. The replay was another dull affair, which all London Cup Finals tend to be. It was won 1-0 by Spurs with Hoddle scoring from the penalty spot in the 6th minute.

QPR didn't let the result get them down though and won promotion in the next season, winning the 2nd division title by ten points from runners up Wolves. They qualified for another European campaign by finishing 5th in their first season back at the top, but Venables was off. He landed the job of managing Barcelona and the tabloid nickname, El Tel.

Alan Mullery, then Frank Sibley took over and then Jim Smith, who took them to another Final, this time the 1986 League Cup Final. Embarrassingly for Smith, they were up against his former club Oxford United, a First Division club back then, who pumped them 3-0. They were holding on well in the league though, finishing regularly in the top half. Smith left to manage Newcastle and Trevor Francis became player/manager. His namesake, former player Gerry, took over in 91 and QPR became one of the founder members of the Premier League in 92.

They were still regularly finishing in the top half, but when in 1995 the club sold Les Ferdinand to Newcastle, things started to go downhill as he wasn't adequately replaced and they were relegated in 96. They had a few years in the 2nd tier, but then took on another former player, West Country bumpkin Ian Holloway and he took them down to the 3rd tier for the first time in 30 years. He did get them to their first Play Off Final in 2003 but they lost 0-1 to Cardiff City. But then he did get them back up in the next season as runners up to Plymouth Argyle.

They had a mid table finish, but then Holloway left to manage Leicester City and they slumped, only just missing relegation. They were having financial troubles now and had been in administration. There were hostile takeover bids, one of them allegedly at gun point and then, even worse, their youth team player Kiyan Prince, was murdered in 2006. He was only 15.

Things started to improve in 2010 when Neil Warnock became manager. We all know he's the King of the Play Offs, but he baffled us all by winning the Championship title in his first season. So they were back in the Premier League and had finally been taken over. Tony Fernandes was the new owner and one of his first jobs was to get shut of Colin and replace him with Mark Hughes. He didn't last long and speculation in the media over the name of the new manager led to fans unfurling a banner at Loftus Road that read Save Us Harry. That Harry was of course, Harry Redknapp and he didn't. They got relegated.

They did bounce straight back again when Bobby Zamora scored in the 90th minute of the Play Off Final to give them a 1-0 victory over Derby County. But Harry resigned after a poor start and they came straight back down to the Championship, where they have been ever since.

Head to Head

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Town lead the head to head with 16 wins to QPR's 14, with 10 draws.

We met on a couple of occasions in the FA Cup before our first ever league meeting. The first time was in 1931/32, under the management of Clem Stephenson and during the run by Dave Mangnall of scoring in a club record number of consecutive matches. It was game 5 of his 11 consecutive scoring matches and he scored twice in a 5-0 win at Leeds Road. They were in Division Three South at the time, while we were still one of the biggest football clubs in the country. Charlie Luke (2) and Austen Campbell got the other goals in this 4th round match.

By the time we met again in the FA Cup, Mangnall was the QPR manager. That was in 1948/49. They were by now in the 2nd Division, after Dave had managed them to their first ever promotion in the Football League. We were still in the 1st Division, but no longer the force we once were. Mangnall's men held Town, managed by Clem's brother, George Stephenson, to a goal less draw down at Loftus Road in the 3rd round. The replay back at ours on the following Saturday, attracted an attendance on 31,075, who witnessed a repeat of the 5-0 scoreline. Another scoring legend got a couiple in this one. That was Jimmy Glazzard, with Albert Nightingale, Johnny McKenna and Albert Bateman getting the others.

Another footballing legend got his first ever league goal in the first league meeting of the two clubs when in 1967, Frank Worthington scored the only goal of the game. I've mentioned it loads of times before, but I'll just drop it again that this was my first Town match.

Both clubs got promoted soon after this, but avoided each other by getting promoted and relegated at different times and so we have never met at the top level.

Another scoring legend scored twice in the most recent encounter between the two clubs. That was earlier in the season when Josh Ruffels went and did this........

So what's going on down Loftus Road? They are managed nowadays by Neil Critchley, the former Liverpool manager. He took over in December when Michael Beale left to manage the other Rangers, them in that there Glasgow.

Recent form - last 6 matches:

Coventry 2-0 Town
Hull 1-1 Town
PNE 3-1 Town (FA Cup)
Town 1-2 Luton
Town 2-0 Rotherham
PNE 1-2 Town

Hull 3-0 QPR
QPR 1-1Swansea
Reading 2-2 QPR
Fleetwood 2-1 QPR (FA Cup)
QPR 1-1 Sheff Utd
QPR 0-3 Luton

Town are 22nd in the Championship table with 26 points. QPR are 14th with 38.

Leading scorers:

Terriers:
Jordan Rhodes (6)
Danny Ward (3)

Hoop-las:
Chris Willock (6)
Lyndon Dykes (6)

RE: Town v QPR - Yes! A home game! - WakeyTerrier - 02-02-2023

Well I'm stuck between a rock and a Hard place for this one.

I want my team to win but at the same time I want us to lose to get rid of the Joker in charge, I'm convinced a defeat this weekend will see the back of him for good.

RE: Town v QPR - Yes! A home game! - theo_luddite - 02-02-2023

Nice one Snoots Thumb up

When did the Red Sparrows do the fly-by?

'kin 'ell Wakey what does it take for the idiots to wake up? Two wins in the last 8 games against sides with the worst home and away recent form records and the draws against Swansea and Hull where we scored a sum total of 1 goal and never looked like getting a 2nd in the whole 180 minutes? That they've given him free rein to inflict more damage in the transfer window tells me we won't act until just before Easter, (if then) when we'll panic and pay someone a fortune to still take us down. I sincerely hope I'm wrong. QPR have won 1 in 9, also at Preston, who better to play than us to get them back to winning ways again?

RE: Town v QPR - Yes! A home game! - jjamez - 03-02-2023

i'm hoping for a terrible performance but we get a draw. The fans can make their opinions heard and the club might also look at acting if there is nothing positive.

RE: Town v QPR - Yes! A home game! - Lord Snooty - 03-02-2023

RE: Town v QPR - Yes! A home game! - theo_luddite - 03-02-2023

More Froth, more Babble. According to his Jock mate he's effluent in German, which might be useful if we had any German players on the books ... when did they all leave?? Doh

RE: Town v QPR - Yes! A home game! - Lord Snooty - 04-02-2023

Town’s team vs Queens Park Rangers
1. Tomáš Vaclík
2. Ollie Turton
6. Jonathan Hogg ©
15. Scott High
16. Joseph Hungbo
18. David Kasumu
22. Jack Rudoni
32. Tom Lees
38. Matthew Lowton
39. Michał Helik
49. Martyn Waghorn

Substitutes
Nicholas Bilokapic; Matty Pearson, Jordan Rhodes, Josh Koroma, Brahima Diarra, Jaheim Headley, Anthony Knockaert

RE: Town v QPR - Yes! A home game! - theo_luddite - 04-02-2023

Knocker's on the bench, as is Koroma.

RE: Town v QPR - Yes! A home game! - Lord Snooty - 04-02-2023

A shocker of a first half, conceding a terrible goal, but then fighting back nicely to equalise.

But it could've been much worse. I don't think we deserved to be level at the break, but then again, the Hoops were poop too.

We were much better in the second half with the three man substitution of Rhodes, Koroma and Kernockers probably being the most attack minded subbing in the club's history.

Please can we have this from the start on Tuesday?

I thought Hungbo looked good in patches. He and Kasumu teamed up well in a which one's which scenario.

As for QPR. Not very good. A better team than us would've walloped them and to come to a bottom three side and settle for a point shows how bad they are and that this, for us was two ponts lost rather than one point gained.

Two away games against two teams below us next. A six point must.

RE: Town v QPR - Yes! A home game! - theo_luddite - 04-02-2023

To come to any team when you've only won once since October and settle for a point might be regarded as progress. They were there for the taking, but we are more or less as crap as them, with this guy in charge, so a point each is really no surprise. We have footballers who are capable of far more than they are delivering, there's one person dictating the delivery methods and quite honestly he couldn't deliver newspapers.

As for today, we had a shot on target, we scored. How hard is it for the tactically bewildered one to understand that concept and repeat it several times in 90 minutes?

Unfortunately, today's result means he's still going to be here Tuesday.