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Caught In Time
Featured
in the back of the Sports section of the Sunday Times,
the Caught in Time
series features a picture of a famous team, offers a
profile of each player, and answers the question 'Where
are they now?'.
QPR win
League Cup, 1967
by Greg
Struthers
A quiet
revolution was taking place in west London in the
mid-1960s. A dapper former army major called Alec Stock
was putting together a Queens Park Rangers football team
that was ready to challenge the cream of the country.
Stock had developed a fine youth scheme since taking over
in 1959, and when Jim Gregory was appointed club chairman
in March 1965, the manager was given money to spend on
new players. Striker Les Allen was enticed from
Tottenham, the experienced Jim Langley was bought from
Fulham, and a fee of only 15,000 pounds was paid to
Craven Cottage for striker Rodney Marsh, probably the
most famous player to don blue-and-white hoops.
Under the astute management of Stock and coach Bill
Dodgin, the experience and talent blended well, with
young lads breaking into the first team such as Dave
Clement, Frank Sibley, Tony Hazell and the Morgan twins,
Ian and Roger.
"The young players would inspire each other,"
recalls Roger Morgan. "There were about five or six
of us who had grown up together, and there was tremendous
team spirit.
Alec was prepared to put his faith in youth, but we
learnt from the experienced players around us." Mike
Keen, the club captain, has fond memories of his time at
Loftus Road. "Even though we were in the Third
Division, we were playing some quality football, and
there was a good attitude in the team," he says.
They showed the nation how good they really were on a
crisp, frosty March 4, 1967.
The football hierarchy was concerned about the
diminishing value of the League Cup in the eyes of the
leading clubs. So it decided that the final would be
staged at Wembley and that the winning First Division
club would qualify for the European Fairs Cup.
Queens Park Rangers scuppered those plans. They marched
cornfortably into the final, then came from two goals
down at half-time to upset First Division West Bromwich
Albion, winning 3-2.
Clive Clark, a former QPR player, scored both goals for
West Brom, but the Rangers players were not concerned at
half-time. "We had come back from 2-0 down in other
games that season and were told to simply go out and
enjoy the. day," says Keen.
Enjoy it they did. Roger Morgan scored after the restart,
and 15 minutes from the end, Marsh set off on a trademark
mazy dribble that ended with a brilliant solo goal, his
shot going in off the post. Late in the game, Mark
Lazarus scored the winner.
Rangers were denied a place in Europe, but were more than
satisfied with their season. They won the Third Division
by 12 points, and the following year were promoted to the
top flight for the first time in their history.
1 Ron Hunt (QPR)
One of the products of the club's youth scheme, Hunt made
his name as a solid centre-half. He became a squash coach
after retiring from football, but knee injuries suffered
earlier in his career forced him to quit. He lives near
Reading and works for a petro-chemical company based in
London.
2 Les Allen (QPR)
A striker in Tottenham's Doublewinning side of 1960-61,
Allen moved to QPR for 21,000 pounds in July 1965.
"I met Jim Gregory, the chairman, and he laid out
the plans about what they wanted to do. I was impressed,
even though they were in the Third Division,"
recalls Allen. "It was quite a change. When I
started, we were only getting gates of 3,000 or 4,000
people, but that trebled when we began to get
results". Allen became player-manager in December
1968 after the premature departure of Stock and the
stormy 28-day reign of the colourful Scot Tommy Docherty.
However, the club was relegated, and he moved on to
manage Swindon, then spent time in Greece.
He then became a professional model-maker. Allen, who
recently underwent hip replacement surgery, is retired
and lives in Brentwood.
3 Roger Morgan (Tottenham
Hotspur)
Another of the young players who came through QPR's youth
scheme, Morgan was a speedy right-winger who played in
180 games for Rangers, scoring 39 goals. He then joined
Tottenham, where he scored eight goals in 68 games.
Although he scored a goal in the final, he does not
remember the game well. "I was only 20 years old,
and it went so quickly that I did not have time to savour
it," he says. "But we were on the crest of a
wave." After battling with injuries for four years,
he was forced to quit s football at 26. He went to
college and earned a degree in leisure studies.
After working as a recreation officer for Haringey
council in London for 11 years, Morgan joined West Ham
United and has run their football in the community scheme
for 12 years. There are 125,000 children in the Essex and
Hertfordshire area who take part in the project, and he
feeds the best of them into the West Ham Academy.
"It's nice to be giving something back to the
game," he says.
4 Ian Morgan (QPR)
A wing forward like his twin brother, Roger, Ian also
joined the club through the youth ranks. He signed for
Watford after a successful spell at QPR, but was forced
to quit football at 28 because of injury. He moved to
Norway, where he coached for five years. On his return to
Britain, he went into the leisure industry , teaching
football and tennis in schools. Morgan lives in east
London and helps his brother in the football in the
community scheme at West Ham.
5 Mike Keen (Luton
Town)
One of the old school of half-backs Keen was a skilful
player who enjoyed delivering long passes, and he was a
strong, clinical tackler. He was a QPR stalwart who
joined the club in 1958, and played in 393 League
matches. After a change of managers, he moved to Luton
before finishing his playing career at Watford. He was
appointed manager at Vicarage Road and enjoyed four years
at the club, where he set about engendering the spirit he
had experienced as a player at Loftus Road. He managed
Northampton for a year before taking charge of Wycombe
part-time and then Marlow while he concentrated on
running Sport and Ski, a shop in Wycombe. He lives in
Flackwell Heath in Buckinghamshire, and is manager of a
shop in Oxfordshire that sells outdoor gear and ski
equipment.
6 Tony Hazell (QPR)
A right-back who joined the club as a 15-year-old
apprentice, Hazell admits that he did not have a great
final. But he enjoyed his time at QPR, although he admits
"football was nowhere near as intense as it is
today". He later joined Millwall. and then spent
three years at Charlton.
When he hung up his boots, he became an insurance
salesman for three or four years, then went into property
maintenance. He lives at Flackwell Heath, the same
village as his former captain, and is a technician for
BT, specialising in fibre optics.
7 Peter Springett (Sheffield Wednesday)
A member of the Springett goalkeeping family, Peter
played an important role in the success of QPR, while his
brother Ron stood between the posts for Sheffield
Wednesday and won 33 caps for England. When he quit
football, Peter joined the police force In Sheffield. He
died after a short illness about four years ago.
From The
Sunday Times 6 April 2003. Sports
Section p.28
Many thanks to Paul Gillespie for saving this article for
me.
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