Player from the Past!! Les Ferdinand

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Ask a football fan to name a Queens Park Rangers legend and they will likely say one of three names, Rodney Marsh, Stan Bowles or Les Ferdinand, but Les’ story is a little bit different to that of his famous predecessors. Rodney Marsh was the star that the 60’s team was built around, Stan Bowles was his wayward replacement, and a star in the making. Les Ferdinand was almost nothing, a decent non league signing who was nearly bombed out of the club before he’d made an impact.

Ferdinand joined from Hayes in April 1987 and made his debut two weeks later as a substitute in away game at Coventry, it ended in a 4-1 defeat. He was given another run out in our next away game, a 7-1 mauling at Sheffield Wednesday. Life at QPR was not getting off to a good start for the twenty year old and by his own admission he had gotten in with a bad crowd, the Rangers brat pack as he calls them.

“These were guys who wanted to leave the club and were a bit rebellious” Les told me in an interview two years ago. “Somehow I found myself in with them and we got into a few scrapes. I was the rebel without a cause for a while." Luckily for Les he had a manager in Jim Smith who believed in him but, at the same time, could see where he was headed. Jim packed him off on loan to the Turkish league side Besiktas and it saved his career.

“It was the making of me, it was the apprenticeship I never had” said Les. “I couldn’t speak the language that well so all I could do was play and concentrate on football. The coaching was great too, the manager Gordon Milne took me under his wing over there and was fantastic to me. He played a big part in making me what I am today.”

But things were changing at Rangers, while Les was in Turkey Jim Smith left Loftus Road for Newcastle and was replaced by Trevor Francis. Milne wanted to extend Ferdinand’s loan but Trevor Francis was happy to make the move permanent. Had that happened it would have cost Rangers nearly 100 goals, several top half, top flight finishes and the best part of six million quid. Still I guess Francis wasn’t a fortune teller!

As it happened Besiktas couldn’t afford the half a million Francis was demanding so Les returned to Shepherds Bush to resume his Rangers career for the start of the 1989-90 season. He made his Loftus Road debut in a nil nil draw against Millwall in November 1989 wearing the number ten shirt, but it was the home match two weeks later against Chelsea that saw the start of his legend status. Les lined up against the old enemy and scored twice in a 4-2 win, the significance of which was totally lost on him at the time.

“It wasn’t until that day that I realised how important beating Chelsea was to Queens Park Rangers fans” he said. “Being a black kid from Ladbroke Grove, I didn’t really go to football because of the racist problems so I wasn’t aware of the importance of the fixture really. But those goals almost made me a hero over night, it was fantastic.”



Just as his career looked like it might take off, he hit problems again when Trevor Francis was sacked less than a year later. His replacement, Don Howe, paid a million pounds to bring Roy Wegerle to Loftus Road and with Mark Falco also at the club, Les was the odd one out.

“Don Howe had let it be known that Mark Falco and Roy Wegerle were going to be his main strike partnership because he felt Mark and I couldn’t play together so I went through the rest of the season stuck on the sub’s bench. I also remember that I took a bit of stick from the supporters at the time too, I got the impression that they felt I wasn’t living up to my potential and were disappointed with my performances. So it wasn’t always rosy at QPR for me.”

Things would change for Les very quickly, towards the end of the 1990-91 season Rangers found themselves short of strikers and Howe was forced into partnering Les with Bradley Allen for the visit of Luton. Ferdinand scored both goals in a 2-1 win and went on to hit five more goals in his next six games. That summer Don Howe was sacked by Chairman Richard Thompson and replaced by Gerry Francis, who immediately set about motivating a raw Ferdinand.

“After Gerry joined told me that he’d tried to sign me a couple of times while he was at Bristol Rovers and how much he admired me as a player” said Les. “He also told me that he would not only get me playing in the Rangers first team, but he thought he could get me into the England team too.” It must have sounded like utter madness to Les at the time but Francis was good to his word. Ferdinand became the talisman of Gerry’s side, powerful and quick, agile and graceful. He spearheaded the Rangers attack for the next four seasons.

Francis built his sides around him and Rangers finished in the top half of the table every year. That includes the great fifth placed finish of 92-93, in the first season of the Premier League. It was no small achievement to finish above the likes of Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea and these days it would have been good enough to see us qualify for the UEFA Cup.

Ferdinand scored an amazing 78 goals during those last four seasons, 26 of them came in his last with the club and led to his multi million pound move to Newcastle in June 1995. It’s not fair to say we were a one man team but Rangers never recovered from losing him and you might say that all our recent problems can be traced back to that day in June when we found ourselves overflowing with cash but lacking goals.

Ferdinand carved out a brilliant career at Newcastle, before moving onto Spurs and then winding down his career with various Premiership clubs. He scored on his debut for England as well and won seventeen international caps. Now he arrives back at Loftus Road for his swansong season with Reading.

It wasn’t meant to be this way, this wasn’t in the script. Surely Les was always going to return to Rangers for a glorious, emotional final season, the kind of send off a legend of his status deserves?

Unfortunately it wasn’t to be and now he’ll make his last appearance in front of the Loft under something of a cloud. When he returned for his first game with Newcastle in October 1995 he was treated like a God, and despite scoring for his new side, it’s something Ferdinand still remembers. “It was so fantastic, I was really choked. QPR will always have a place in my heart, I’ll always have an affinity with Rangers.” He said.

I’ve been watching Rangers for the best part of twenty years, I was never lucky enough to see Marsh or Bowles do anything other than take half time penalties. I’m sure anyone who’d watched both these greats would have Les third on their all time players list but for me he’s number one and one game for Reading wont change that no matter how much it rankles.

source: qprnet.com