4 Years Ago: Waddock's QPR Managerial Debut

[QPR Report]

After the slimey act of putting Ian Holloway on Gardening Leave...So in Four years umpteen managers under Paladini and Briatore!

Feb 12, 2006 - Gary Waddock's Managerial Debut: QPR 1 Millwall 0 -
Jones 7, Bignot 6, nutstu 7, Evatt 6, Milanese 7, Ainsworth 8, Bircham 7 (Langley 88min, 6), Lomas 7, Cook 8, Furlong 6, Nygaard 7 (Baidoo 77min, 6) -

Match Reports QPR 1 Millwall 0
qprreport.blogspot.com/2006/02/reports-comments-of-qpr-1-millwall-0.html

Sunday Times
QPR 1 Millwall 0:Waddock in control
Rob Maul at Loftus Road
QUEENS Park Rangers were finally able to put a tempestuous week behind them as they celebrated a win in caretaker-manager Gary Waddock’s first match in charge following the departure of Ian Holloway.
But while Mike Nygaard’s second-half strike, only his fifth goal of the season, halted a run of three successive defeats and pushed Millwall further into the relegation mire, there were ugly scenes that nearly overshadowed it. Riot police were despatched to prevent Millwall fans breaching the South Africa Road stand, while items were thrown and plastic advertising banners torn up.
he trouble flared shortly after Nygaard breached the visitors’ defence. Though his initial header, from Gareth Ainsworth’s cross, was excellently saved by goalkeeper Andy Marshall, Nygaard comfortably slotted the rebound into the net.
Waddock, who had taken over the team after Holloway was placed unexpectedly on “gardening leave” last week, made six changes and the players he selected responded, dominating possession and territory for most of the match. Waddock relished the chance to manage. “I have played for the youth, reserve and first team and have coached at every level. This club has a huge place in my heart,” he said.
Later in the second half, midfielder Alan Dunne was sent off, receiving a second yellow card after his elbow connected with Steve Lomas. It compounded an awful day for the travelling Lions.
“Again, we did not have a shot on goal. How can you win games when you don’t have at least one,” asked Millwall manager David Tuttle. “Whether it is because the boys, low in confidence, think they are being relegated, I don’t know.”
STAR MAN: Lee Cook (QPR)
Player ratings. QPR: Jones 7, Bignot 6, Shittu 7, Evatt 6, Milanese 7, Ainsworth 8, Bircham 7 (Langley 88min, 6), Lomas 7, Cook 8, Furlong 6, Nygaard 7 (Baidoo 77min, 6)
Millwall: Marshall 6, Lawrence 5, Robinson 6, Whitbread 6, Craig 6, Cogan 7 (Dyer 80min, 6), Elliott 6, Dunne 4, Livermore 6, Powel 5 (May 49min, 7), Braniff 6 (Williams 59min, 6) Scorer: QPR: Nygaard 56
Referee: A Wiley
Attendance: 13,757
www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2093-2036699,00.html


INDEPENDENT
QPR 1 Millwall 0: Great Dane Nygaard puts bite back in Rangers
Crowd violence mars flying start for Loftus Road's caretaker manager Waddock
By Simon Asquith at Loftus Road
Published: 12 February 2006
Who needs John Gregory? QPR did just fine without him in Gary Waddock's first match in charge as caretaker manager.
Gregory is favourite to succeed the suspended Ian Holloway on a permanent basis but he could have a rival in Waddock. A scrappy winner from the Danish target man Marc Nygaard ended a run of three defeats in succession to give Waddock the perfect start after his promotion from reserve-team duties.
The 43-year-old is QPR through and through, having spent eight years as a player in west London and he might just turn out to be a popular choice after promising to bring back free-flowing football.
Nygaard's winner was anything but, however, coming as it did after the Millwall goalkeeper Andy Marshall could only parry his thunderous header from a simple right-wing cross by Gareth Ainsworth.
Marshall was still lying prone when Nygaard followed up to score his fifth goal of the campaign with a close-range volley on 55 minutes. But Waddock will not worry about that. "It was a great start," he said. "The manner of the win and the way we played was encouraging for the future. We opened them up and had opportunities.
"I played as a schoolboy here, then in the youth team and the reserves before I made it into the first team. I've coached the youths, the reserves and the first team.
"To be caretaker manager of this club, which is in my heart, how can you describe that?" He added: "I've got no idea whether John Gregory's been offered the job. But the chairman has said I'm here until the end of the season. I'll take it as it comes."
For Millwall, it was a dreadful afternoon. Not only did they fail to muster a single decent shot on target, but they had their midfielder Alan Dunne dismissed for two bookings in five mad minutes late on, first fouling and then elbowing Steve Lomas, and their fans traded missiles with the home supporters before riot police restored order.
The Millwall manager, David Tuttle, admitted: "The boys think they're getting relegated. When you're in the bottom three for so long you're going to be low on confidence. We need that spark to get us going but it's not happening at the moment. We were poor."
sport.independent.co.uk/football/coca_cola/article344897.ece


QPR OFFICIAL SITE - WADDOCK POST MATCH RESPONSE

Caretaker Manager Gary Waddock hailed the end of a 'fantastic week' as Rangers beat Millwall 1-0 at Loftus Road.
Marc Nygaard's second half strike ended a barren run of three consecutive defeats for the Hoops, to the delight of Waddock.
"It's a great finish to a fantastic first week. We prepared from Monday onwards. I was calm Thursday and Friday and even surprised myself with how calm I was today.
"It got a bit edgy towards the end and Biggy could've settled by nerves, but I'd have taken a 1-0 win before the game, so I'm delighted.
"The lads have been positive all week and I think that came over in their performance today. It's a good result and we really want to keep it going now.''
Rangers' attacking style of play was a joy to watch at times and although Waddock was impressed by what he saw, he insists there is still a 'lot of work to be done.'
"There was some good movement, but there is still a lot of work to be done on our play in the final third. That's the most important area of the pitch, it's where games are won and we'll be working on it in training.''
Waddock also paid tribute to the Rangers supporters, who were vocal from start to finish.
"The reception that me and Macca got was fantastic. Also, the crowd were great towards Ollie, chanting his name, applauding in numbers and I joined in with them. He's done a fantastic job for this football club and that will never be forgotten.
''The nature of football is that manager's move on and I'm in Caretaker charge now to do the best I possibly can.'' www.qpr.premiumtv.co.uk/page/Match/ManagersComments/0,,10373~781918,00.html


QPR OFFICIAL SITE MATCH REPORT
www.qpr.premiumtv.co.uk/page/Match/MatchReport/0,,10373~30882,00.html


SPORTING LIFE
WADDOCK EYES EXPERIENCED SIDEKICK
By Tom Collomosse, PA Sport
QPR caretaker-boss Gary Waddock revealed he was desperate to add experience to his coaching staff after marking his first game in charge with victory over 10-man Millwall.
Marc Nygaard scored the only goal of the game in the 56th minute to earn Waddock - who stepped in earlier this week after former boss Ian Holloway was placed on gardening leave - three vital points.
Former Rangers boss Jim Smith rejected the chance to re-join the club in a consultancy role earlier this week, and Waddock wants a similar figure to help him through his first steps in management.
"I would like to bring in someone with experience and knowledge, who I can ask for advice," said Waddock, who played down reports that former Aston Villa and Derby boss John Gregory - a friend of chairman Gianni Paladini - had been offered a position at Loftus Road.
"But I will definitely be deciding who is appointed.
"I am glad the fans gave Ian Holloway the recognition he deserved, because he did a fantastic job during his five years here."
Although Millwall were very poor, Rangers played fluently in spells and should have won by more than one goal.
Waddock, who is likely to be in charge until the end of the season, made clear before the game his intention to play with a less direct style to that of Holloway - and the early signs were promising.
Waddock continued: "It was a great start. The manner of the way we played was encouraging for the future.
"I cannot describe how I feel [about becoming manager]. I was with the club from 1979-87 and again from 1991-92, so to become manager is fantastic.
"I think I could have taken over one of the stands if I had given tickets to all the family and friends that wanted to come today."
Millwall manager David Tuttle admitted his players are beginning to lose faith in their ability to stay in the Championship.
Alan Dunne was sent off late on for the visitors, whose home clash with Hull on Tuesday now assumes huge importance.
Tuttle said: "The boys are very deflated, because they think they are getting relegated and their confidence is low.
"It was a poor performance. We had a game-plan, and we didn't stick to it. We remain desperate to bring in an experienced forward on loan.
"After every game we say we need an attacker, but we haven't managed to make it happen. The board haven't told me why that is the case.
"When we played the ball to our frontmen, it came straight back, whereas QPR's were able to hold onto it. That was the difference between the teams."
www.sportinglife.com/football/cc_championship/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=soccer/06/02/11/SOCCER_QPR_2nd_Nightlead.html&TEAMHD=nationwide1


- SUNDAY MIRROR LANGLEY: WE DON'T MISS IAN
RICHARD LANGLEY says QPR are better off without axed boss Ian Holloway.
Hoops chairman Gianni Paladini suspended Holloway on Tuesday for reportedly showing an interest in the vacant Leicester City job.
And midfielder Langley claims the players are happier working under caretaker boss Gary Waddock. He said: "There was no cohesion in the team. We didn't play with as much composure as we'd like, and we weren't playing the best football.
"A lot of the players like Gary Waddock's style, though. He appreciates a lot of the qualities we have in the team, and he's well liked. As long as the fans see us trying to pass it, they'll appreciate that.
"All the lads are behind Gary. It's going to be a hard job for him, but we'll give it everything. It will help Gary that he was such a legend as a player for QPR.
"We weren't surprised Ian was placed on gardening leave. There was a lot of speculation that he'd be moving on.
www.sundaymirror.co.uk/sport/football/tm_objectid=16693435%26method=full%26siteid=62484%26headline=langley%2d%2dwe%2ddon%2dt%2dmiss%2dian%2d-name_page.html

[QPR Report]

And Gary Waddock Profile on the day of his QPR Managerial Debut

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Waddock Profiled
-
Sunday Times - Waddock’s big shot
PAUL ROWAN
The ex-Ireland midfielder overcame two serious setbacks as a player. He now has a tough task as QPR’s caretaker-manager
Gary Waddock’s new office in a prefab at the back of the Queens Park Rangers training ground at Imperial College in west London is a spartan affair, filled with little more than a desk, a phone, a couple of filing cabinets and a few cardboard boxes. No baubles, mementoes or pictures, not yet anyway. But then Waddock has never done over-elaboration and sitting behind a high table would not be his style when a player walks through his door.
“With all the experiences I’ve had in my career,” he reflected when he found time for a breather on Friday afternoon, “when the players from the youth team or the first team speak to me, I know how they’ll feel when they’re low and I know how they’ll feel when they’re high. I’ve tasted both, the lowest of the lows and the highest of the highs.”
In football speak, those words are about as close as there is to the truth. At the age of 17 Waddock made his senior debut for QPR as a battling midfielder and he was 20 when he helped the club win promotion to the old First Division, then the highest tier. At 25, they showed him the insurer’s report on damage to the medial ligament in his right knee and then showed him the door, saying his injuries would make it impossible for him to play at the highest level again. As a local boy QPR was “in my blood”. So is Ireland. And the greatest blow was yet to come.
“I was told that I would never play 42 league games in a season in this country at the highest level. And the club decided that I wouldn’t be the same player, so there was an agreement with the insurance company and I retired.
I’m quite a determined character and when people say, ‘I don’t think you can do this’ or ‘I don’t think you can do that’ and me knowing my body better than anybody else, I thought my knee was in a reasonable nick. At the back of my mind there always was the question, ‘Can I play at the highest level again?’ That would have been in the top flight over here or back on the international stage with the Republic. And that was always the driving force behind it all, me getting back and proving to people, ‘Yeah I had an injury, but I battled back and rolled my sleeves up.’”
Waddock bought himself an exercise bike, started putting in the hard miles and then exiled to Royal Charleroi in Belgium. He was made their player of the year in 1988 and they desperately wanted him to stay, but Waddock had unfinished business back in his old manor.
Millwall had seen enough to come to an agreement with QPR whereby the insurance company was reimbursed a substantial part of the £300,000 they had paid out in compensation.
Waddock also knew that Charleroi was not the type of place where he would come to the notice of Jack Charlton, who had replaced Eoin Hand as Ireland manager in 1986. Waddock — his mother hails from Limerick, his father from Wexford — had become the second- youngest player to represent his country when he made his debut against Switzerland at the age of 18 years and 44 days. All his 19 caps had been earned under Hand. At Millwall, he teamed up with Tony Cascarino, who recommended him to Charlton. The Ireland manager was blessed with some fine attacking midfielders, Liam Brady, Ronnie Whelan, Ray Houghton and Andy Townsend among them, but quickly came round to the qualities that Waddock could bring to his squad. He was still a ferocious competitor despite the obvious hazards.
“It’s funny,” he says, “I was never a guy who picked up a strain or a pull and would be out for a week or two. I’d be the guy who’d smash his body to bits and be out for six months. With my ligament I was out for nine months, broken ankle six months, but that was the type of player I was.
“I competed, I put myself about and then gave it to somebody who was better on the ball than me. If I took that side of my game away I wouldn’t have played at the level I did.”
Charlton brought him back for a World Cup warm-up game against the Soviet Union in April 1990. It was Waddock’s first international in five years, but he had always looked comfortable at that level and that afternoon at Lansdowne Road was no different.
Three weeks later, Charlton named his squad for Italia 90 and Waddock was in it. In May, the Ireland squad travelled to the Mediterranean for some acclimatisation and Waddock started the friendly against Turkey in Izmir.
All the time, however, Charlton was fretting over niggling injuries to Whelan and Houghton. A big decision had to be made.
“I had a premonition,” Waddock recalls, “I said to Bernie Slaven, my roommate — Bernie put it in his book — I said to him, ‘I’ve got a feeling I ain’t going to be in it.’ Bernie said, ‘No, you’re joking. You’re in the 22, you’ve got the itinerary, you’ve got all the uniform.’ But my gut feeling was that I wasn’t going to be in it and I was proved right.”
From Turkey, the team flew to Malta and then assembled to collect their baggage.
We were waiting at the carousel to pick up the bags and go to the hotel. Jack pulled me aside and said, ‘Can I have a word?’ And I was told in the airport terminal. It’s difficult now to remember everything he said but the bottom line was that I wasn’t going to be included in the final 22. I think Mick (McCarthy) and Niall Quinn could see that something was going on. Jack said, ‘Do you want to stay on?’ I said, ‘No.’ I didn ’t say it in that polite a manner. But I told him, ‘I need a ticket to get home and get out of here. Now.’ We couldn’t get a ticket for, I think, two days.”
Waddock’s purgatory was served at the team hotel. His replacement, Alan McLoughlin — a more attack-minded player — arrived in the foyer. “I was there for an evening with him, sitting round the dinner table, him being on a high and me on a low,” Waddock says. “As soon as he walked into the building I had to go and see him. I congratulated him. ‘Well done, I hope it goes well for you. It’s got nothing to do with you. I wish you all the very best.’
“Devastated I was, but not towards him. I wanted him to do well and not feel awkward. He’s a good footballer and a nice guy.”
Waddock eventually had to force the issue of his flight home. “I went into his (Charlton’s) room and we had a conversation. Sometimes you need to get some things off your chest. You can imagine the state I was in. I had all the different emotions. I rang my wife and I said, ‘I’m not going to be involved in it, I need to get away as far as I can from the World Cup.’ As soon as I got home we went on holiday. But the World Cup is a world tournament.
It doesn’t matter where you are.
“I had a can of Coke in a restaurant and I looked at it and it had a World Cup history on it or something. And I’m thinking, ‘I cannot get away from this.’ It was devastating.”
What could Charlton have done differently? His decision was made with the best of motives, he was blunt but honest. Should he have drawn a curtain around the player before committing the execution? “I was offered a lot of money to do a story on him,” says Waddock, referring to the interest of the tabloid press at the time. “He knows about that as well. I was never going to do it. He was employed to do a job, to do what he felt was right.”
Waddock, however, reserves the right to disagree with the decision and the way he was handled.
“He could have done it on a beach. He could have done it in the hotel, it’s still bloody wrong in my opinion and I’ve never changed my opinion on that. And knowing the history of my career, I think it was wrong. If before he named his original 22, he would have thought about it maybe a little bit longer and harder . . . If I wasn’t in the original 22, I would have been able to accept it a little bit more than I did. I actually got over the final hurdle. I’m running towards the finishing line and was tripped up.”
Charlton has always made a point subsequently of praising the way Waddock handled that awful situation and included him in one subsequent squad for a friendly game, but Waddock never played for Ireland again. After a spell at Bristol Rovers, he finished his playing career in 1998 at Luton Town, after 18 years and 573 League appearances. Waddock had just finished taking his coaching badges and this time the decision was on his own terms.
“I was 36 and I had another year left on my playing contract. I got an offer to come back here and work in the academy as under-17 coach. I decided I would hang up my boots, which isn’t bad for somebody who had a dodgy knee and had to retire at 24.”
Lately, the breaks have started to go his way. Waddock has stepped into the breach after the two biggest egos at the club, the manager, Ian Holloway, and the chairman, Gianni Paladini, finally collided, Holloway being sent on permanent gardening leave for talking with Leicester City about filling the vacancy there. Holloway isn’t coming back and Waddock has been given until the end of the season to prove himself. After the glory days of the 1970s, early 1980s and early 1990s, QPR seem to have found their level in the middle to lower reaches of the Championship, but if Waddock can reverse their fortunes it will open up a whole new catchment area for the hero status he already enjoys with many of the older fans at Loftus Road.
“At this football club I’ve come through the ranks, been brought up in a certain way with a certain style of play. I want my players to pass the ball, to move, to entertain, to enjoy their games, but ultimately we have to secure results along the way.”
Waddock is a realist who enjoys the dream. Still.
www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2093-2036140,00.html