55 Years Ago Today: "The Doc" Arrives at Loftus Rd

[QPR Report]

"On This Day" in 1968: .."The Doc" Took over at QPR

And QPR were "Big Time"

And actually, the first of Jim Gregory's Managerial Hires...Alec Stock had been at QPR for several years prior to Gregory's own arrival at QPR.

After the Doc came Les Allen, Gordon Jago, Dave Sexton, Frank Sibley, Steve Burtenshaw, The Doc again, Terry Venables, Gordon Jago again (for a wk), Alan Mullery, Frank Sibley again (Acting for 6+ Months), Jim Smith...


November 1, 1968: Tommy Docherty Took over at QPR...(and 28 Days later, "The Doc" Left QPR!

In his four week spell, QPR did achieve one of their four wins they got that season: a 2-1 win at home to Nottingham Forest. QPR lost their other three games in the Docherty era.

When Docherty took over, there was a big thrill for QPR fans: A "big-time" manager taking over (even though he had come most recently from Rotherham, who QPR had beaten the previous season, 6-0!). Aparently, there was some conflict with QPR Chairman Jim Gregory. Docherty wanted to sign a player (Tiler?). Gregory didn't want to sign him. QPR didn't sign him. Docherty left, criticizing the team, but praising Rodney Marsh.
Docherty took over at Aston Villa (who went down!)...

And Les Allen became QPR's Player Manager, and QPR went down.

Just over a decade later, Docherty was back at QPR managing under Jim Gregory, and lasted less than 18 months, before again being fired..

See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Docherty



And an interview Ex-Club Secretary, Ron PHillips a few years back with "Vital QPR"


11. What was the truth behind the Alec Stock Departure in 1968? Was he sacked or helped out by Jim Gregory? (Mike, QPRReport)

I was writing my History of QPR when Alec Stock left. The official reason given was Alec's health, but I think it was more of a parting of the ways 'by mutual consent'.


"Bill Dodgin took over from Alec; he left almost immediately when Tommy Docherty was brought in. Tommy stayed for a tempestuous 28 days - which I lived with him - and when he left Les Allen took over. The book came out three managers out of date. We managed to get a note at the front saying that Alec had left since the book was written.

I had lunch with Jim Gregory and Tommy Doc at a pub in Wimbledon the day the new manager arrived. The partnership was doomed to failure. Tommy wanted to bring in Brian Tiler from Rotherham; he chairman suggested Brian O'Neill (Burnley), 'He'd cost £70,000, I've checked', said the Doc. The argument continued over the meal - without resolve.

Twenty seven days later I went to an evening match at Tottenham. Tommy Doc arrived. He told me to tell the chairman he was leaving the next day and would be clearing his desk at 9 a.m .

I rang the chairman, who was at a health farm, at midnight when I got home. 'He's bluffing', he said.

The next morning I was in Tommy's office at 9 a.m., with chief scout Derek Healy, as he started emptying the drawers in his desk. I rang the chairman to report. 'He's bluffing', said Jim.

I saw Tommy off the premises and rang the chairman. He left the health farm and drove to the training ground to break the news to the players. I stayed in Tommy's office breaking the story to the papers!


www.qpr.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=130512
qprreport.proboards.com/thread/19063/dennis-signys-qpr-old-days#ixzz3qEAz63CX


VIA BUSHMAN ARCHIVES

Bump another year: The 28 Day Era of Tommy Docherty


Photos/Captions below From the Bushman Archives for 1968/69

As it appeared in the Rangers v Burnley, 9th November 1968 programme.

Tommy Docherty becomes Rangers new Manager.

Barry Bridges meets with Tommy Docherty

Rodney Marsh with the ball as Nottingham Forest players look on.

Nottingham Forest was to be Tommy Docherty's last game as manager 23rd November 1968.

QPR 2 - 1 Nottigham Forest. Scorers: Marsh, Hazell

Les Allen first game as caretaker manager following Tommy Docherty's departure 2 days before, ended in a 1-0 defeat against Coventry.

Bushman Archives
Including Response by Chairman Jim Gregory to charges that QPR Players were unfit!





From The Football League Review. 1969

Rangers give debuts to 19 year-old goalkeeper Alan Spratley & 18 year-old forward Alan Glover (outside Villa Park) against Aston Villa in the FA Cup 3rd Round 4th January 1969. Tommy Docherty was the new manager at Villa.Ranger lost 2-1. Scorer: I . Morgan

[Macmoish]

Bump a year...

[Lonegunmen]

I met him the second occasion. I know he was no angel and the Mrs Brown thing certainly tainted his image but I actually liked the guy - despite selling Stan. I found him a very interesting yet funny man.

[Macmoish]

Selling Allen and Goddard!

I'm sure he makes a great after dinner speaker...And if I had to choose between having Docherty sign my players or having a certain Sporting DIrector making those signers, well that would be a no brainer!

[terryb]

See my 5 worst Rangers moments.

Appointing Docherty came 3rd & 4th.

The first time was also tainted bt the dismissal of Stock & Dodgin. The second time for the sale of Clive Allen & in particular Paul Goddard. Also inflicting Karl Elsey on us!

[Macmoish]

Bump another year: 44 Years ago: The 28 Day Era of Tommy Docherty


Photos/Captions below From the Bushman Archives for 1968/69

As it appeared in the Rangers v Burnley, 9th November 1968 programme.

Tommy Docherty becomes Rangers new Manager.

Barry Bridges meets with Tommy Docherty

Rodney Marsh with the ball as Nottingham Forest players look on.

Nottingham Forest was to be Tommy Docherty's last game as manager 23rd November 1968.

QPR 2 - 1 Nottigham Forest. Scorers: Marsh, Hazell

Les Allen first game as caretaker manager following Tommy Docherty's departure 2 days before, ended in a 1-0 defeat against Coventry.

Rangers give debuts to 19 year-old goalkeeper Alan Spratley & 18 year-old forward Alan Glover (outside Villa Park) against Aston Villa in the FA Cup 3rd Round 4th January 1969. Tommy Docherty was the new manager at Villa.Ranger lost 2-1. Scorer: I . Morgan

[zicoshoops]

Funny but true story about his leaving.

Jim Gregory called him into his office and told him that things were not working out.
Docherty said, 'You can't leave us now Jim, we need you.'
Gregory replied.....
'I'm not f**king leaving, you are.' ;D

[shenandoah]

Thanks for putting this one up aswell. ;D

[Macmoish]

Bump: 45 Years ago today: The DOC ARRIVES


The Guardian re Axing of Alec Stock

(Putting the Alec Stock Axed Thread Link
qprreport.proboards.com/thread/37554/forgotten-story-alec-stock?page=1

Oct 30, 2013 at 9:26am
The forgotten story of ... Alec Stock | Simon Burnton | Sport | theguardian.com

"It is possible that before you finish this book another manager of a football league club will be sacked. A lot of people will shake their heads knowingly and the fact will be dutifully reported in the newspapers, but unless the manager's name is a household word, nobody will get very excited. Why should they? One does not get excited because night follows day, and failure in league football is followed by the manager's head with the same unfailing regularity ... This may be harsh, it may be sad and to many managers it is certainly frightening, but it is also inevitable. Managers need success like other men need food and drink, but regrettably not all 92 of them can win something every season."

So begins Football Club Manager, Alec Stock's brilliantly readable treatise on life in the hotseat. It was a dispassionate assessment of his trade by a man who, when the book came out, had been in management for 21 years without getting the sack. If success was indeed to managers what food and drink was to other men he was in the middle of a feast of truly epic proportions, but within a year, the taste of dessert still on his lips, he was to be at the receiving end of possibly the harshest booting-out in the history of British football.

Having played a bit for QPR before the second world war Stock first came to the football world's attention when as player-manager he guided Yeovil, then of the Southern League, to the fifth round of the FA Cup in 1949, beating Bury when they were first in the Second Division and Sunderland when they were second in the First – when Stock himself, never the most accomplished player and hampered by shrapnel lodged in his leg and buttock after his wartime service in the tank corps, scored a stunning and entirely atypical left-foot volley from the edge of the area.

His burnished reputation survived an 8-0 drubbing at Old Trafford in round five, and he soon moved to Leyton Orient, where he returned after brief dalliances with Arsenal (53 days as assistant and heir apparent to Tom Whittaker, before he was asked to spend a Saturday watching Aldershot's reserves rather than Arsenal's first-team and he left) and Roma (11 matches, only one of them lost, before the directors told him who to put in the team and he left) and whom he led to promotion in 1956. Two years after that he joined QPR.

Though Stock initially did reasonably well, the club's accounts did not and the board was soon left with no choice but to urgently seek investment. In 1965, Jim Gregory arrived as chairman, and changed the club for ever. Having started as a market fishmonger the brash, abrasive Gregory had graduated to selling used cars, then new cars, then garages, and then entire chains of garages. He was a man accustomed to success, determined to savour more of it at Loftus Road and prepared to dip into his own pocket to guarantee it.

"Jim was a very difficult man to work with," Ron Phillips, QPR's secretary between 1966 and 1989, tells me. "He wasn't like Alec at all. Alec's nickname was 'the first gentleman of soccer'. He was a very nice man and a gentleman in every way. Jim Gregory was precisely the opposite. He was a terribly impatient man, and wanted success immediately."

Fortunately, he got it. His first full season ended with the club third, one place if eight points from promotion. Towards the end of it he funded the signing of Rodney Marsh from Fulham for £15,000 – Stock repeatedly plundered Fulham's reserves, later finding Malcolm Macdonald from the same source. "It is no secret that I have always preferred London players," he wrote. "I know and trust them and feel happiest working with them". The brilliant young forward scored 44 times in all the following season, which ended with QPR winning the league by 13 points (and this in the days of two points for a win). They also reached the League Cup final, which for the first time that year was played at Wembley, and came back from a 2-0 half-time deficit against First Division West Bromwich Albion to become the first third-tier side to win there. The trophy was kept in a bank vault, because QPR didn't possess a trophy cabinet. They had never really needed one.

Winning back-to-back promotions to storm into the top flight is a rare feat today, but back then it simply was not done. Only one team had achieved it before, and that was more than 30 years earlier. But QPR won five of their first six games and were never out of the top two, though the prize was very nearly plucked from their grasp at the death. Blackpool were level with them on the final day after a six-game winning run, and their players celebrated on the pitch as they extended it to seven while Rangers were only drawing at Aston Villa. Meanwhile, at Villa Park, a late own-goal gifted QPR a 2-1 victory and promotion on goal average. "Everyone in the dressing-room afterwards was shattered," Stock said. "I was a wreck, drained of everything except happiness."

It was his last match as QPR manager. What Stock had achieved – taking a club that had spent all but four seasons of their history in or below the Third Division to two promotions and what remains their only major trophy – ranks alongside the greatest achievements in lower-division football management, but Gregory was already attempting to manoeuvre him out of the club. Over the summer he tried to prompt a resignation, criticising his every move and briefing the press that Stock was to be stripped of control over first-team affairs and assume the title general manager.

"Jim felt Alec couldn't bring any more successes and he really wanted him out," Phillips tells me. "He started making his life very difficult." In his unpublished memoir, Phillips recalls "constant complaints about the way the team were playing and nonstop criticism of Alec's administrative decisions". And just as Gregory sought an excuse to banish Stock, fate gave him one.

Three days after the 1967 League Cup final QPR beat Bournemouth 4-0 at home, an increasingly familiar display of attacking brio from a side on a run that saw them score 23 goals and concede two in 10 league matches. Marsh scored a couple, and would later declare it the finest performance of his career. Leaving the ground after the game, Stock became unexpectedly breathless. It was his first asthma attack.

"My asthma was caused and then aggravated, the experts say, by years of shouting and screaming at players during training," he wrote in his autobiography, A Thing Called Pride, which was published in 1981. "It was a real struggle to get through the remainder of our promotion season, and even harder when we went up to the First Division. There were many days when I had to hide my condition from the players and I remember coming home from floodlit matches and just sitting up all night."

Stock's youngest daughter, Sarah, doesn't remember the asthma being particularly debilitating. "He'd never had problems with it as a player," she says. "He'd served in the army in world war two, and as far as I'm aware there was never any issue with it. But that summer I remember I was packed off to Somerset to my grandmother's farm. I kept saying I wanted to go home, and they kept making excuses why I had to stay. What I didn't know was that dad was up in chest hospitals. But most of the time he was at home relaxing. Everything was fine, he was just recuperating."

On medical advice, Stock took three months' leave in the summer of 1968. In his absence QPR faltered, winning only two of their first 17 league fixtures before their manager returned to work that November. "I knew that Jim Gregory would be at the ground," he wrote. "'I want to see you a minute Alec,' he said. I thought he was going to welcome me back with open arms. I thought and hoped he was going to say, 'Come on Alec, glad to have you back, let's get this show on the road again.' But he didn't, and 20 seconds later I was out, sacked, with this damning testimony. 'You are ill, you're incurable, I want you to go.'" Stock later said he had been "treated as though I had pinched the petty cash".

Though in many ways the writing had been on the wall, Stock was genuinely astonished by the sacking. "I just remember the atmosphere at home, being shell-shocked," Sarah says. "I was only three when Dad went to Rangers. I grew up there, I used to hang out there, babysit for the players and go to their weddings. It was just total shock. It was Dad's dream to pick a First Division side, he couldn't understand why they were losing and he had been desperate to get back."

Gregory's family used to socialise with the Stocks. They would buy each other Christmas presents. "Dad got on well with Jim Gregory for a long time. It was all very amenable, but then things just changed very quickly," Sarah says. "Elizabeth [Stock's older daughter] remembers going to the first game in the First Division, and suddenly Tommy Docherty was sitting in the stands. This was before dad had got the sack. Obviously there were things going on behind the scenes."

The club released a terse statement, saying Stock's departure had been "amicably agreed by mutual consent", but journalists were told that Stock was too sick to work. Stock proved them wrong by moving back to the Third Division with Luton six weeks later, and he was to work for another 12 years, bringing the Hatters to promotion and Fulham to an FA Cup final, and live for 33. "He lived with me for the last 10 years of his life, and in his 70s he was still coming to the gym with me and going training, and running my son ragged," Sarah says. Docherty replaced him at QPR, but quit after 28 days having fallen out with Gregory (not for the last time – Docherty returned in 1979, was sacked in May 1980, rehired nine days later and sacked again that October). "When you shook hands with him, you counted your fingers," Docherty said of Gregory. "He was a crook."

Some 10 years after Stock's sacking, Phillips remembers Gregory bringing him up in conversation. "I was sitting in his office when he suddenly said, 'You know my big mistake, Ron? I should never have let Alec go,'" he recalls. "It was the only time I heard him admit to a mistake." Stock was invited back to the club as a director, and briefly retook control of the team as caretaker manager. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," Stock wrote. "I'm sure Jim asked me back to clear his conscience from all those years before, but it was probably the wrong decision." He considered his time in the boardroom "a bloody awful job shaking hands and pouring gin and tonics" and left when Bournemouth offered him what was to be his last job in management, at the age of 62.

But QPR were to be guilty of mistreating Stock again. Though he played for the club before the war, spent a decade there as manager, brought them unparalleled success and later returned to the board, when he grew old and unwell they turned their back. In 1999, two years before his death, Yeovil arranged a testimonial to fund his care but QPR refused to help; after his death they threw a dinner in his honour and again Rangers stayed away. "When my dad was ill, Yeovil and Fulham were the ones who came through," Sarah recalls. "Rodney Marsh and a few players came back, but it was very much Fulham and Yeovil who tried to help."

When Gregory bought the club in 1964 it was in the Third Division, financially imperilled and with a small and ramshackle stadium. When he left it was in the First Division, financially secure and with a totally renovated ground. That the club is where it is today, or that it exists at all, is down in large part to his support, but his treatment of the man who first led QPR to the top flight was every bit as shabby as the rickety old stands he replaced. Stock's wife, Marjorie, once conjured a memorable description of her husband's time at Loftus Road: "He climbed the mountain, and found rubbish at the top."

www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2013/oct/30/forgotten-story-alec-stock-qpr-manager

Read more: qprreport.proboards.com/thread/37554/forgotten-story-alec-stock?page=1#ixzz3qEAIeIaP

[Macmoish]

QPR Managers Since Docherty (You can argue one or two names as being "Acting" but still astounding - How few before Docherty...How many since...Especially in the past 15 years+


Managers

Information correct as of 21 September 2013, only competitive matches are counted. Caretaker managers are shown in italics.
Name Nat From To G W D L Win % Honours and/or notes Ref(s)
James Cowan Scotland Scotland 1 August 1906 31 March 1913 296 128 85 83 43.2 Southern Football League champions 1907/08,
FA Charity Shield runners–up 1908, 1912 [2]
James Howie Scotland Scotland 1 August 1913 1 April 1920 236 85 48 103 36.0 – [3]
Ned Liddell England England 1 April 1920 31 March 1924 177 71 42 64 40.1 – [4]
Bob Hewison England England 1 August 1925 1 May 1930 219 80 53 86 36.5 – [5]
Archie Mitchell England England 1 November 1931 1 May 1933 79 32 18 29 40.5 – [6]
Mick O'Brien Republic of Ireland Ireland 1 May 1933 1 April 1935 84 40 16 28 47.6 – [7]
Billy Birrell Scotland Scotland 1 April 1935 1 May 1939 184 85 42 57 46.2 – [8]
Ted Vizard Wales Wales 1 May 1939 1 April 1944 186 95 29 62 51.1 – [9]
Dave Mangnall England England 1 April 1944 31 May 1952 280 112 74 94 40.0 Football League Third Division South champions 1947/48 [10]
Jack Taylor England England 1 June 1952 1 May 1959 341 118 89 134 34.6 – [11]
Alec Stock England England 1 August 1959 1 August 1968 439 206 104 129 46.9 Football League Third Division champions 1966/67
Football League Cup winners 1966/67 [12]
Bill Dodgin, Jr. England England 1 August 1968 1 November 1968 16 2 5 9 12.5 –


Tommy Docherty Scotland Scotland 1 November 1968 30 November 1968 4 1 0 3 25.0 – [14]
Les Allen England England 1 December 1968 6 January 1971 4 3 1 1 50.0 – [15]
Gordon Jago England England 6 January 1971 27 September 1974 161 71 55 35 44.1 Football League Division Two runners-up 1972/73 [16]
Dave Sexton England England 16 October 1974 9 July 1977 130 57 32 41 43.8 Football League Division One runners-up 1975/76 [17]
Frank Sibley England England 10 July 1977 29 July 1978 45 9 17 19 20.0 – [18]
Alec Stock England England 30 July 1978 1 August 1978 - - - - - – [12]
Steve Burtenshaw England England 10 August 1978 10 May 1979 41 6 13 22 14.6 – [19]
Tommy Docherty Scotland Scotland 11 May 1979 1 October 1980 51 20 16 15 39.2 – [14]
Terry Venables England England 1 October 1980 24 May 1984 166 84 33 49 50.6 FA Cup runners-up 1981/82
Football League Division Two champions 1982/83 [20]
Gordon Jago England England 28 May 1984 5 June 1984 – – – – – – [16]
Alan Mullery England England 20 June 1984 5 December 1984 26 11 8 7 42.3 – [21]
Frank Sibley England England 5 December 1984 1 June 1985 28 8 6 14 28.6 – [18]
Jim Smith England England 11 June 1985 4 December 1988 167 67 38 62 40.1 Football League Cup runners-up 1985/86 [22]
Trevor Francis England England 14 December 1988 27 November 1989 93 31 30 32 33.3 – [23]
Don Howe England England 28 November 1989 21 May 1991 75 27 21 27 36.0 – [24]
Gerry Francis England England 1 June 1991 11 November 1994 158 59 47 52 37.3 – [25]
Ray Wilkins England England 15 November 1994 4 September 1996 80 31 13 36 38.8 – [26]
Stewart Houston Scotland Scotland 16 September 1996 10 November 1997 63 25 15 23 39.7 – [27]
John Hollins England England 11 November 1997 5 December 1997 4 1 2 1 25.0 – [28]
Ray Harford England England 5 December 1997 28 September 1998 41 5 18 18 12.2 Lowest win percentage of any permanent QPR manager. [29]
Iain Dowie Northern Ireland Northern Ireland 28 September 1998 16 October 1998 2 1 0 1 50.0 – [30]
Gerry Francis England England 16 October 1998 25 February 2001 125 36 42 47 28.8 – [25]
Ian Holloway England England 26 February 2001 2 February 2006 252 100 71 81 39.7 Football League Division Two runners-up 2003/04 [31]
Gary Waddock Republic of Ireland Ireland 6 February 2006 19 September 2006 23 4 8 11 17.4 – [32][33]
John Gregory England England 20 September 2006 1 October 2007 48 13 12 23 27.1 – [34]
Mick Harford England England 1 October 2007 29 October 2007 5 2 2 1 40.2 – [35]
Luigi De Canio Italy Italy 29 October 2007 12 May 2008 35 12 11 12 34.3 First manager from outside UK & Ireland [36]
Iain Dowie Northern Ireland Northern Ireland 14 May 2008 24 October 2008 15 8 3 4 53.3 Highest win percentage of any QPR manager. [30]
Gareth Ainsworth England England 24 October 2008 19 November 2008 7 2 1 4 28.6 – [37]
Paulo Sousa Portugal Portugal 19 November 2008 9 April 2009 26 7 12 7 26.9 – [38]
Gareth Ainsworth England England 9 April 2009 3 May 2009 5 1 1 3 20.0 – [37]
Jim Magilton Northern Ireland Northern Ireland 3 June 2009 16 December 2009 24 9 8 7 37.5 – [39]
Steve Gallen
Marc Bircham Republic of Ireland Ireland
Canada Canada 16 December 2009 17 December 2009 1 0 1 0 0.0 – [40]
Paul Hart England England 17 December 2009 15 January 2010 5 1 2 2 20.0 – [41]
Mick Harford England England 15 January 2010 2 March 2010 7 1 0 6 14.3 – [35]
Neil Warnock England England 2 March 2010 8 January 2012 84 33 27 24 39.2 Football League Championship champions [42]
Mark Hughes Wales Wales 10 January 2012 23 November 2012 32 8 6 18 25.0 – [43][44]
Harry Redknapp England England 24 November 2012 Present 38 12 12 14 31.5

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Queens_Park_Rangers_F.C._managers

[Macmoish]

Bump..46 Years Today

[Macmoish]

Bump 47 Years today

And an interview Ex-Club Secretary, Ron PHillips a few years back with "Vital QPR"


11. What was the truth behind the Alec Stock Departure in 1968? Was he sacked or helped out by Jim Gregory? (Mike, QPRReport)

I was writing my History of QPR when Alec Stock left. The official reason given was Alec's health, but I think it was more of a parting of the ways 'by mutual consent'.


"Bill Dodgin took over from Alec; he left almost immediately when Tommy Docherty was brought in. Tommy stayed for a tempestuous 28 days - which I lived with him - and when he left Les Allen took over. The book came out three managers out of date. We managed to get a note at the front saying that Alec had left since the book was written.

I had lunch with Jim Gregory and Tommy Doc at a pub in Wimbledon the day the new manager arrived. The partnership was doomed to failure. Tommy wanted to bring in Brian Tiler from Rotherham; he chairman suggested Brian O'Neill (Burnley), 'He'd cost £70,000, I've checked', said the Doc. The argument continued over the meal - without resolve.

Twenty seven days later I went to an evening match at Tottenham. Tommy Doc arrived. He told me to tell the chairman he was leaving the next day and would be clearing his desk at 9 a.m .

I rang the chairman, who was at a health farm, at midnight when I got home. 'He's bluffing', he said.

The next morning I was in Tommy's office at 9 a.m., with chief scout Derek Healy, as he started emptying the drawers in his desk. I rang the chairman to report. 'He's bluffing', said Jim.

I saw Tommy off the premises and rang the chairman. He left the health farm and drove to the training ground to break the news to the players. I stayed in Tommy's office breaking the story to the papers!


www.qpr.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=130512
qprreport.proboards.com/thread/19063/dennis-signys-qpr-old-days#ixzz3qEAz63CX

[Macmoish]

Bump - 48 Years ago

[Macmoish]

Bump -55 years: My first QPR managerial Hire as a QPR Fan! (Also true for Jim Gregory!) Soon got used to changes