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Unread 13-01-2019, 08:32 AM
windy waffles
 
Football Les Ferdinand: How my Man United move was blocked

Quote:
The late Ray Wilkins’ words still ring in Les Ferdinand’s ears, 25 years on.

Sat in a club tracksuit, overlooking the training ground where he is director of football at Queens Park Rangers, Ferdinand’s career has gone full circle. He’ll spend this month influencing the paths of future careers during the January transfer window. It brings him back to his own sliding doors moment.

‘I’ve just had a conversation with a certain gentleman at Manchester United,’ Wilkins told him in 1994. ‘Wanted to know about your character.’


Sir Alex Ferguson was carrying out his final due diligence on Queens Park Rangers’ No 9.

Ferdinand’s 36 goals in two Premier League seasons had stirred his attention, but Ferguson wanted to hear a trusted advisor tell him the player’s ‘London boy’ image was exaggerated.

Wilkins had spent five years at Manchester United and seven at QPR, the last five alongside Ferdinand. He vouched.

'They’re going to make an offer for you tomorrow,' Wilkins told his former team-mate.

Seven years earlier Ferdinand thought professional football had passed him by.

He played non-league at Viking Greenford, “just off the A40”, then Southall, and would play for AEL, a London-Cypriot team, on a Sunday. He earned a living on the side by painting and decorating and driving a van, but computers “were the future”, and he was learning repairs on the Youth Training Scheme.

It was at 19 when Ferdinand was finally spotted at Hayes by Jim Smith, who convinced QPR to pay £50,000 to sign him. Fast-forward to 1994 and Ferdinand had just committed to a two-year contract extension at Loftus Road.

‘When the best team in the land comes calling, you’ve got to go,' Wilkins urged him. 'You’ve done all you can at QPR and I don’t think the supporters would begrudge you going to Manchester United.’

Ferdinand called QPR's chairman Richard Thompson the next day.

“I told him I knew Man United have made an offer. He asked if I wanted to go. I said ‘look, it’s Man United’.”

But Ferguson had prerequisites. He wanted Ferdinand before December to boost United’s chances in the Champions League knockout stages.

Thompson asked Ferdinand to allow him a couple of days to break the news to QPR manager Gerry Francis. It did not go down well.


“Gerry always said he would leave if they sold me,” Ferdinand laughs, recalling Francis’ resignation.

“The chairman called and said ‘I can’t lose my manager and star striker in a week so you need to give me a bit of time on this’.”

Ferdinand, who got on well with Thompson, waited.

“He came back to me a few days later and said ‘I think I might have resolved this but I’ve got some good news and some not so good news. I’ve spoken to Ray Wilkins and he’s going to come back as manager - but only on one condition - that we don’t sell you until the end of the season’.”


Ferdinand stood arms outstretched as QPR’s new player-manager Wilkins came through the door. “Razor?”

Wilkins was unmoved.

‘I just taught you an important lesson in football,' he said. 'You look after number one in this game.’

Manchester United signed Andy Cole from Newcastle on January 7, 1995.

Les Miserables, ran the newspaper headlines, but Ferdinand maintains he held no resentment towards either Wilkins or the QPR hierarchy.

He finished the season with 26 goals, his best figures yet.


“I was never going to kick up a fuss,” he says. “There’s not a lot of loyalty in football, or in life, but the club had been really good to me. I just carried on and if it was meant to be, it would be.”

Ferdinand's only conversations about the failed transfer was a chance encounter with former United chairman Martin Edwards years later at the Royal Lancaster. 'We tried to sign you, we thought we had,' Edwards told him.

“I never ever spoke to Sir Alex about it," says Ferdinand.

United had moved on, but so would he. QPR stayed true to their promise and allowed Ferdinand to leave at the end of the season.

'Five minutes and I was convinced'
Aston Villa had first option on Ferdinand. But when Ferdinand knew Newcastle, and Kevin Keegan, were waiting, it was an easy decision.


“I spoke to him for five minutes and was convinced I was going to Newcastle,” says Ferdinand.

David Ginola and Keith Gillespie were told their jobs were to ‘put the ball on his head’, by Keegan, and that’s what they did. Ferdinand scored 29 goals in his first season on Tyneside.

“He was committed to playing out-and-out attacking football,” says Ferdinand. Life was good.

Even Keegan’s infamous ‘I will love it’ rant brought him closer to the dressing room.


“We went in to training the next day, the boys were loving it,” Ferdinand laughs. “Everybody wants players to wear their hearts on their sleeves and show their passion and desire - we just thought that’s what he’s doing.”

"Everyone's second team", as Ferdinand calls them, were loved all over the country, but the free-flowing football had failed to bring a trophy.

Newcastle lost out on the title to Manchester United, and saw Keegan look for a source of more goals at the end of the season, spelling competition for Ferdinand...

“I’m in duty free loading up, we’re going to the Far East,” says Ferdinand. “Terry McDermott (assistant manager) comes running up the escalator saying the gaffer needed to see me, he might not be coming on the plane.”

Ferdinand remembers trudging back through the airport to find Keegan.

‘I need to load up the plane is leaving in an hour,’ he told his boss.

‘I’m going to sign Alan Shearer,’ came the reply.

Ferdinand was reassured he would not be leaving the club.

‘I’m not trying to prove anyone wrong but I really believe you two can complement each other,’ Keegan told him.

Unfazed, Ferdinand had always known Keegan felt they relied too heavily on his goals.

‘Brilliant,’ he said, wheeling off to head back to duty free.

‘Oh, one other thing... He’s asked if he can have the number 9 shirt.’

Ferdinand turned back: ‘What did you tell him?’

‘I said I’d ask Les. Alan’s wore it all his life, everywhere he’s gone he’s had the No 9 shirt.’

‘Yeah, so have I.’


‘I didn’t think it meant that much to you. It’s just a number. When I was given the No 7 at Liverpool I would have worn 10 or 11 to play for them.’

‘Why have you got 7 on your chain?’

Ferdinand and Keegan start laughing.

‘Kev, the mere fact you’re asking me about it means you want him to have it. You’re the manager of this football club, if that’s what you want that’s what you’ve got to do.’

Looking back, Ferdinand had nothing against Shearer. “I didn’t blame Alan. I would have probably done the same thing and asked for the No 9 shirt.”

But Ferdinand admits his relationship was “never the same” with Keegan. “For the last year he’d told me I was the best centre forward in the country, I just felt there was a little bit of a wedge after that.”


Keegan quit Newcastle in January 1997, with few parting words exchanged.


“He went into hiding a little bit,” says Ferdinand, though the pair would speak years later.

“To be totally honest, us not winning the league the year before took something out of him, it took something out of all of us.”


Ferdinand followed Keegan out the door at the end of the season, just after Manchester United claimed a second-successive Premier League title.

He’d still scored 21 goals but, at 30, “Newcastle saw it as good business” when Tottenham offered £6m for him.

Sir Alan Sugar, Spurs’ chairman, persuaded Ferdinand to head to London and join his boyhood club, only for Newcastle to try to pull out at the 11th hour when Alan Shearer broke his ankle.


But even a personal call from Shearer could not change his mind. “He told me it’s his boyhood club and he would love for me to come back, but that he’d understand if I didn’t because of the way I’d been treated.”

Ferdinand says he made a decision “based on pride rather than what was the best thing for my football career”.

It’s his biggest regret.

“Not at all did I want to leave,” says Ferdinand. “I would have spent the rest of my career there. I thought it was a great club, we were on the cusp of winning something.”

Les Ferdinand was speaking exclusively to the Sky Sports News Transfer Talk podcast. Download the full episode on iTunes or Acast - or watch it On Dem
His article.

What a player Sir Les was. He always used to run us ragged. Scored fine screamers against us.

Ray Wilkins, though, sly @#%&! God rest his soul.
 
Unread 13-01-2019, 09:02 AM
Cream
 
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Quote:
Ferdinand stood arms outstretched as QPR’s new player-manager Wilkins came through the door. “Razor?”

Wilkins was unmoved.

‘I just taught you an important lesson in football,' he said. 'You look after number one in this game.’


And you wonder why players have agents.
 
Unread 13-01-2019, 09:29 AM
Coracao
 
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Surprising how long he stayed at QPR. Must have been approaching 29 when he left. Would have done well at United NQAT. Quick, good finisher and very good in the air IIRC.
 
Unread 13-01-2019, 09:34 AM
windy waffles
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Coracao
Surprising how long he stayed at QPR. Must have been approaching 29 when he left. Would have done well at United NQAT. Quick, good finisher and very good in the air IIRC.
He was a monster in the air.

Great bonce.
 
Unread 13-01-2019, 10:46 AM
TheFatGoth
 
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Great player tbf
 
Unread 13-01-2019, 10:48 AM
Neo
 
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Smashed up the Blue Peter garden as a yute, Top Red, Les.

Bang average as a player.
 
Unread 13-01-2019, 11:02 AM
jaffo
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Neo
Smashed up the Blue Peter garden as a yute, Top Red, Les.

Bang average as a player.
First thing I thought of
 
Unread 13-01-2019, 11:03 AM
no fun
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Neo
Smashed up the Blue Peter garden as a yute, Top Red, Les.

Bang average as a player.
Would like to have smashed Valerie singleton
 
Unread 13-01-2019, 11:41 AM
Clownbones
 
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Cole was never first choice then eh?
 
Unread 13-01-2019, 11:45 AM
puressence
 
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Top player massive Hampton has a helicopter licence
 
Unread 13-01-2019, 11:49 AM
windy waffles
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Neo
Smashed up the Blue Peter garden as a yute, Top Red, Les.

Bang average as a player.
Average?

Have a word.

Quote:
Originally Posted by puressence
Top player massive Hampton has a helicopter licence
Had Giggsys sloppy seconds too... (Dani Behr).
 
Unread 13-01-2019, 11:51 AM
puressence
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by windy waffles
Average?

Have a word.



Had Giggsys sloppy seconds too... (Dani Behr).
Couple of forumists have aswell
 
Unread 13-01-2019, 11:52 AM
windy waffles
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by puressence
Couple of forumists have aswell
 
Unread 13-01-2019, 11:53 AM
Sparky***
 
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Absolute top bloke.
 
Unread 13-01-2019, 12:00 PM
Hands of Scone
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Clownbones
Cole was never first choice then eh?
Ot even third. Didn’t fergie try for David Hirst and Stan Collywomanwhacker first?
 
Unread 13-01-2019, 12:03 PM
rubbernecker
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hands of Scone
Ot even third. Didn’t fergie try for David Hirst and Stan Collywomanwhacker first?
David Hirst was earlier and alas his unavailability meant we had to settle for Eric
 
Unread 13-01-2019, 12:08 PM
windy waffles
 
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hands of Scone
Ot even third. Didn’t fergie try for David Hirst and Stan Collywomanwhacker first?
Hirst was first choice before Eric.

We got Cole when Frank Clark wouldn't return Fergie's calls about Stan the Man.

Rumour has it he cried his eyes out when we signed Cole.
 
Unread 13-01-2019, 12:09 PM
Hands of Scone
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rubbernecker
David Hirst was earlier and alas his unavailability meant we had to settle for Eric
Ahh, that’s right. Oh, what might have been

I really wanted us to sign hirst. I remember reading about Wednesday giving a two week trial to a frenchman named Cantoener as I thought it was pronounced. Then he tipped up at leeds and realised they must have been £#%&!ing mad.
 
Unread 13-01-2019, 12:58 PM
MartialLaw
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by windy waffles
Hirst was first choice before Eric.

We got Cole when Frank Clark wouldn't return Fergie's calls about Stan the Man.

Rumour has it he cried his eyes out when we signed Cole.
Would have been interesting that one, collymore was a sensational player, with fergie guiding him I think he'd have been brilliant for us.

He went to Liverpool and his career went to shite.
 
Unread 13-01-2019, 01:11 PM
Buck
 
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Very underrated player. England had great depth of strikers in the 90s. Even Dean Holdsworth could count himself unlucky looking at some of the dross that gets capped in the last 10 years.
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