Stan Bowles, Queens Park Rangers’ greatest ever player, one of the game’s great playboys in grip of Alzheimer’s
Phil Thomas takes a look at the brilliant, crowd-pleasing star of the 1970s, who is heart-breakingly in the grip of Alzheimer’s
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IT remains one of football’s iconic quotes, from one of football’s most iconic stars.
From Stan Bowles, QPR’s greatest ever player, one of the game’s great playboys and mavericks… a man who could pass a ball anywhere, but a betting shop nowhere.
They even printed T-shirts bearing the words of Stan the Man, as he was known down Shepherds Bush.
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The golden boy who had everything, but ended up with nothing…
“I blew the lot on vodka and tonic, gambling and fags. Looking back, I think I overdid it on the tonic.”
It sums him up to a tee. Play harder, enjoy life harder, and to hell with the consequences.
Yet amazingly, a generation and more have grown up without knowing too much about the brilliance of Bowles.
Gazza? Of course. George Best? Likewise. Even Rodney Marsh, the man who preceded Bowles at QPR and eventually followed him at Manchester City.
But to anyone aged 30 and below, certainly from outside the Loftus Road catchment area, the snake-hipped Stanley remains an enigma.
Someone whose name they may have heard of but whose talents they have never seen.
Mind you, the talent was only the half of it. And there was plenty of talent, believe me.
They knew it on the streets in and around Collyhurst, the Manchester suburb where he grew up, and was banned from the local Moston fair as a 13-year-old.
Not for cheek, for pilfering, or anything so Fagin-esqe, but for fear of putting one stallholder out of business.
One sideshow at the annual local fair gave cash prizes to anyone who could hit half a dozen small targets with a football. Bowles did it every time… so the red card had to come out.
City were the ones to snap him up as an apprentice, and he supplemented his meagre pay by running bets across town for a Manchester gang, from pub to pub when it was still illegal.
It was his first real glimpse into the world of gambling. A world in which he would immerse himself more and more when the pay got heftier and the pull of the bookies even greater.
As he cut his teeth at City, Bowles’ fiery temper put him on collision course with flamboyant manager Malcolm Allison and when the inevitable happened, he spent the next two seasons with Bury, Crewe and Carlisle.
But at 24 the big break arrived, when QPR paid £110,000 to take him from the Cumbrian backwaters to the bright lights.
It was a daunting task. From the Second Division to replacing Marsh, who had headed to City six months earlier, but whose number 10 shirt was shunned by many for fear of being compared to the terrace hero.
Bowles had no such problem. He took it immediately and joked that, as a northerner, he’d never heard of him anyway!
For seven majestic years the pitch was his palladium, playing the key role in QPR’s greatest ever side, which pushed Liverpool all the way in 1975-76, before finishing second.
The parting of the ways eventually came in 1979, when Tommy Docherty arrived and an immediate clash of personalities followed.
So, too, did another unforgettable Bowles quote. When the Doc insisted Stan could trust him, back came the reply: “I'd rather trust my chickens with Colonel Sanders.”
Brian Clough plucked him from Rangers but another locking of horns ended that relationship – and showed Stan would go to the ultimate lengths if he felt he was being wronged.
Clough denied him the chance to play in big pal John Robertson’s testimonial, so Bowles told him to stuff it – and turned his back on the chance of playing in the 1980 European Cup final.
That one season at the City Ground was followed by four more at Orient and Brentford, but the glitter had gone.
The brilliance which earned him five England caps – a travesty it was only five – had faded and the light had dimmed.
For those who had seen him play, though, it never did. In 2004 QPR fans voted him the club’s all-time greatest player, an honour which genuinely touched him.
The memory of that fantastic team which took the 1976 title race to the final day still leaves a warm glow.
A team packed with style and steel, glitz and grit.
The likes of Gerry Francis, Ian Gillard, Phil Parkes, Don Masson, Dave Thomas.
But above all, the glorious sight of Bowles, shoulder length hair, shirt out of his shorts, a left foot like a magic wand and defenders on their backsides as he weaved around.
Now, of course, the sight is much more tragic. One of a man gripped by Alzheimers, of a man who needs carers to help with the most simple of tasks.
If you get the chance, just YouTube him in his glorious pomp of the 1970s. You’ll be staggered how you knew so little of his magic beforehand.
