Queens Park Rangers v Middlesbrough

HOOPS
We gave a good account
of ourselves over both the
games against Tottenham
their group were outstanding. For us
going into that game, we were the
underdogs again. We just wanted to go
to Wembley, enjoy the occasion and
atmosphere, give a good account of
ourselves, take everything on board
and make sure everyone thought we
were a decent side.
Glenn Hoddle gave Spurs the lead in
that first match but you were clearly
fouled by Hoddle in the build-up and
laid out on the floor when the ball hit
the net, weren’t you?
I think nowadays with VAR it would have
been disallowed for a foul! That was part
of what happened, but we were able to
get ourselves back into the game with a
very good result in the end.
Terry Fenwick headed our equaliser,
which came from a nicely worked
long throw-in routine…
‘Fen’ was part of the set-plays coming up
from defence and he would score a few
goals for us during the course of a
season. None more important than that
one at Wembley to take Spurs to a replay.
You had a great career, playing all over
Europe for the Republic of Ireland. But
what did it mean to you personally to
appear in an FA Cup final?
Every schoolboy’s dream is to play at
Wembley in an FA Cup final and I was
lucky enough to achieve that. I can
remember when I was a kid, you would
watch the final and afterwards you
would go out to your local park with
your mates and pretend to be the star
players you had seen on TV that
afternoon. All of a sudden you were
transformed into whoever had scored
the winning goal at Wembley!
The replay against Spurs took place at
Wembley on the following Thursday
evening and we did everything but
score in that 1-0 defeat…
We played very well and everybody saw
what a good side we were. In fact, we
gave a good account of ourselves over
both the games against Tottenham. Our
manager Terry Venables was the best
– his man-management was exceptional
and he was a great coach. Terry took
QPR on an unbelievable journey.
Remind us what you are up to
nowadays, Gary?
I am assistant head coach at Cambridge
United. I am really enjoying it at a very
good club and we’ve had some success.
We got promoted last year and we’ve
had a decent FA Cup run this season. In
the meantime, I still look out for all the
QPR results. The R’s have been
performing extremely well recently, with
Mark Warburton doing an excellent job.
He has assembled a good group of
players and there is no reason why
Rangers can’t get into those play-off
positions at the end of the campaign.
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