Queens Park Rangers v Coventry City

hoops
Above: the
former
QPR striker
returned to the
club as director
of football in
2015
was because my ligaments hadn’t grown
in the way they should have done, so I
ended up going into the gym with my
dad. It was the first time I had ever done
it. Back then, my dad did bodybuilding as
a hobby, so he oversaw some bits and
pieces with me to make sure that my leg
strength was where it needed to be to
sustain my ligaments.
Of your 20 goals, six came over the
Easter weekend when you scored two
hat-tricks against Nottingham Forest
at home and away to Everton, games
we won 4-3 and 5-3 respectively…
I remember those matches like they
were yesterday. They were some of the
highlights of that season for Rangers as
they were such ding-dong games. We
were in a rich vein of form at the time
and playing some really good football.
When you are winning games, it brings
confidence and we were confident in
the ability of our team-mates. The
other lads were creating opportunities
for me and luckily I was taking those
chances. Yet when I think about football
nowadays, if I scored a hat-trick on a
Saturday then the likelihood is I would
be sitting on the bench on the Monday
because they rotate everything. But
back then, we didn’t really have the
option to rotate players as much as we
wanted to.
Did you keep the two match balls from
those games?
Yes, I have still got them both. I never
gave them away.
See Wednesday’s Norwich City match
programme for part two of this interview
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