Manchester United vs Queens Park 8–1

Wil­lie Morgan

In March 1969, Scot­land inter­na­tional Wil­lie Mor­gan net­ted a tre­mend­ous treble as Manchester United decon­struc­ted releg­a­tion can­did­ates Queens Park Rangers to the tune of 8–1 at Old Traf­ford. George Best, Nobby Stiles, Brian Kidd and John Aston also made the score­sheet in a con­vin­cing and cred­it­able vic­tory for The Manchester Reds.

What goes up usu­ally must come down, and in the case of Queens Park Rangers, it was rather sooner than later. In the 1966–67 sea­son, the West Lon­don­ers not only became the first Third Divi­sion team to win the Eng­lish Foot­ball League Cup but they were also pro­moted to Divi­sion Two. To top it all, the West Lon­don­ers went on to gain pro­mo­tion to the Eng­lish First Divi­sion for the very first time in the long his­tory of the club the sub­sequent cam­paign. Queens Park Rangers would struggle in their first ever sea­son in the top flight, how­ever, and the Loftus Park club were totally out­classed and out­played in their away clash with Manchester United who ran out com­fort­able win­ners in the end. The European Cham­pi­ons dom­in­ated the pos­ses­sion of the ball from start to fin­ish and the aggress­ive home team had no prob­lems in ham­mer­ing Les Allen´s Queens Park Rangers play­ers by eight goals to one. Former Turf Moor hero Wil­lie Mor­gan opened the scor­ing account for Manchester United in the first period before North­ern Ire­land inter­na­tional George Best scored twice to make the score­board read 3–0 in the favour of the Old Traf­ford side. The Scot­tish flank­man then net­ted two more to com­plete his fab­ulous hat-trick and with fur­ther goals from Nobby Stiles, Brian Kidd and John Aston, the star stud­ded Manchester United team fin­ished the highly one-sided First Divi­sion con­test as well deserved 8–1 vic­tors. The con­sol­a­tion goal for Queens Park Rangers was pro­duced by the extraordin­ary Rod­ney Marsh who had joined the club from their West Lon­don neigh­bours Ful­ham for a bar­gain trans­fer fee of only £15,000 at the back side of the 1965–66 sea­son. There have of course been many high scor­ing encoun­ters at The Theatre of Dreams down through the years but few can com­pare to the goal scor­ing dis­play The Red Dev­ils put on here. The 1968–69 cam­paign nev­er­the­less proved to be a rather dis­ap­point­ing one for Manchester United and Sir Matt Busby’s age­ing team of stars finally fin­ished the Eng­lish Foot­ball League sea­son in a dis­mal elev­enth pos­i­tion with 42 points from their 42 matches played. And as for Queens Park Rangers, they were rid­ing high in March 1968 and shot down in March 1969. That’s life, that’s what people say. Manchester United Start­ing Lineup: Alex Stepney, John Fitzpatrick, Anthony Dunne, Paddy Crerand, Steve James, Nobby Stiles, Brian Kidd, Wil­lie Mor­gan, John Aston, Denis Law, George Best. Queens Park Rangers Start­ing Lineup: Alan Sprat­ley, Dave Clem­ent, Anthony Hazell, Ron Hunt, Ian Wat­son, Alan Glover, Ian Mor­gan, Frank Sib­ley, Frank Clarke, Rod­ney Marsh, Mick Leach.

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