‘Things I have Learned with Queen’s Park Rangers’ – George Goddard
QPR legend George Goddard submitted the following article for publication in the London Evening News on 15th January 1927:
‘This is my first season as a professional with Queen’s Park Rangers, and time and again while I have been playing in their matches, I have thought I was back at school, learning new lessons, picking up new ideas, getting real shocks and generally stumbling upon new problems which I had not expected.
There are people who declare that there is not much difference between good-class amateur football and professional football.
Well, I played for Redhill up to the semi-final of the FA Amateur Cup competition, and so far as my experience takes me, I must say there is a very real difference between amateur and professional play.
In the first place, I am convinced that the professional game demands a higher standard of physical fitness.
It started at a faster pace than the amateur game, and this faster pace is kept up for the whole of the ninety minutes. My biggest difficulty has been to bring my game up to the required speed.
(“Andy” Wilson fights under a new flag, Chelsea’s forward welcomed by Goddard, the Queen’s Park Rangers’ centre-foward)
Perhaps, the clearest way of defining the difference between the two games is this: While in the amateur game you have time in which to think and then to act, in the professional game you have to think and act at the same time!
Thus, I am forced to the conclusion that, with Queen’s Park Rangers, the feeding side of my job has to be done more quickly, and that it is not so easy for me to score goals myself as it was when I played for amateur clubs.
The additional speed which I have noticed so much in the professional game shows itself in every turn. The half-backs are quicker in getting in to tackle, and it is more difficult for centre-forwards to shake off the attentions of the opposing centre half-backs.
In this respect our recent match against Millwall provides a very clear-cut case. Bryant was the Millwall centre-half opposed to me. He is an amateur, but he has all the qualifications of the professional.
I found it extremely difficult, not to say impossible, to get at all free of him. When the ball was in the air, he was there to take it: when the ball was on the ground, he was also there to prevent me from working out my feeding schemes and generally to bar my progress.
I am not suggesting that the centre-half of a professional team does nothing but dance attendance on the opposing centre-forward. He goes about the constructive side of his work as well, but always -or so it seems – he gets back in position to dispute possession with the centre-forward the minute he gets the ball.
Then I also find that it is more difficult to score, because the full-backs bar the way to goal more effectively.
It seems to me now that the full-backs of my amateur days used to play too wide apart, and that they made a mistake in keeping level as they came up the field when their side was attacking.
In professional football you find one full-back going out to tackle the wing-man, but his comrade covers the goal, and thus one misses the gaps down the middle through which I dashed more than once at Redhill.’
George holds the Club’s all-time goalscoring record with 186 goals in just 260 appearances.
Steve Russell
(Thanks to Colin Woodley for his assistance)