A veteran Fleet Street football writer shared a story about meeting Stan Bowles in a betting shop in Nottingham shortly after his move to Forest in 1979. Bowles was disconsolate, but not because he was rooting for another loser.
“What’s up, Stan?” the reporter asked.
“That’s the manager,” Bowles replied and began telling a story about Brian Clough.
When Bowles first sat down in the Forest dressing room, Clough glared at him and said: “You. What is your name?”
“What do you mean, what’s my name?” Bowles replied.
Clough: “What’s your fucking name?” he insisted.
“I’m Stan Bowles. You just signed me from QPR.”
Clough considered the answer and said: “I want you to take the ball and give it to the fat man over there.” [pointing to the great John Robertson].” According to the former reporter, Bowles, who died at the age of 75, was suspicious of bettors that he had joined the wrong club. If Clough was trying to destroy his ego, harmony was always an unexpected outcome.
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Bowles, signed by Clough to give Forest “time and space”, was indeed expected to perform this service for Robertson, and complained bitterly about being played out of position, according to his assistant Peter Taylor. The relationship lasted one season. At one point between the two, Clough shouted: “You Cockneys are all the same.”
“Excuse me,” Bowles said. “I was born and raised in Manchester.”
When they added the term “maverick” to a generation of 1970s footballers, Bowles was at the front of the queue for the badge. Their autobiographies are a litany of dog tracks, boozers, fisticuffs, bad guys, gambling clubs, broken relationships and bookmaker debts.
A maverick without talent wouldn’t make it into the papers, but Bowles had plenty of that. In the foreword to his memoir, written with Terry Venables, Ralph Allen and John Iona, he said: “He fell into the category of Dalglish and Beardsley. Was he a forward-moving midfielder or a forward-spinning player? I do not hesitate to include him among them; “It was that good.” Denis Law said of him: “He has 100% skill. “No one in English football handles the ball better in close quarters.”
To Queens Park Rangers fans, Bowles was the chaotic genius of their greatest team. For modern audiences, mavericks are endlessly fascinating. The question lurking beneath their money-in-hand, all-day-drinking lifestyle is: How long can they last in today’s game? The Premier League’s armies of analysts and data analysts would pit their Waterloo against Bowles, who at Manchester City in the late 1960s overslept for his pre-season flight to Amsterdam and hid at a friend’s house for so long that police listed him as a suspect. a missing person.
A two-fist fight with City assistant manager Malcolm Allison was extreme even by the standards of the 60s and 70s, and Bowles went into exile at Bury, Crewe Alexandra and Carlisle before finding “true happiness” with QPR. His popular image as an amateur is partly at odds with his long shift as a professional: eight league clubs between 1967 and 1984. At the last of these, Brentford, he was persuaded to sign with “preparations of £4,000” in 1981; he took it to the White City dogs and handed it over mostly to his old friends, the bookmakers.
If his 507 appearances in club football well reflect his ability to mix turmoil with glory, his five England caps place him squarely among the unreliable performers of the 1970s: players whom spectators often thought would save England from the atrocities of non-qualification. tournaments.
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Maybe. All that dribbling and deceptive passing earned Bowles just one trophy: the 1979 UEFA Super Cup at the end of his short time at Forest. He played in Alf Ramsey’s last game in charge and was selected by two of his successors (Joe Mercer and Don Revie). Likewise, after being substituted 15 minutes into the second half against Northern Ireland in 1974, he left England and once again headed for the White City when he should have been heading to Scotland. There, a canine companion thrashed the Daily Mirror photographer who had been following them to inform him that Bowles had not turned up for the Scotland game.
After QPR and Forest, he entered the twilight zone of his era before mega-fees, and by joining Leyton Orient, he threw a bucket of water at the Grimsby fans who treated him badly. QPR was his peak. He moved to Loftus Road to replace Rodney Marsh, who signed for Manchester City in 1972, and formed an immortal bond with Dave Thomas, Don Givens, Gerry Francis and Frank McLintock in a side remembered as fondly as the neutrals. QPR fans.
Francis described him as “a daily-living, fortunate type”; it was a euphemism, given his struggle with what would now be diagnosed as a gambling addiction. At the time, the urge to bet was seen as a colorful character trait and a mine full of delightful anecdotes, rather than a disease requiring treatment.
HMRC were also less cautious. Bowles swore in 1977 that Hamburg had always wanted him before Kevin Keegan. QPR chairman Jim Gregory offered him £4,000 in cash to stay: they honored the deal with an afternoon of champagne. Keegan was twice named European footballer of the year.
Like George Best, Bowles took a defiant attitude towards drinking and gambling. One of his books ends with his trademark jokes: “I’ve got enough money to last me the rest of my life – provided I die at 4.30 this afternoon. I’ve also got a big mortgage to pay – my bookmaker’s.”
The exuberant narrative off the pitch belies his lasting memories on it, especially in the blue-white hoops of QPR, where he was always a good bet to please the eyes. Taylor declared admiringly that Forest bought him “because he could play”, even though Clough pretended not to know his name.