Channy's QPR Years

Yesterday at 02:44 PM

This is my first post here. I usually write historical pieces for Leicester City sites and I come, of course, in peace.

With the Cup tie approaching, I've been looking at the early years of Leicester legend Arthur Chandler. He started his career at QPR of course, but it's a story that's not well known. I thought Rangers fans might enjot it too:


Rangers Fan

This is where the teenage Arthur spent his Saturday afternoons:


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The ground, designed by Archibald Leitch, opened in 1907 when Arthur was 11. Rangers were in the Southern League at the time, and this was their first real home, after years of nomadic existence.


The ground's accessibility was its great advantage, as you can see here:

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For Arthur it would have been especially convenient. He lived near Paddington Station, the terminus you'd reach if you traveled a couple of miles down that track. Several decades before the famous bear from Peru turned up, you would regularly find the young Arthur on the station . His first job was at Wyman and Son's, the bookselllers who'd taken over the stalls at London's main stations when WH Smith fell out with the railway companies in 1906.

His father was a sportsman - a racing cyclist. But Arthur loved football. He was playing for local sides in his late teens, and you can imagine his excitement when Rangers spotted him and invited him for a trial. But then the war intevened, and he would have to wait for his chance.

Arthur was 18 when hostilities began, and he spent much of the war in France, where he would turn out for the British Army XI.

In 1919 he was back home in Paddington and playing for one of London's top amateur sides Handley Page, the Middlesex League club attached to the aircraft manufacturing company. They were nicknamed 'the aeroplanists', and for games in the FA Amateur Cup several thousand would turn out to watch them at their ground in Cricklewood.

Arthur was soon getting noticed. This is from the Globe newspaper:

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Arthur's form earned him a call-up for the Middlesex League against the Athenian Legaue at Highbury in April 1920, and the match report gives an early indication of his power. The game was played on a pitch that was more puddle than grass, and Arthur 'sent in a terrific shot that rushed forward and stopped dead a yard in front of the keeper, drenching him'

QPR scouts were at that game, and after the match he was invited for another trial, six years after his first one at the club. A week later he was turning out for their reserve side at Chelsea in a 1-1 draw.

He started the following season, 1920/21, in terrific form for the reserves, but he couldn't dislodge regular centre forward Jack Smith from the first team. This was Rangers' first season in the Football League, in the new Division Three South, and they were playing at a new ground called Loftus Road, their old home at Park Royal having been taken over by the army during the war.

Just after Christmas, winger Bert Middlemiss broke his leg and Arthur was called up to a reshaped forward line, playing inside left at promotion rivals Crystal Palace. That finished 0-0, but just a week later came an ever bigger fixture - an FA Cup tie at home to Arsenal.

This was the golden age of the competition, and fans from all over the capital headed for Shepherd's Bush. Arsenal were two divisions higher than Rangers. but it didn't look like it. The breakthrough came when Chandler and Smith switched positions, and Arthur was back in his favourtite central striking role. He put Rangers ahead, then Smith added another and the biggest giant-killing of the day was complete.

Here he is in action that day (on the right of the picture):

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Part Two coming right up.