When Stan Bowles decided to wear two different football boots in the same match

2 Stan Bowles played five times for England

To many QPR fans, Stan Bowles is Rangers’ greatest player. He dazzled in the no.10 shirt for seven years in the 1970s and his skill on the pitch and antics off of it, endeared him to supporters. Here, Retro Football Blog recounts a popular story…

In 1974 Stan Bowles and every bookie in the White City area of London were rubbing their hands together with glee after the player’s cunning planning plan saw him come into some extra cash while on England duty.

The national side were playing in the annual home internationals in May and Bowles’ wallet was bulging because of his choice of football boots.

Contracted to Gola, he was paid an extra £200 every time he played for his country where a sales rep simply turned up at the team hotel with a briefcase full of money for certain players.

“As an incentive, you used to get an extra fifty quid if a picture of you in a Gola t-shirt appeared in the paper, so I was always keen for a bit of that,” Bowles wrote in his brilliant autobiography.

So what was he supposed to do when someone from Adidas visited and began touting for business? Apparently they were offering players £250.

“Christmas has come early, thinks me,” the Loftus Road favourite said.

But his team-mates, who by this time were in hysterics, wanted to know what he was going to do when it was time to walk onto the pitch.

“For £450, I’ll wear one boot on each foot,” he told them.

“Nobody knew what I had done until a few days later, but it obviously didn’t go down too well when they found out.”

Bowles only played five times for England, but was a member of the excellent QPR squad that came agonisingly close to winning the First Division in 1976. In 2015 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. QPR host Bournemouth on 29 July in what will be a Stan Bowles benefit match where a portion of ticket sales will go towards the club’s No.10 Foundation. Tickets are on sale now at qpr.co.uk.

WHAT IF… QPR WERE ABLE TO STOP LIVERPOOL’S EUROPEAN DOMINATION BEFORE IT BEGAN?

This article first appeared on retrofootballblog.com