QPR struck gold with 58-goal hero - He is a Hoops legend | OneFootball

Paul Furlong's incredible 26-year playing career began and ended in non-league football, but he became a hero in the League at Queens Park Rangers.

Paul Furlong was already 34 years old when he signed for Queens Park Rangers in 2002, but his five years at Loftus Road would make him a hero among supporters.

Furlong's career might have peaked at Queens Park Rangers, but it started in non-league football at 18 with Enfield in 1986, though his performances there impressed Coventry City enough for them to sign him in 1991, as a First Division club.

It initially looked like he might not make the grade in the top flight, with just four goals in 37 games in his one season at Highfield Road. But a move to Watford after one season worked out better for him, provoking Chelsea to spend a then-club record of £2.3 million on him in 1994.

Two years later he moved on again, with Birmingham City paying another club-record fee, this time £1.5 million, to take him to St Andrew's. He stayed with the club for six years, scoring 50 goals in 130 Division One games for the club, before signing for Queens Park Rangers in 2002.

Furlong was the player QPR could afford when they signed him

The years prior to Furlong's arrival at Loftus Road in 2002 had been a disaster for QPR. They'd been relegated from the Premier League in 1996 but hadn't been able to get anywhere near back there, and in April 2001 they collapsed into administration. A few weeks after this, relegation to the third tier for the first time since the 1960s followed.

In February 2001, they appointed Ian Holloway as manager, and he stayed on following the relegation to rebuild the team, but in his first season in charge they could only finish in 8th place in the table, nine points from a place in the play-offs.

As a free transfer upon the end of his contract at Birmingham and with his 34th birthday approaching, Furlong was what QPR could afford at the time, but he still scored 13 League goals in 33 games in his first season there as Rangers finished 4th in the table before losing the play-off final to Cardiff City at the Millennium Stadium.

Figures from FBRef

But the following season, with Furlong partnered up front by Kevin Gallen, Holloway got the balance right and QPR were promoted back to the Championship in second place behind Plymouth Argyle. Gallen scored 17 League goals that season and Furlong scored 16; they were the sixth and seventh-highest goalscorers in the division that season.

QPR supporters needed players like Paul Furlong as their crisis continued

Rangers finished 11th in their first season back in 2005, with Furlong scoring 18 goals, but the 2005/06 season was a disaster for the club, with allegations of blackmail and threats of violence against the club's chairman, Gianni Paladini, and the murder of youth team player Kiyan Prince.

On the pitch, Rangers finished one place above the relegation places. Furlong chipped in with six goals from 37 appearances that season, but he turned 38 years old in October 2006 and played a smaller role during what turned out to be his final one for the club, scoring twice in 22 appearances in the 2006/07 season. Paul Furlong left QPR for Luton Town at the end of that season, having scored 58 goals for the club in 183 appearances in all competitions.

He went on to play for Southend United before returning to the non-league game, and finally retired from playing in 2013 at 44 years of age. By this time, he'd already returned to Loftus Road as an assistant youth development coach by this time, going on to manage both their under-18 and under-23 teams. His son Darnell played for Rangers from 2014 to 2019 and is still a Championship player with West Bromwich Albion.

Football clubs need heroes, and Queens Park Rangers fans needed something to believe in when Paul Furlong arrived at Loftus Road in 2002. The club had been badly run and would continue to be so for years after his 2007 departure.

As crisis upon crisis descended over Loftus Road, supporters needed players that could do them proud on the pitch, and getting the team back into the Championship in 2004 mattered, at a club which hadn't fallen that far in almost thirty years. Heroes come in all shapes and sizes, and in West London at the start of the century, that shape was a big, burly striker who just kept playing and playing. Rangers supporters will be delighted that he did.