It was once said of Stan Bowles that he had spent all his money on betting, booze and women, to which he replied, “Well, at least I didn’t waste it.” Bowles, who has died aged 75, was a goalscoring midfielder with breathtaking speed and touch, a down-to-earth street genius with long flowing hair – he could win a match with one move.
His golden years in the mid-1970s were spent with Queens Park Rangers, when a common sight outside the Loftus Road ground were the badges for sale with the legend: “Stan Bowles and his amazing dancing feet”. Another familiar face was Bowles, in his kit, in the betting shop down the road 20 minutes before kick-off. Soon after the match he could be spotted in one of the pubs near the stadium.
At Loftus Road he replaced a club big, Rodney Marsh, and took over the number 10 shirt that none of his new team-mates had dared to wear. Bowles just shrugged and put it on, claiming he was from Manchester and so had never heard of Rodney Marsh. While Marsh had been a showman, the clown prince, Bowles was something far more intriguing: a star player almost entirely without ego, a selfless team man who quickly built an almost telepathic bond with Gerry Francis, the QPR and England captain.
He became a key part of QPR’s greatest side, the side of Don Givens, Frank McLintock, Don Masson and David Webb, which came within a hair’s breadth of the 1975-76 league title when Bowles scored what could have been the deciding factor against Leeds United. in their last game of the season. Liverpool, their rivals, needed just a point to become champions and ten days later the euphoria shattered with a goal against Wolverhampton Wanderers.
In 1974 he made his international debut against Portugal. It would be Sir Alf Ramsey’s last game in charge, and between then and 1977 Bowles played only four more times for England, despite his exceptional talent and consistently excellent performances in the league. His only international goal came against Wales in England’s 2–0 win at Ninian Park in 1974.
He was born just before midnight on Christmas Eve in a prefab in the Collyhurst area of Manchester; his father, a window cleaner, used to say, “If you had lasted five more minutes, you could have been Jesus.” Despite the constant struggle to make ends meet, it was a loving family, and Collyhurst a rough but stimulating environment that Bowles enjoyed for a lifetime in the company of spivs and bad luck.
He was briefly educated at a Church of England primary school and then at the local Catholic St Mary’s primary school, where his footballing talent was already so far ahead of his teammates that he had to play in goal to ensure the matches were evenly balanced. goods. .
At the age of 11 he moved to New Moston Modern Secondary School where he was chosen to play for the Manchester North Area team and later Manchester Boys. In October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, his headteacher took him aside and said, “Look, Stanley, if nothing happens, I think you’ll make it as a footballer.”
He left school as early as possible for a job in a raincoat factory, working for the press, for which he was paid £10 a week. It was so hot, he said, he thought it was going to be hell. He kept that up for three weeks, after which he went on the window cleaning tour with his father. His favorite part was cleaning Dorothy Perkins’ windows because he could “look at all the birds.” But his prediction came true when he signed for Manchester City at the age of 17 as an apprentice professional and then, two years later, full-time.
He made his first-team debut in the League Cup in September 1967 against Leicester City, coming on as a substitute for the injured Neil Young in midfield, and scored twice in City’s 4–0 win.
His competitive debut came against Sheffield United the following Saturday, when he scored twice again. But Bowles, an unassuming, cheerful character who paradoxically possessed a fiery temper, soon fell out with Malcolm Allison, the first-team coach, and after a series of clashes during the 1969-70 season he was loaned out to Third Division Bury. After five appearances there he was dismissed for breach of club discipline.
That same season, Crewe Alexandra, in the Fourth Division, offered him a lifeline. He was now on his toes and had to borrow the train ticket to get there, but it was at Crewe that he regained his sense and appetite for the game. After 18 goals in 13 months, he was hailed as the best midfielder outside the First Division, and perpetually cash-strapped Crewe put him on the market. In October 1971 he moved to Carlisle United and then to the Second Division, and within a year he was sold to QPR for £110,000 in September 1972.
Bowles paid as much attention to his off-field achievements as to those on it, but he was more successful at kicking a football around than at backing horses and dogs. When he married Ann Kyte in 1968, his father paid for the marriage license because Bowles had gambled away his £20 weekly wage.
Later, Jim Gregory, his long-suffering but indulgent chairman at QPR, had to make constant advances on his salary to pay off debts before the bailiffs came to the door. His mother always told him that if he ever bought a cemetery, people would stop dying.
In 1979, after seven years at Loftus Road, Bowles left for Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest after falling out with QPR’s new manager, Tommy Docherty. The move was not a success – Bowles had always operated on the right, but Clough tried to convert him into a left-sided player – and a season there was followed by spells at Leyton Orient and then Brentford, before he finally retired from playing in 1984.
In retirement there was media work, including gambling columns in the national press. “People may think of me as a footballer who gambled too much,” he once said. “But I’m a gambling addict who happened to be a good football player.”
In mid-2015 it was announced that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. In 2022, QPR renamed the Ellerslie Road Stand in his honour.
He is survived by his wife, Diane Bushell, and by his children, Andria, Carl and Tracy, from his first marriage to Ann.
• Stanley Bowles, football player, born December 24, 1948; died February 24, 2024