Clive Allen

Clive Allen

Personal information
Full name	Clive Darren Allen
Date of birth	20 May 1961 (1961-05-20) (age 50)
Place of birth	Stepney, England
Height	5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
Playing position	Forward
Club information
Current club	Tottenham Hotspur
Youth career
Havering/Essex Schools	Romford Juniors
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps†	(Gls)†
1978–1980	Queens Park Rangers	49	(32)
1980	Arsenal	0	(0)
1980–1981	Crystal Palace	25	(9)
1981–1984	Queens Park Rangers	87	(40)
1984–1988	Tottenham Hotspur	105	(60)
1988–1989	Bordeaux	30	(21)
1989–1991	Manchester City	53	(16)
1991–1992	Chelsea	16	(7)
1992–1994	West Ham United	38	(17)
1994–1995	Millwall	12	(0)
1995	Carlisle United	3	(0)
Total		418	(202)
National team
1980	England U21	3	(0)
1984–1988	England	5	(0)
Teams managed
2007	Tottenham Hotspur (caretaker)
2008	Tottenham Hotspur (caretaker)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals).

Clive Allen

No. 9     London Monarchs
Date of birth:	20 May 1961 (1961-05-20) (age 50)
Place of birth:	Stepney, London
Career information
Status:	Retired
Position(s):	Placekicker
Organizations
As player:
1997	London Monarchs
Career highlights and awards
Records:	The Football Database
Career stats
PAT	7/10
FG	6/6

Clive Darren Allen (born 20 May 1961) is a retired English footballer, a prolific scorer for a number of clubs.

Allen is the son of ex-Tottenham Hotspur forward Les Allen, who was a member of the legendary team which won the First Division title and FA Cup "double" in 1961 (the Cup success occurred exactly two weeks before Allen Jnr's birth). He is the brother of former footballer Bradley Allen and cousin of football manager Martin Allen and ex West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Paul Allen. He holds the unique distinction of playing for more London based football clubs than any other footballer in history.

Club career

Queens Park Rangers

A fearfully accurate centre forward, Allen joined Queens Park Rangers as a youth player, making his debut in 1978 at the age of 17. Allen scored a hat trick on his full debut against Coventry City in a 5-1 win, but QPR were relegated at the end of that season and Allen became a first-choice striker in their quest to return to the top flight, scoring a phenomenal 28 goals in 1979-80, though QPR failed to win promotion. This prompted Arsenal to make a bid of £1,250,000 for him in the summer of 1980, which QPR accepted. At the time, it was the highest fee to be paid for a teenager by any British club.

Arsenal

There followed a most bizarre sequence of events which led to Allen leaving Arsenal within just two months of arriving at Highbury, having not played a single competitive match (although he did play three matches Arsenal's 1980-81 pre-season friendly campaign). He was sold in part-exchange to Crystal Palace in another seven-figure deal which saw England full back Kenny Sansom come the other way. There was a rumour that QPR and Palace had secured a deal for Allen on the condition that QPR did not sell Allen to Palace directly, and Arsenal acted as go-betweens. This has never been confirmed.

Crystal Palace

During his time at Palace, Allen "scored" one of the most controversial disallowed goals of all-time. During Palace's 3-1 away defeat to Coventry City, on 6 September 1980, Allen, who had already scored earlier in the game, was fouled just outside the Coventry penalty area. Allen took the free-kick himself, which thumped against the right-hand stanchion inside the goal (from Allen's view), then appeared to hit the net, before coming back out again. After much arguing and consulting with his linesman, the referee decided that the goal did not count, and this counted towards a season of misery for Palace, in which they were eventually relegated.

Allen was Palace's top scorer for the 1980-81 season with nine goals in the league and 11 in all competitions, when Palace finished bottom of the First Division and fell back into the Second Division just two years after promotion.^[1]

Queens Park Rangers

QPR, still in the Second Division, were now managed by Terry Venables and Allen's first season back at the club (1981-82) revived his fortunes as he scored 13 Second Division goals, though not enough to win promotion. QPR also had their most successful FA Cup run, reaching the FA Cup Final for the first time with Allen scoring the vital goals in 1-0 victories in both the 6th Round (vs Crystal Palace) and Semi final (vs West Bromwich Albion). Getting to the Cup Final was unusual for a club outside the top flight - and, adding extra intrigue to the occasion, QPR's opponents were Tottenham, his father's former club.

The day went appallingly for Allen - he was injured after just two minutes (following a late tackle) at Wembley and he had to be substituted early into the second half. The match ended 1-1 after extra-time but Allen was not fit enough to take part in the replay, which Tottenham won 1-0.

Over the next two seasons, Allen scored 27 League goals as QPR first won the Second Division Championship in 1982-83 and then consolidated their new status helping them to finish fifth in the First Division in 1983-84, but would be playing UEFA Cup football for Tottenham rather than QPR the following season as a £700,000 fee took him to White Hart Lane. He arrived at Tottenham at the time when Keith Burkinshaw stepped down after eight years as manager to be succeeded by Peter Shreeves.

That summer, Allen made his England debut.

Tottenham Hotspur

A settling-in period at Spurs followed, with Allen scoring twice on his debut and ultimately weighing in with eight goals from 15 appearances in his first season, where Spurs finished third after being top of the league at Christmas, the fact that he was unavailable for 27 league games leaving all the observers wondering that Spurs might have won the league if it hadn't been for Allen's absences. It was a similar story in 1985-86, as he was restricted again by injuries, and this time Spurs slumped to mid table and manager Peter Shreeves was sacked in favour of Luton Town boss David Pleat.

However, a fully fit Allen took to the field at the start of his third season at White Hart Lane as Spurs found themselves able to chase three trophies thanks to their red-hot goalscorer. By now, Allen's cousin Paul had also joined the club to provide support from midfield.

Allen, playing as a lone forward with the creative forces of Glenn Hoddle, Osvaldo Ardiles and Chris Waddle laying on the chances from a five-man midfield, fired 33 League goals plus 16 more in the League Cup and FA Cup competitions (49 in all competitions) as Spurs reached both semi-finals while challenging for the League. In the League Cup semi, Spurs faced their fierce rivals Arsenal and Allen scored three goals over three matches (it was level after two legs so a replay was required) but still Arsenal won through to the final. However, Spurs reached the 1987 FA Cup Final at Wembley after easily overpowering Watford in the semi.

At Wembley, Spurs took on Coventry City and Spurs started as clear favourites. After all, Spurs had won all seven of their previous FA Cup finals and Coventry had never reached the final before. However, following an exciting match (in which Allen scored the last of his 49 goals that season), Coventry eventually triumphed 3–2 after extra time. This left Allen and his colleagues without any major honours after they had threatened to win a unique treble.

Five years earlier Allen picked up an injury in the second minute of the FA Cup final; this time he had picked up a goal, even though he had to be content with a runners-up medal yet again. An early Hoddle free kick was cleared to Waddle on the right flank, and the England winger thundered in a near post cross which the perfectly positioned Allen headed home. However, it would all end in heartbreak for Tottenham, as Coventry fought back to win 3-2 in extra time. Allen's final tally of 49 goals in all competitions that season broke the Spurs club record held by Jimmy Greaves, and remains unbroken to this day. No player associated with any top division club has managed to match or exceed Allen's total of goals in all competitions since then, either. However, his top-flight league goals tally was surprassed by Andy Cole of Newcastle United in 1993-94 and a year later by Alan Shearer at Blackburn Rovers.

He also picked up the titles of PFA Player of the Year and Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year.

Tottenham seemed to peak at this point and the following season Allen's touch was not quite the same although he did score eleven goals for the club as they finished 13th. The season had also seen the appointment of new manager Terry Venables in the autumn after the resignation of David Pleat following allegations about his private life.

Bordeaux

In August 1988, Spurs sold Allen to French champions Bordeaux for £1 million. His transfer was just one of many during the mid to late 1980s which saw English-based players departing to the continent, lured away by the prospect of higher wages as well as the chance of playing in European competitions - English clubs were barred between 1985 and 1990 due to the Heysel disaster.

Later career

He spent just one season in France before returning to England in August 1989 when he joined Manchester City, who had just been promoted to the First Division. He scored 10 league goals as City survived their first season back in the top flight, but scored just four goals in 20 league games in 1990-91 after falling out of favour with new player-manager Peter Reid, who guided City to fifth place in the league.

He managed three appearances and scored twice in the league for City the following season, and was transferred to Chelsea in December 1991.

He scored seven goals in 16 league games over the next three months before he joined struggling West Ham United in March 1992, scoring once in four league games and unable to stop them from being relegated and missing out on the first season of the new FA Premier League, instead being faced with the challenge of helping them win promotion from the new Division One.

He scored 14 goals in the 1992-93 Division One campaign as West Ham were promoted as runners-up, but played just seven league games (scoring twice) in the 1993-94 in the new Premier League and by March 1994 he had given up hope of displacing new arrival Lee Chapman.

In January 1994, when Allen was out of favour at West Ham United, Tottenham manager Ossie Ardiles (who had been his Tottenham team mate the previous decade) expressed interest in bringing Allen back to White Hart Lane as he looked to spend up to £500,000 on buying a striker to cover for the injured Teddy Sheringham, but the transfer never happened.^[2] Allen opted to drop down a division and join Millwall for a fee of £75,000.^[3] He helped Millwall finished third in Division One but they missed out on promotion to the Premier League after being beaten by Derby County in the playoff semi-finals. He left the Lions at the end of the 1994-95 season having played just 12 Division One games and failed to score a single goal.

Allen finished his playing career at the age of 34 with three appearances in Division Two for Carlisle United during the autumn of 1995.

In an intriguing change of sport, he had a brief spell with the London Monarchs in the NFL Europe.

International career

In the summer of 1984, Allen was given his first England cap by Bobby Robson in a friendly against Brazil, coming on as a substitute. England won 2-0 but when Allen started the next game of this tour of South America three days later, they lost 2-0 to Uruguay. He played in the third game of the tour too, which was a goalless draw against Chile. In 1987, Allen got his fourth England cap in a goalless draw versus Turkey, scoring a disallowed goal. He won his fifth and final England cap in another goalless draw, versus Israel. He never scored for his country.

Management career

Allen was the Tottenham Hotspur reserve team coach under Martin Jol at White Hart Lane, as well as being a pundit for a variety of media organisations. He was coach of Spurs Reserves when they won the FA Premier Reserve League Southern Division in 2005-06.

After Jol's dismissal in October 2007, Allen took up the position of Interim Manager of the senior squad. He took charge of the team for one match, a 1-2 defeat by Blackburn Rovers in the Premier League, before handing the reins over to Juande Ramos.

TV work

Clive Allen has worked for ITV as an analyst on football shows such as The Goal Rush and UEFA Champions League coverage.

Family

His son Oliver played for Stevenage but was bought out of his contract due to a persistent knee injury.

Managerial statistics

Club	First Game	Last Game	G	W	D	L	Win %
Tottenham Hotspur	26 October 2007, v Blackburn Rovers, White Hart Lane, Premier League	6 November 2011(joint with Joe Jordan), v Fulham, Craven Cottage, Barclays Premier League	4	2	0	2	50%

References

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ Football: Ardiles looking to Angell or Allen
3. ^ Welcome to the Wonderful World of West Ham United Statistics Clive Allen

External links

• Clive Allen England profile at Englandstats

Persondata
Name	Allen, Clive Darren
Alternative names	Allen, Clive
Short description
Date of birth	1961-5-20
Place of birth	Stepney, England
Date of death
Place of death