Clive Allen

This article is about English footballer. For the basketball player, see Clive Allen (basketball).

Clive Allen

Allen in 2016
Personal information
Birth name	Clive Darren Allen
Date of birth	(1961-05-20) 20 May 1961 (age 63)
Place of birth	Stepney, London, England
Height	5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) [1]
Position(s)	Forward
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	19	(13)
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		407	(194)
International career
1976	England Schoolboys	7	(1)
1978–1979	England Youth	13	(3)
1980	England U21	3	(0)
1984–1988	England	5	(0)
Managerial career
2007	Tottenham Hotspur (caretaker)
2008	Tottenham Hotspur (caretaker)
Football career Career information Status Retired Position(s) Forward Career history As player 1997 London Monarchs Career highlights and awards Records The Football Database Career stats PAT 7/10 FG 6/6
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Clive Darren Allen (born 20 May 1961) is an English former professional footballer who played as a forward for seven different London clubs. Allen was a prolific striker throughout his career.

In 1986-87 he won the PFA and Football Writers' Association player of the year awards. He also won 5 caps for England from 1984 to 1988.

Early life

Clive Allen was born in Stepney, London on 20 May 1961. His father, Les Allen, was a member of Tottenham Hotspur's Double-winning team of 1960–61. His younger brother, Bradley Allen, and cousins Martin and Paul Allen also played football professionally. ^[2]

Club career

Queens Park Rangers

He started his career at Queens Park Rangers in the late 1970s, and scored 32 league goals in 49 appearances, before moving to Arsenal. ^[3]

Arsenal

Allen signed for Arsenal in the summer of 1980 for a fee of £1.25m. He did not play a competitive match for the club, although he did play three pre-season matches. He soon moved on to Crystal Palace in a swap deal with Kenny Sansom. ^[4]

Crystal Palace

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. ^[5]

In one of his earliest games for the club, Allen was at the centre of a notorious incident in the defeat against Coventry City on 6 September 1980, when his shot flew into the goal and rebounded from the stanchion holding up the netting so quickly that it was ruled not a goal, the referee mistakenly ruling that the ball had hit the frame of the goal. As highlights of the match were being televised by the BBC, the incident was captured on camera. ^[6]

Return to Queens Park Rangers

QPR, still in the Second Division, were now managed by Terry Venables (who had signed Allen for Palace) and in Allen's first season back at the club (1981–82) he scored 13 Second Division goals, though not enough to win promotion. QPR also reached the FA Cup final for the first time with Allen scoring the goals in 1–0 victories in both the sixth Round (vs Crystal Palace) ^[7] and semi-final (vs West Bromwich Albion). ^[8] Allen was injured in the final against Tottenham Hotspur and subsequently missed the replay. ^[9]

Over the next two seasons, Allen scored 27 League goals as QPR first won the Second Division Championship in 1982–83 and then finished fifth in the First Division in 1983–84. He moved to Tottenham for a £700,000 fee. ^[10]

Tottenham Hotspur

Allen scored twice on his debut on 25 August 1984, a 4–1 away win at Everton, and scored 10 goals from 18 appearances in his first season, in which Spurs finished third behind Liverpool and Everton. ^{[11] [12]}

In 1986–87 he scored 33 League goals, and 49 goals in all competitions, a record for the club. ^[13] He scored, but was on the losing side alongside his cousin Paul Allen, in the 1987 FA Cup Final. That season he also won the PFA Player of the Year and Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year awards.

Bordeaux

He moved from Spurs to join Bordeaux in March 1988, scoring 13 goals in 19 league games. ^{[13] [14]}

Later career

In July 1989 he joined Manchester City, who had just been promoted to the First Division. He scored 10 league goals in his first season, but only four goals in 1990–91. He managed three appearances and scored twice in the league for City the following season, and was transferred to Chelsea in December 1991. ^[15]

He scored seven goals in 16 games over the next three months with Chelsea, scoring the winning goal in an FA Cup fourth-round tie against Everton. He then joined West Ham United in March 1992, scoring once in four league games, but was unable to stop them from being relegated. ^[16]

He scored 14 goals in the 1992–93 Division One campaign as West Ham were promoted as runners-up. His goal on the last day of the season, against Cambridge United, secured promotion to the Premier League. ^[17] He played just seven league games in the 1993–94 in the Premier League, scoring two goals against Sheffield Wednesday in August 1993, although he did score West Ham's first goal in the Bobby Moore Memorial Match against a Premier League XI at Upton Park in March 1994 in a 2-1 win for the Hammers. He played his final game for West Ham later in the same month in a 0–0 FA Cup sixth-round game at Upton Park against Luton Town, coming on as a substitute for Lee Chapman. ^[18]

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 a striker to cover for the injured Teddy Sheringham, but the transfer did not happen. ^[19] Allen opted to drop down a division and join Millwall for a fee of £75,000. ^[18]

He ended his career with three league games for Carlisle United in 1995–96. ^[3]

International career

In the summer of 1984, Allen was given his first England cap against Brazil. In total he made five appearances for England without scoring. ^[20]

American football career

In 1997, he played as Kicker for the London Monarchs in NFL Europe. ^[21]

Personal life

His son Oliver is also a footballer. In 2019, Allen published his autobiography, Up Front: My Autobiography. ^[22] Allen also works as a commentator on ESPN and BT Sport predominantly for coverage of Ligue 1, Bundesliga, FA Cup, and UEFA club competitions.

Career statistics

Club

Appearances and goals by club, season and competition ^{[23] [24]}

Club	Season	League			National cup		League cup		Europe		Total
		Division	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals
Queens Park Rangers	1978–79	First Division	10	4					—		10	4
	1979–80	Second Division	39	28					—		39	28
	Total		49	32					—		49	32
Crystal Palace	1980–81	First Division	25	9					—		25	9
Queens Park Rangers	1981–82	Second Division	37	13	2	1			—		39	14
	1982–83	Second Division	25	13					—		25	13
	1983–84	First Division	25	14					—		25	14
	Total		87	40	2	1			—		89	41
Tottenham Hotspur	1984–85	First Division	13	7					4 [a]	2	17	9
	1985–86	First Division	19	9					—		19	9
	1986–87	First Division	39	33	6	4	9	12	—		54	49
	1987–88	First Division	34	11					—		34	11
	Total		105	60	2	4			4	2	173	112
Bordeaux	1988–89	Division 1	19	13					3 [a]	0	22	13
Manchester City	1989–90	First Division	30	10					—		30	10
	1990–91	First Division	20	4					—		20	4
	1991–92	First Division	3	2					—		3	2
	Total		53	16					—		53	16
Chelsea	1991–92	First Division	16	7					—		16	7
West Ham United	1991–92	First Division	4	1					—		4	1
	1992–93	Second Division	27	14					—		27	14
	1993–94	Premier League	7	2	3	0	1	0	—		11	2
	Total		38	17	3	0	1	0	—		42	17
Millwall	1994–95	First Division	12	0					—		12	0
Carlisle United	1995–96	Second Division	3	0					—		3	0
Career total			407	194	7	3	1	0	7	2	422	199

1. Appearances in UEFA Cup

Honours

Queens Park Rangers

• Football League Second Division: 1982–83

Individual

• PFA Players' Player of the Year: 1987
• Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year: 1987
• PFA Team of the Year: 1986–87 First Division ^[25]

References

1. Bob Goodwin (16 August 2017). The Spurs Alphabet. Lulu.com. pp. 5–. ISBN   978-0-9540434-2-1.
2. Mark Metcalf; Tony Matthews (15 January 2012). The Golden Boot: Football's Top Scorers. Amberley Publishing. ISBN   978-1-4456-1118-1.
3. "Clive Allen". Post War English & Scottish Football League A — Z Player's Database. Neil Brown. Retrieved 31 October 2017.
4. David Gerges. "Sol Campbell, Clive Allen, Joey Beauchamp and the Top 10 shortest transfers of all-time". Mirror Football. Trinity Mirror. Archived from the original on 25 November 2009. Retrieved 28 October 2012.
5. www.holmesdale.net, Holmesdale Online. "1980/81 revisited" . Retrieved 8 April 2018.
6. "Back in the Day: September 6th - The Clive Allen Ghost Goal". rednbluearmy.co.uk. 6 September 2017. Retrieved 8 October 2023.
7. QPR 1 Crystal Palace 0. YouTube — QPR Official. Archived from the original on 13 December 2021.
8. QPR 1 WBA 0. YouTube — QPR Official. Archived from the original on 13 December 2021.
9. "The 1982 FA Cup Final Replay: QPR (0) – Tottenham Hotspur (1)". indyrs.co.uk. 27 May 2012. Retrieved 6 April 2020.
10. Nick Constable (15 September 2014). Match of the Day: 50 Years of Football. Ebury Publishing. pp. 208–. ISBN   978-1-4481-4253-8.
11. "Clive Allen". www.11v11.com. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
12. "Tottenham Hotspur 1984–1985". www.statto.com. Archived from the original on 8 April 2016. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
13. "Great players: Clive Allen". History of the club. Tottenham Hotspur. Archived from the original on 4 February 2013. Retrieved 19 August 2012.
14. "Clive Allen". Footballdatabase. Retrieved 1 October 2022.
15. Tony Matthews (21 November 2013). Manchester City: Player by Player. Amberley Publishing Limited. pp. 10–. ISBN   978-1-4456-1737-4.
16. "Clive Allen". 11v11.com. Association of Football Statisticians. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
17. "Top 3 Goal Nets: Chris Scull Remembers..." West Ham United. 21 September 2017. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
18. "Clive Allen". westhamstats.info. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
19. "Football: Ardiles looking to Angell or Allen". Independent.co.uk . 14 January 1994. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
20. "Clive Allen". England Football Online. 25 September 2010. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
21. Halling, Nick (12 May 1997). "American football: Allen puts Monarchs back on target". The Independent. London. Retrieved 19 August 2012.
22. Clive Allen (17 October 2019). Up Front: My Autobiography. deCoubertin Books. ISBN   978-1-909245-96-9.
23. "Clive Allen » Club matches". worldfootball.net. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
24. Clive Allen at National-Football-Teams.com
25. Lynch. The Official P.F.A. Footballers Heroes. p. 146.

External links

• Clive Allen at Englandstats.com