CLASSIC CLIPS | with The BIZARRE Transfer Story Involving Les Ferdinand, Turkey & Margaret Thatcher?!

0:00So, Les, obviously, I'd love to stay more on QPR, but you go to Turkey. Talk us through that. I didn't even know this. Yeah, I didn't even know you went to Turkey. But you're prolific out there as well. It's funny, on my way here, just had a call. They've just invited me back in March. They play Galatasaray. So they've just invited me back for a game. But yeah, how that came about, I came into QPR the back end of a season, which was 1987. I came in round about the end of March. So there's two months to go. So I managed to make my debut in that time. And then the following season, it was my first pre-season ever that I'd ever done and found it tough and kind of had a few niggles.

0:45So I didn't have a particularly good year in terms of like, I picked up some injuries and stuff like that. And I'll just put that down to my body changing from sort of non-league football working and so on and so forth. And so at the end of that season, so this would be 88, 89 season, Gordon Mill, who was the manager at Besiktas in Turkey, he was good friends with Jim Smith, the late Jim Smith, who was the manager at QPR at the time. And he needed a centre forward. Jim Smith said, look, we got this kid here. We think he could be anything or he could be nothing. He said, taking him away and him going out to Turkey might be a great opportunity for him.

1:31And Jim Smith come and spoke to me about it. And at the beginning, I was like, yeah, yeah, all right. Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll think about it. And I'm thinking, I'm not going to Turkey. And then Gordon Mill came over. And I remember sitting down with Gordon at the Hilton Hotel and having a chat with him about it. And he was going, look, listen, son, they really think that you've got a chance of having a good career here and so on and so forth. Why don't you come out for a year? and I just really liked the way he put the project to me, you know, and the way he spoke and he's full of passion.

1:59And I thought, why not give it a go? So I remember leaving my house, two suitcases, going to Turkey. The only thing I knew about Turkey at the time was the film Midnight Express. As you can tell by your reaction, it's not the greatest advert for Turkey's life. so um anyway um I go off to um I go off to the airport meet Gordon Mill and we travel to Turkey together and I always say to people that was that was my apprenticeship into football um he he spent a year sort of like guiding me and showing me and you know I ended up going from playing in front of a few hundred people in the reserves to my first training session was in front of 30 odd thousand people the stadium was packed and then from then on it was just like game after game after game you know I'd scored something like 17 goals in 30 odd games so it was like you know it was really really good 21 goals in 33 games you weren't tempted to have a going goal no no I wasn't but the funny thing was when I went out it was like it was it was just it was just a brilliant time and it just opened my eyes and made me believe that I could be I could be a professional was it challenging or did you find it relatively easy was you like thinking I'm quite comfortable at this level this is yeah I think it's really strange because when when I went into QBI you know I'd gone in and I hadn't done an apprenticeship but come out of non-league football and I think most people at some stage have this imposter syndrome and I think I had it at the time do you know I'm looking at all these professional footballers who've come through the ranks and been in football for all their lives and here I am coming out of non-league football and you know part of this what's going on and you can't feel like like I said you have a bit of that imposter syndrome and then um going out to Turkey just totally totally flicked my mindset because going out there there was an expectation from me from the from the players from the supporters because they had a high regard for English football at the time and so there was things that was expected of me so it was almost like I couldn't go there and fail so it was it was kind of like switching at the the mindsets what what was the experience like though, living like in Istanbul, I suppose, right?

4:18So what was it? Yeah, so what I did was one of the most important things I did was I just went and engulfed myself in what they did. So I didn't go there thinking, this is not like London, the food's not like London, this is not like London. You know, I just went and just sort of like submerged myself in everything that the Turkish players were doing and just tried to fit in. Shisha? Hashcake? At the time, At the time, we got followed around quite a lot, so we weren't allowed for the T-shirt. But no, you know, just rather than going there and thinking, I ain't enjoying this, just engulf myself in everything that was going on.

5:00And what happens then? How did you get the call from Newcastle? So I'm still under contract at QPR. So I've had a good year at Besiktashe. and myself and Gordon Mill came back and Jim Smith had gone to Newcastle. Right. And Trevor Francis had taken over at QPR as the manager. So we came back, we sat down in front of Trevor and said, look, can he stay out for another year? So Trevor was saying, look, no, unless you're going to pay a transfer fee for him. He said, I don't know how good Les is, but I know he scored a load of goals. I'm not looking to play next season, so I'd rather bring him back.

5:42So this is funny. So I'm sitting there with Gordon Mill and he said, right, no, we're bringing him back. We want him to come back. So we go back to Turkey and I speak to the chairman of Beshutas and say, look, QBR want me to go back. He went, I know, I'll fix this. So he goes to the prime minister. He gets the prime minister to write a letter to Margaret Thatcher to say, because when we won the equivalent of the FA Cup and when we were at dinner, the Prime Minister turns up at the dinner and they get involved in the football. They love the football over there. And so the Prime Minister wrote a letter to Margaret Thatcher to say, can she intervene and make it so that I can stay out there to her?

6:26It's a political matter. What did Maggie say? I don't even know if she read the letter. Maggie said the letter on to that man. But that's what happened. That's unreal. I don't think the top of the agenda for Margaret Thatcher at that time. Can you imagine when that was put away? Can you imagine? We've got a request from Turkey here. Prime Minister of Turkey. Subject, Sir Les. So what happened then then? So obviously she didn't reply. So I came back to QPR. And when I came back, we saw like, the team had changed somewhat, you know, the likes of Peter Reid were there, Ray Wilkinson come in, Nigel Spatman.

7:12so the side was still a very good side. I remember coming back and joining in training and stuff like that and I had this renewed confidence about me and I remember Peter Reid went, when I came back, Peter Reid always says this, whenever I see him, he came and he started training, he's gone, where the fuck has he come from? Like that and he goes, and now he's gone, oh he's been out on loan in Turkey. He said, well if he's been out on loan in Turkey, who did we have here?

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