David Kerslake ⭑ From A-Z since '92
Leeds needed a right-back in 1993, and David Kerslake was the best in the second tier three years running, the player Ossie Ardiles had needed to replace Dave Hockaday.
This is part of my (eight year long, it'll fly by) attempt to write about every Leeds United player since 1992. For more about why I'm doing this, go back to Aapo Halme, and to read all the players so far, browse the archive here.
It might have been one of the most sensational transfers of the 1980s if it had come off. But it might not have been out of place in the career of David Kerslake, a Stepney-born Tottenham fan who grew up to be garlanded by the best of his boyhood heroes.
It was 1987 when Kerslake was turning 21, but struggling to break into Queens Park Rangers' first team in the First Division. Hull City expressed an interest in taking him down a tier to Boothferry Park, and a deal was ready to be done at £40,000. £40,000? "I'd take David Kerslake for £40,000," said Terry Venables, then manager of Barcelona.
That wasn't entirely out of the blue. Venables was QPR manager while Kerslake was coming up through the ranks and turning in good performances for England schoolboys and England Under-21s. Venables had left by the time Kerslake made his senior debut, in 1985, as a right midfielder, but he'd admired him in the reserves — where Kerslake had admired Tony Currie on the pitch alongside him — and people were soon admiring him in the first team, too. 'The young outside right with a magnificent shot, much pace, and a stupendous throw', was how Brian Glanville described him, in The Times.
While buying him for Barca was probably not a serious idea — and Venables was soon sacked anyway, maybe for making such daft suggestions — the endorsement made QPR think twice. But it didn't make him any more secure in their midfield and after two more bit-part seasons he was sold in November 1989. It was one of the last decisions of another high profile figure, player-manager Trevor Francis, and came despite the opinion of former Spurs and Argentina legend, Ossie Ardiles. He spent some late-career months at Loftus Road and, according to Kerslake, sat him down one day after training and told him, "you're the best player at this club, by a mile."
In fact, QPR's decision to sell was actually a consequence of the opinion of Ossie Ardiles. He'd gone to manage Swindon and returned with £110,000 and an idea that Kerslake could play as a no.10, behind the strikers in his new look midfield. Ardiles was taking over a team that had lost in the play-offs under Lou Macari, and was using his first managerial job to impose what the Swindon Advertiser, getting their South American cliches mixed up, called 'samba style' soccer.
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