Clive Allen

Club career

Queens Park Rangers Allen started his career at Queens Park Rangers in the late 1970s. He made his league debut coming on as a substitute at home against Chelsea in November 1978 and scored 32 league goals in 49 appearances which included a hat trick on his full debut at home to Coventry later the same season, before moving to Arsenal.

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.

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.

In one of his earliest games for the club, Allen was at the centre of a notable 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.

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) and semi-final (vs West Bromwich Albion). Allen was injured in the final against Tottenham Hotspur and subsequently missed the replay.

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.

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.

In 1986–87 he scored 33 League goals, and 49 goals in all competitions, a record for the club.

Later career In July 1989 Allen 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.

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.

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. He played just seven league games in the 1993–94 in the Premier League, scoring two goals against Sheffield Wednesday in August 1993. He also scored West Ham's first goal in the Bobby Moore Memorial Match in a 2–1 win against a Premier League XI at Upton Park in March 1994. 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.

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. Allen opted to drop down a division and join Millwall for a fee of £75,000.

American football career In 1997, Allen played American football as a placekicker for the London Monarchs of NFL Europe. He converted six of six field goals and seven of ten extra points.

Personal life His son Oliver is also a footballer. In 2019, Allen published his autobiography, Up Front: My Autobiography. Allen also works as a commentator on ESPN and BT Sport predominantly for coverage of Ligue 1, Bundesliga, FA Cup, and UEFA club competitions, and occasionally coverage of Tottenham matches on SpursPlay, the official Tottenham Hotspur streaming service.

Career statistics Club

Honours Queens Park Rangers Football League Second Division: 1982–83

Tottenham Hotspur FA Cup runner-up: 1986–87

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