Clive Allen

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

Clive Allen
Allen in 2016
Born	Clive Darren Allen (1961-05-20) 20 May 1961 Stepney, Middlesex, England
Height	5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
Association football career 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 1980 England U21 3 (0) 1984–1988 England 5 (0) Managerial career 2007 Tottenham Hotspur (caretaker) 2008 Tottenham Hotspur (caretaker) *Club domestic league appearances and goals
Football career
Career information
Status	Retired
Position(s)	Placekicker
Career history
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, who played as a forward for seven different London clubs.

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.

Arsenal

Allen signed for Arsenal in the summer of 1980 for a fee of £1.25m, but he did not play a single competitive match (although he did play three matches in Arsenal's 1980–81 pre-season friendly campaign). He shortly 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. One goal he scored was controversially chalked off when the referee believed it had hit the post. The ball, in fact, hit the stauntion at the back of the goal.

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 had their most successful FA Cup run, reaching the FA Cup Final for the first time with Allen scoring the goals in 1–0 victories in both the 6th Round (vs Crystal Palace) and semi-final (vs West Bromwich Albion).

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.

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

Bordeaux

He moved from Spurs to join Bordeaux in March 1988.

Later career

He spent 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 only four goals in 20 league games 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 league games over the next three months with Chelsea before he joined West Ham United in March 1992, scoring once in four league games and 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, but played just seven league games (scoring twice) in the 1993–94 in the new Premier League.

In January 1994, when Allen was out of favour at West Ham United, Tottenham manager Ossie Ardiles (who had been his Tottenham teammate 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. Allen opted to drop down a division and join Millwall for a fee of £75,000. In 1995 Allen ended his career with 3 games for Carlisle United.

International career

In the summer of 1984, Allen was given his first England cap in a friendly against Brazil, coming on as a substitute. England won 2–0 but when Allen started against Uruguay England lost 2–0. He received his third cap in a goalless draw against Chile. On 29 April 1987, Allen got his fourth England cap in a goalless draw versus Turkey. He won his fifth and final England cap in another goalless draw, against Israel on 17 February 1988.

Managerial 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.

American football career

In 1997, he was playing for the London Monarchs in NFL Europe.

Personal life

His son Oliver was also a footballer.

External links

• Clive Allen at Englandstats.com