Twenty-four wins. Sixty-seven goals. Fifty-nine points. Second place in the First Division by a single point, to Liverpool, after QPR had finished their season top of the table and waited ten days to find out if it was enough. It wasn't. But what Dave Sexton's side produced in 1975–76 — the possession football, the movement, the technical precision, Stan Bowles and Gerry Francis and Dave Thomas and Phil Parkes performing at the peak of their powers — was the greatest football QPR have ever played. This episode is devoted entirely to that season: how it was built, how it unfolded, how it ended, and why it remains, fifty years on, the fixed point around which every QPR supporter's sense of their club rotates.

Research Sources
Gordon Macey, 'Queens Park Rangers: The Complete Record' (Breedon Books, 2004) — all statistical records for the 1975–76 season. The league table reproduced in this episode is drawn from Macey's definitive record.

Dave Sexton — there is relatively little published work specifically on Sexton's QPR years; the best accounts are in broader histories of QPR and in individual player memoirs. His tactical approach and the philosophy behind it are worth researching carefully, as they were specific and distinctive.

Stan Bowles, 'The Stan Bowles Story' — Bowles's autobiography is vivid, honest, and often very funny. Essential for understanding the personality behind the football.

Gerry Francis — various interviews and accounts of the 1975–76 season from Francis's perspective, including his views on the Gerry Francis injury and its impact on the title race.

Simon Inglis, 'The Football Grounds of England and Wales' — useful context on Loftus Road and its character in the mid-1970s.

QPR supporter oral histories and fanzine accounts of the 1975–76 season — numerous sources, easily found via QPR supporter organisations and online archives. The emotional testimony from this period is particularly rich.

Contemporary newspaper coverage — the national press coverage of QPR's title challenge in late 1975 and early 1976 is extensive and available via British Newspaper Archive. Worth reading to understand how the outside world perceived what was happening at Loftus Road.

Liverpool's final match at Wolverhampton — 4 May 1976. Match reports from the following day capture the moment at which the title changed hands. The Wolves match report is worth reading in full — the tension of a game that QPR were not even playing in is remarkable.