QPR blogger Roller returns to LFW, concerned about the shifting dynamics of the club he loves and its support base.
One short, simple sentence I read during the pre-season has left me feeling very uneasy ever since.
I was watching our friendly match against Wycombe Wanderers on a website which also featured a comment stream enabling all those on-line to chat with each other. At the end of the match Gareth Ainsworth grabbed Hogan Ephraim’s shirt, stretched it across his chest and advanced towards the QPR supporters thumping his heart and the Rangers’ faithful roared their appreciation of the gesture from a much loved ex-player. A comment appeared in the stream asking: “Who is Wycombe’s number seven?” I was too stunned to comment at the time and am still trying to come to terms with the ramifications of it. Am I overreacting? Probably, but it does highlight my concerns regarding the changing fan base at my club.
I’ve supported QPR since 197whenever and so proudly bear the scars of many galling disappointments alongside a few cherished memories of magnificent days. I love QPR, I have placed certain former idols on ridiculously high pedestals and I completely understand the heritage of the club. I was on the pitch at Loftus Road protesting against David Bulstrode’s proposed Fulham Park Rangers and when Ecclestone and Briatore were strangling the club I started a futile online petition to restore Bhatia and Saksena. When John Gregory decided that there wasn’t a player at the club who was skilful enough to wear the number 10 shirt I applauded him and when Gerry Francis resigned because Richard Thompson was looking to appoint Rodney Marsh as director of football I shook my head in disbelief.
However, throughout these and countless other events, far too many to even attempt to catalogue, I felt secure in the knowledge that it was just another day at QPR, the rollercoaster would race on unchecked and we all understood this, indeed many of us revelling in it. We, the QPR supporters, were members of an exclusive fellowship. Not many wanted to join, only the fully paid up members actually had any idea of what being a QPR supporter was really about, and, like the Eagles’ Hotel California, no one ever checked out. Because of the constant trials and tribulations we all suffered our bond to each other and with the club was rock solid.
As much as I love the buzz emanating from Loftus Road, the calm assurance exhibited by both the current board and management and the new professional outlook, I am concerned; I fear that my vision of QPR, my ideal, is slowly but surely getting dismantled. In my mind, QPR is a friendly, family club. We have strong roots in West London but universal appeal, the uniqueness of the club’s name and the famous hooped shirts never fail to grab attention. We can boast of a succession of outlandishly talented players who have thrilled in the number ten shirt, and constantly admire the passion and solidarity of the diehard supporters who, undaunted by the disappointment which constantly ambushes their hopes of success, continue to belt out Pigbag in a ramshackle but strangely glorious stadium, a stadium that screams of amateurism and chaos. We are definitely not an anodyne club with an identikit stadium and greedy supporters demanding success at any cost.
Of these, the tightness of the supporters is the most laudable. For a small club in London that has seen precious little success at any time in its existence to maintain such a loyal and fervent support is incredible. Generation after generation of parents have taken their children to Loftus Road from an early age and got them hooked on the atmosphere and the passion. These children have resisted the teasing and tormenting in their school playgrounds from their friends who “support” Chelsea or Arsenal or Spurs or Manchester United even though they have never, and will never, go to see them play. We all understand the exquisite pain of supporting QPR, we all have tasted the same defeats, suffered the same torment, we all understand.
QPR’s “going global” plan is a determined effort to increase our fan base, an attempt to bust wide open our exclusive members only fellowship. I fully understand that this is of the utmost importance, that a new generation of supporters is essential, that the merchandise sales this will generate will generate vital revenue and that when we finally have our new stadium it will need filling. However unless the new fans emotionally buy-in to QPR in the way that we all have those bonds will be weakened. I fear that soon we won’t be stopping to talk to complete strangers just because they are sporting a blue and white hooped top, worried that their knowledge of QPR only encompasses the Fernandes years.
Loftus Road will remain a bastion for my QPR ideal. Our faithful, long suffering season ticket holders, ably backed up by the members, will ensure this; their unremitting desire to back the team will ensure that very few tickets are available for general sale. The warm welcome that Kaspars Gorkss received on his return to our ground with his Reading team mates and the muted, but genuine, applause for his headed goal was just the latest example of our understanding of the club’s history and appreciation of those who have played a major role in it. Would the guy who didn’t know who Wild Thing was be any the wiser regarding Gorkss? These supporters are the heart and soul of the club and must not be ignored nor taken for granted while the drive for global awareness powers forwards. Every effort must be made to ensure that not a single one of these supporters is disenfranchised as the club forge their relentless path forwards.
As soon as we leave Loftus Road this situation will inevitably change, the increased capacity of the new stadium will make it imperative that we have another 20,000 supporters passing through the turnstiles and this is where my worries are centred. Do we have another 20,000 supporters desperate to go to the every home match or will this void be filled by temporary supporters curious to see Ji-Sung Park, Julio Cesar or whoever the latest marquee signing is? Will there start to be quieter areas in the ground, or heaven forbid a “neutrals” stand?
The internet, on the other hand, has an infinite capacity and could give us a clear indication of what the future holds. Forums and social media welcome the whole world and grant everyone the freedom to express their views in relative anonymity and it is this fertile breeding ground that will initially bear the brunt of the unwanted side effects of “going global”. While we all love to argue about events and dissect them down to the nth degree, we all do so from a common standpoint, our shared passion is unquestionable. As more and more new supporters join it is likely that the levels of understanding and insight will decrease, banality will increase and the more knowledgeable posters will quietly slip into the background. Even among current QPR supporters the level of ignorance surrounding John Terry’s racial abuse of Anton Ferdinand was staggering. Going forwards I can see this getting worse, but regardless of how informed or uninformed anyone is everyone will have the same level of access to many platforms from which to assert their views. Twitter, Tony Fernandes’ and Amit Bhatia’s preferred method of communicating with the fans, will be swamped, the amount of trivia and misinformation potentially soaring to pandemic proportions.
I stated on my introduction page of my blog that I regard myself as remarkably lucky to have stumbled across a club whose glory is encapsulated by the passionate characters associated with it not simply recorded by trophies won. How many of our new supporters will share this view or even understand it? New supporters attracted because of certain players or any ill-advised glory hunters will only be interested results and trophies. I don’t want QPR to become a soulless club like Chelsea. I asked a few Chelsea supporters I know if they ever had any equivalent qualms when Abramovich took over, none did, nor did they even begin to comprehend my fears. Maybe because Chelsea was always a bigger club with many, many more supporters they didn’t ever have that feeling of kinship with their fellow supporters or any feeling of ownership of their club. As we seek to expand our fan base around the world, possible with people who have never heard of Queens Park Rangers, I fear that things that I hold dear about QPR will get trampled underfoot.
I keep coming back to the conclusion that the problem here is me; I’m probably just overly sentimental, viewing our history through rose tinted glasses. I’m undoubtedly over reacting to necessary change, but I’m not one to idly sit by and watch. Maybe I need to expand my horizons to keep pace with the club, maybe I need to forget my ideal and the past and just look towards the future? We were of course all new supporters once, maybe these new fans will ultimately become just as passionate, they just won’t have the same scars. It is up to us to ensure that our fellowship does not get diluted, our forums do not get swamped and our stadium stays passionate. Am I just apprehensive of change? I don’t think so, I think just part of me will miss what we all are moving on from. The French poet and novelist Anatole France summed it up perfectly many years ago:
“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.”
Tweet @RollerRanger, @loftforwords
Pictures – Action Images