| Leaving loftus road... 01:47 - Jun 9 with 23043 views | qpr_1968 |
what would it mean to you....would it matter?
selfish reasons.....i live local, so yes.
sentimental reasons...yes
moving to a soulless ground in the middle of nowhere....no
yet here's the contradictory bit.....i'd love a 30,000 stadium, with a lovely bit of leg room, and a concourse with decent facilities/toilets/food drink....and safe standing.
what would be the furthest from loftus road you would accept....regardless of where you live.
again for selfish reasons i'd say stay..... |  |
| |  |
| Leaving loftus road... on 21:57 - Jun 10 with 2630 views | numptydumpty |
| Leaving loftus road... on 17:31 - Jun 10 by hoops_legend |
Personally I would sell loftus Road and have a ground share with Chelsea.
Would love to be in the Shed end!
Hope that doesn’t mKe me sound like a bell end [Post edited 10 Jun 17:32]
|
Makes you sound like a bell end but an actual specific bell end who goes by the nickname JT.
Have you got lost JT and haven't you got anything better to do John ??? |  |
| |
| Leaving loftus road... on 22:01 - Jun 10 with 2612 views | colinallcars |
I think tongue-firmly-in-cheek applies ! |  | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 22:03 - Jun 10 with 2598 views | dutch |
| Leaving loftus road... on 20:56 - Jun 9 by Esox_Lucius |
A move to Hillingdon would be in the realms of acceptability as it contains a lot of QPR heartland and land around the RAF airfield golf course could facilitate a new stadium with good road and rail access. A decent size stadium based on the Boavista stadium would keep the cosy feel of Loftus Rd. |
I don't even know where Hillingdon is and would not go there. W12. W11. W10. | | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 23:20 - Jun 10 with 2484 views | stainrods_elbow |
| Leaving loftus road... on 20:56 - Jun 9 by Esox_Lucius |
A move to Hillingdon would be in the realms of acceptability as it contains a lot of QPR heartland and land around the RAF airfield golf course could facilitate a new stadium with good road and rail access. A decent size stadium based on the Boavista stadium would keep the cosy feel of Loftus Rd. |
I don't want to go anywhere just to upgrade our 'brand', widen a few concourses and stage social events, and I've laid out the reasons here several times why I don't buy that idiot Hoos' (and others') arguments that it's financially necessary for us to survive/be competitive either. We won't go under if we stay as we are, and could feasibly be promoted and even prosper in the Prem at LR. I want to rip out the seats, bring back loud terracing, and play with flair and panache with our traditional sprinkling of mavericks. You could call it back to basics, rather than onward and 'upward', or, as Jung puts it, 'reculer pour mieux sauter'. In that sense, I'd rather see us 'regress'.
A continuous relationship to time is intrinsic to the building of spiritual wealth, whether we're talking about football grounds, playing the piano, or working at a marriage. Whenever I visit LR in W12 (unfortunately rarely now as an Irish R), that experience is inseparable from all my other visits over nearly half a century. And for whoever wears the shirt, similarly, and at whatever level of mystical/quantum chaos, the games are molecularly inseparable from the performances of their predecessors on one piece of earth in one place. In short, a football club is not a moveable feast. Fans who don't get that are on the same spectrum as those who support overseas league games in my book. Personally, I won't stand for it.
Has ANY pro club moved to a new ground in recent years and NOT experienced a loss of soul in terms of the atmosphere/setting from their 'old-fashioned' former homes? I think of Southampton at The Dell (with its fab name and lovely tightness), West Ham and Upton Park, Brighton's Goldstone Ground, and that wonderful old East Terrace at The Valley, and shed a few inner tears for all of them.
But it's not all about me - it's about making new (blander/more corporate/more profitable) memories. I get it. But I'd rather be a happy nostalgic (literally, a 'sufferer for home') than a chairman (or even fan) who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. [Post edited 10 Jun 23:24]
|  |
| |
| Leaving loftus road... on 00:06 - Jun 11 with 2476 views | Northernr |
| Leaving loftus road... on 20:56 - Jun 9 by Esox_Lucius |
A move to Hillingdon would be in the realms of acceptability as it contains a lot of QPR heartland and land around the RAF airfield golf course could facilitate a new stadium with good road and rail access. A decent size stadium based on the Boavista stadium would keep the cosy feel of Loftus Rd. |
Fck. That. |  | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 01:43 - Jun 11 with 2420 views | SydneyRs |
It would be a real shame. Brentford and Bournemouth are doing ok with capacities no more than LR but the footprint is so small that even that may not be achievable with modern safety standards.
On a personal level being able to go back there on returns to London is pretty special given the amount of time spent there in younger days. The location is great and easy to get to and the closeness to the pitch especially is something that would be sad to lose.
Worst fear is a Reading style horror in the middle of nowhere. | | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 06:55 - Jun 11 with 2378 views | hoops_legend |
| Leaving loftus road... on 22:01 - Jun 10 by colinallcars |
I think tongue-firmly-in-cheek applies ! |
Thank you! Absolutely it would not be something in anyway acceptable to anyone
I love loftus road and I get lots of nostalgia everyone time I walk up the streets towards it… however there are some major drawbacks
1 - the seat space is way too small and it’s really uncomfortable
2 - the food served is absolute crap. A horrible pie or a frankfurter. Come on. No drink choice as well. We need some IPAs
3 - not much space on concourse for club to make money with shops or food outlets
To be honest none of the above are game changers and I don’t feel we need to move. We don’t need the extra capacity often. I feel qpr could address the food situation
Also some areas could maybe squeeze in some pop up shops which either sell qpr merchandise to the young ones (like fun stuff that’s unique and well thought about) or even different types of food and drink |  |
| |
| Leaving loftus road... on 07:49 - Jun 11 with 2324 views | Gloucs_R |
Where would people accept moving to?
Ealing
Acton
Park Royal
Hillingdon
Uxbridge
Greenford
Ruislip
Harlesden
Wilesden |  |
| |
Login to get fewer ads
| Leaving loftus road... on 09:13 - Jun 11 with 2280 views | hantssi |
| Leaving loftus road... on 07:49 - Jun 11 by Gloucs_R |
Where would people accept moving to?
Ealing
Acton
Park Royal
Hillingdon
Uxbridge
Greenford
Ruislip
Harlesden
Wilesden |
For me, Fareham, we could be the Hampshire Hoops! | | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 09:23 - Jun 11 with 2277 views | francisbowles |
| Leaving loftus road... on 23:20 - Jun 10 by stainrods_elbow |
I don't want to go anywhere just to upgrade our 'brand', widen a few concourses and stage social events, and I've laid out the reasons here several times why I don't buy that idiot Hoos' (and others') arguments that it's financially necessary for us to survive/be competitive either. We won't go under if we stay as we are, and could feasibly be promoted and even prosper in the Prem at LR. I want to rip out the seats, bring back loud terracing, and play with flair and panache with our traditional sprinkling of mavericks. You could call it back to basics, rather than onward and 'upward', or, as Jung puts it, 'reculer pour mieux sauter'. In that sense, I'd rather see us 'regress'.
A continuous relationship to time is intrinsic to the building of spiritual wealth, whether we're talking about football grounds, playing the piano, or working at a marriage. Whenever I visit LR in W12 (unfortunately rarely now as an Irish R), that experience is inseparable from all my other visits over nearly half a century. And for whoever wears the shirt, similarly, and at whatever level of mystical/quantum chaos, the games are molecularly inseparable from the performances of their predecessors on one piece of earth in one place. In short, a football club is not a moveable feast. Fans who don't get that are on the same spectrum as those who support overseas league games in my book. Personally, I won't stand for it.
Has ANY pro club moved to a new ground in recent years and NOT experienced a loss of soul in terms of the atmosphere/setting from their 'old-fashioned' former homes? I think of Southampton at The Dell (with its fab name and lovely tightness), West Ham and Upton Park, Brighton's Goldstone Ground, and that wonderful old East Terrace at The Valley, and shed a few inner tears for all of them.
But it's not all about me - it's about making new (blander/more corporate/more profitable) memories. I get it. But I'd rather be a happy nostalgic (literally, a 'sufferer for home') than a chairman (or even fan) who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. [Post edited 10 Jun 23:24]
|
So how do we make up the £20 million a year (or whatever the figure is) losses? | | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 09:40 - Jun 11 with 2258 views | CamberleyR |
| Leaving loftus road... on 07:49 - Jun 11 by Gloucs_R |
Where would people accept moving to?
Ealing
Acton
Park Royal
Hillingdon
Uxbridge
Greenford
Ruislip
Harlesden
Wilesden |
For me, if we moved, my preference would be to still be in the London postcode area either a W or NW postcode so Uxbridge, Hillingdon, Greenford and Ruislip would be out for me. [Post edited 11 Jun 11:41]
|  |
| |
| Leaving loftus road... on 09:53 - Jun 11 with 2249 views | R_from_afar |
| Leaving loftus road... on 00:06 - Jun 11 by Northernr |
Fck. That. |
We'll put you down as a "No". 
I wonder if we could create more space within LR by buying up a nearby building and moving admin/ticket office functions there. Perhaps that would create enough space for functions on days which aren't matchdays. Perhaps.... |  |
| "Things had started becoming increasingly desperate at Loftus Road but QPR have been handed a massive lifeline and the place has absolutely erupted. it's carnage. It's bedlam. It's 1-1." |
| |
| Leaving loftus road... on 10:59 - Jun 11 with 2161 views | stainrods_elbow |
| Leaving loftus road... on 09:23 - Jun 11 by francisbowles |
So how do we make up the £20 million a year (or whatever the figure is) losses? |
Sigh! Don't you just love smart alec one-line answers (is it stupidity or wilful misreading?) that manage to miss just about every point you've carefully crafted.
Next! | |
| |
| Leaving loftus road... on 11:03 - Jun 11 with 2148 views | francisbowles |
| Leaving loftus road... on 10:59 - Jun 11 by stainrods_elbow |
Sigh! Don't you just love smart alec one-line answers (is it stupidity or wilful misreading?) that manage to miss just about every point you've carefully crafted.
Next! |
Deluded. | | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 14:07 - Jun 11 with 2007 views | Northernr |
I've always been so horribly torn on this (oh God, here comes another one of his rambles).
It would absolutely kill me to leave Loftus Road. For selfish reasons I'd quite happily see us stay there forever, even if it means we're a bit shitter than we need to be on the field. We've all got a lot of history, baggage, connection with the place. I still get emotional just going there. Nights like Leeds at home are what it's all about, and it feels like the people you loved and lost are all still standing there with you on nights like that. So that's my bias.
I do accept the 'Lee Hoos argument' about it being a complete millstone. Your ground, ideally, needs to make you money, and ours costs us it. I think if they could have got LCS off the ground, or been part of that Westfield development on the old dairy site which surely is the biggest missed op of them all, or even showed some real creative flare and imagination and built a totally unique thing around the television centre, then I'd have just about been on board.
But... Hillingdon Golf Club? Ruislip? Heathrow? I'm sorry, but no. Is there really much difference between that and just dragging the club two or three more stops up the Southern Trains line from Shepherd's Bush and plonking us in Milton Keynes after all? It just wouldn't be the same club. I think that would probably be me calling it a day.
My other club, Hull FC, went through this. Basically the perfect stadium move. The old ground, The Boulevard, was a wild place, far smaller and worse than Loftus Road, 80% standing, 60% uncovered. The main stand didn't even knocking down when they moved out, it collapsed in a fcking storm. Absolute deathtrap. I loved it. Friday night there, howling wind, change ends at half time, "you shagged Farrell's missus", frighten the life out of some of the big clubs. I saw Jason Smith kick Leeds Rhinos to death there one Friday night and was in love immediately. They moved to one of the better new grounds, 2 minutes walk away - you could see them building it from behind the posts at the old place - paid for by the council. Basically if you could design a stadium move, this would be it. And, initially, transformative. Crowds doubled, they've won the cup a few times, attracted some big players. Slowly but surely though, it's still the same club. And now they're back at the bottom of the league, playing in front of the same 7-8000 people they always were, only this time with 20,000 empty seats. The Boulevard, like Loftus Road, you could get it fcking going in there on a Thursday night with 3,000 people. The KCom at the moment, and it's a new ground I quite like, right in the middle of the city, is a morgue. I'm going to watch them play Leeds again there this weekend. And already there have been "shall we just stay at home and watch it on TV" noises from home.
Has moving to the end of a retail park, into the same type of stadium as everybody else, done a lot for Derby? Coventry? Southampton? They look pretty much like they always did to me. Look at Bolton for goodness sake - that ground is closer to Wigan than it is Burnden Park, are they any better off for it? They don't look it to me. Same sort of league positions and history. Middlesbrough had some absolutely amazing times at the Riverside when it first opened, now they're back to exactly what they were before - only you have to cross a railway line and walk through a container port to get to it. Sunderland the same. Wigan went up and burned bright, now pretty much back to where they started. These clubs perform the same as they always did, except now you have to drink in a Harvester. I accept that Loftus Road holds us back in many ways, but I don't accept that we're all sorted and ready to go once we're playing in the same 30,000 Meccano set as everybody else in fcking Osterley.
I think football's coming to a bit of a crossroads. You're either in that club at the top or you're not.
If you're in, then you can expect your club to basically become DisneyLand. It'll be all beavertown breweries on site and £3,000 corporate packages in the "tunnelside bar", where you can stand with your glass of wine and see Jack Grealish's big legs up close as they walk out. Concessions will be abandoned - maybe even season tickets in time - and the target market will be Asian and American tourists. They'll make money like Miami Heat made out of me when I was over there in January - $80 ticket, $30 "arena fee", $30 "booking fee", $10 state tax, Pappa John's Pizza to my seat $35, large can of Brooklyn Lager $20 - I'd dropped 200 sheets before they even sung the fcking national anthem. They will increasingly play abroad - it's inevitable a round of Premier League games will be played round the world in the next ten years. Even fcking Brentford, Palace and Brighton are now getting invites to summer tournaments in the US and elsewhere, and I've seen all of them play league football at Scunthorpe.
If you're not in that club, then you have to ask yourself what exactly you are there for. You're not going to win anything, ever again. The cups, the Premier league, are completely out of reach. Your entire existence is to get into the Premier League, stay there for as long as you can, finish 17th every year, bank the money. In an attempt to do that every club at our level, new ground or not, loses £20m+ a season. So, as costs of ticket and life in general rise, what's in it fans of clubs like ours? Habit? Connection? Identity? Pride? Bloody mindedness? That's about it. And you take a club like ours out of a ground and an area like ours, stick it in a stadium like any other on some brownfield site in Northolt, and you're breaking a lot of those chains. People will come when the going is good, and fck off en masse as soon as it's not.
I'd really, really look at pressing on with what we've got. Take that School Land if we can, take that corner of Batman Close, use it to build a big wrap-around thing, improve the corporate, the hospitality etc. Expand the safe standing all over the gaff. We have one of the most unique grounds left in football in this country, and it's in a superb location with amazing transport, pubs, places to eat, biggest shopping mall in western europe right on its doorstep. We should be doubling down and selling that. Union in Germany have risen as far as the Champions League doing a similar thing - fck modern football, this is us, three sided terrace ground in the woods, built back up by the supporters. Treat it as a selling point, not a problem. Real, proper, entertaining English football, old school stadium with great atmosphere, amazing location. Get involved.
I'd be pushing that. Otherwise we're just like everybody else. And everybody else is just as fcked as we are, new ground or not.
I
This post has been edited by an administrator | | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 16:24 - Jun 11 with 1898 views | Esox_Lucius |
| Leaving loftus road... on 14:07 - Jun 11 by Northernr |
I've always been so horribly torn on this (oh God, here comes another one of his rambles).
It would absolutely kill me to leave Loftus Road. For selfish reasons I'd quite happily see us stay there forever, even if it means we're a bit shitter than we need to be on the field. We've all got a lot of history, baggage, connection with the place. I still get emotional just going there. Nights like Leeds at home are what it's all about, and it feels like the people you loved and lost are all still standing there with you on nights like that. So that's my bias.
I do accept the 'Lee Hoos argument' about it being a complete millstone. Your ground, ideally, needs to make you money, and ours costs us it. I think if they could have got LCS off the ground, or been part of that Westfield development on the old dairy site which surely is the biggest missed op of them all, or even showed some real creative flare and imagination and built a totally unique thing around the television centre, then I'd have just about been on board.
But... Hillingdon Golf Club? Ruislip? Heathrow? I'm sorry, but no. Is there really much difference between that and just dragging the club two or three more stops up the Southern Trains line from Shepherd's Bush and plonking us in Milton Keynes after all? It just wouldn't be the same club. I think that would probably be me calling it a day.
My other club, Hull FC, went through this. Basically the perfect stadium move. The old ground, The Boulevard, was a wild place, far smaller and worse than Loftus Road, 80% standing, 60% uncovered. The main stand didn't even knocking down when they moved out, it collapsed in a fcking storm. Absolute deathtrap. I loved it. Friday night there, howling wind, change ends at half time, "you shagged Farrell's missus", frighten the life out of some of the big clubs. I saw Jason Smith kick Leeds Rhinos to death there one Friday night and was in love immediately. They moved to one of the better new grounds, 2 minutes walk away - you could see them building it from behind the posts at the old place - paid for by the council. Basically if you could design a stadium move, this would be it. And, initially, transformative. Crowds doubled, they've won the cup a few times, attracted some big players. Slowly but surely though, it's still the same club. And now they're back at the bottom of the league, playing in front of the same 7-8000 people they always were, only this time with 20,000 empty seats. The Boulevard, like Loftus Road, you could get it fcking going in there on a Thursday night with 3,000 people. The KCom at the moment, and it's a new ground I quite like, right in the middle of the city, is a morgue. I'm going to watch them play Leeds again there this weekend. And already there have been "shall we just stay at home and watch it on TV" noises from home.
Has moving to the end of a retail park, into the same type of stadium as everybody else, done a lot for Derby? Coventry? Southampton? They look pretty much like they always did to me. Look at Bolton for goodness sake - that ground is closer to Wigan than it is Burnden Park, are they any better off for it? They don't look it to me. Same sort of league positions and history. Middlesbrough had some absolutely amazing times at the Riverside when it first opened, now they're back to exactly what they were before - only you have to cross a railway line and walk through a container port to get to it. Sunderland the same. Wigan went up and burned bright, now pretty much back to where they started. These clubs perform the same as they always did, except now you have to drink in a Harvester. I accept that Loftus Road holds us back in many ways, but I don't accept that we're all sorted and ready to go once we're playing in the same 30,000 Meccano set as everybody else in fcking Osterley.
I think football's coming to a bit of a crossroads. You're either in that club at the top or you're not.
If you're in, then you can expect your club to basically become DisneyLand. It'll be all beavertown breweries on site and £3,000 corporate packages in the "tunnelside bar", where you can stand with your glass of wine and see Jack Grealish's big legs up close as they walk out. Concessions will be abandoned - maybe even season tickets in time - and the target market will be Asian and American tourists. They'll make money like Miami Heat made out of me when I was over there in January - $80 ticket, $30 "arena fee", $30 "booking fee", $10 state tax, Pappa John's Pizza to my seat $35, large can of Brooklyn Lager $20 - I'd dropped 200 sheets before they even sung the fcking national anthem. They will increasingly play abroad - it's inevitable a round of Premier League games will be played round the world in the next ten years. Even fcking Brentford, Palace and Brighton are now getting invites to summer tournaments in the US and elsewhere, and I've seen all of them play league football at Scunthorpe.
If you're not in that club, then you have to ask yourself what exactly you are there for. You're not going to win anything, ever again. The cups, the Premier league, are completely out of reach. Your entire existence is to get into the Premier League, stay there for as long as you can, finish 17th every year, bank the money. In an attempt to do that every club at our level, new ground or not, loses £20m+ a season. So, as costs of ticket and life in general rise, what's in it fans of clubs like ours? Habit? Connection? Identity? Pride? Bloody mindedness? That's about it. And you take a club like ours out of a ground and an area like ours, stick it in a stadium like any other on some brownfield site in Northolt, and you're breaking a lot of those chains. People will come when the going is good, and fck off en masse as soon as it's not.
I'd really, really look at pressing on with what we've got. Take that School Land if we can, take that corner of Batman Close, use it to build a big wrap-around thing, improve the corporate, the hospitality etc. Expand the safe standing all over the gaff. We have one of the most unique grounds left in football in this country, and it's in a superb location with amazing transport, pubs, places to eat, biggest shopping mall in western europe right on its doorstep. We should be doubling down and selling that. Union in Germany have risen as far as the Champions League doing a similar thing - fck modern football, this is us, three sided terrace ground in the woods, built back up by the supporters. Treat it as a selling point, not a problem. Real, proper, entertaining English football, old school stadium with great atmosphere, amazing location. Get involved.
I'd be pushing that. Otherwise we're just like everybody else. And everybody else is just as fcked as we are, new ground or not.
I
This post has been edited by an administrator |
No wrap around stadium, no running track, real close to the action replacement stadium like Boavista. Could have lower tiers standing, upper tiers sitting, corporate dividing the two levels, even hotel/ conference rooms like Blackpool in the corners.
This is what Loftus Road could look like with a modern feel to it.
 |  |
| The grass is always greener. |
| |
| Leaving loftus road... on 18:37 - Jun 11 with 1838 views | Northernr |
| Leaving loftus road... on 16:24 - Jun 11 by Esox_Lucius |
No wrap around stadium, no running track, real close to the action replacement stadium like Boavista. Could have lower tiers standing, upper tiers sitting, corporate dividing the two levels, even hotel/ conference rooms like Blackpool in the corners.
This is what Loftus Road could look like with a modern feel to it.
|
With respect, this is British tennis player at Wimbledon levels of missing my point.
Love that stadium, love Genoa’s too. Build that at LCS, Westfield, TVC I could just about be persuaded (though would still be fcking miserable about it). But once you start talking Hillingdon, Willesden, Northolt, Heathrow etc, I honestly don’t care if they build the greatest new ground you ever did see. It’s not the same club. | | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 18:59 - Jun 11 with 1812 views | BazzaInTheLoft |
I don’t know viable this is, but Loftus Rd on the same site with more legroom, shorter queues (for better beer), and less pigeon shit on my seat. |  | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 19:07 - Jun 11 with 1799 views | 222gers |
I've been attending at our crumbling edifice since 1956 so at my age I doubt if I'll need to worry about a possible new ground. |  | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 22:59 - Jun 11 with 1646 views | wombat |
| Leaving loftus road... on 19:07 - Jun 11 by 222gers |
I've been attending at our crumbling edifice since 1956 so at my age I doubt if I'll need to worry about a possible new ground. |
As said before we could just increase capacity and some off the field stuff as well by buying the jack tizzard school. That would allow us to re build the loft make it deeper with more seats / standing same for school end similar sort of deeper version of what it is ,
But to our dying day NOT buying the dairy crest site for the new stadium has to be the biggest feck up in my life time , 105 million quid for the land a stadium could easily have been built at the Westfield end of the site , and we would likely be playing on it now and a new hotel at the other and we would probably have made our money back and more by doing so , maybe even own the hotel as well in same way , well done uncle Tony |  |
| |
| Leaving loftus road... on 01:10 - Jun 12 with 1602 views | kensalriser |
| Leaving loftus road... on 22:59 - Jun 11 by wombat |
As said before we could just increase capacity and some off the field stuff as well by buying the jack tizzard school. That would allow us to re build the loft make it deeper with more seats / standing same for school end similar sort of deeper version of what it is ,
But to our dying day NOT buying the dairy crest site for the new stadium has to be the biggest feck up in my life time , 105 million quid for the land a stadium could easily have been built at the Westfield end of the site , and we would likely be playing on it now and a new hotel at the other and we would probably have made our money back and more by doing so , maybe even own the hotel as well in same way , well done uncle Tony |
This is the tragedy, that for the last 20 years QPR have been watching slack-jawed as the run down ex light industrial acreage in the area has been gradually redeveloped with a very predictable rocketing in values. I drove down the West Cross Route last week for the first time in ages and at one point was presented with a view that momentarily made me think I'd taken a wrong turn and ended up in downtown Miami. And we're still playing in a dilapidated shed. |  |
| |
| Leaving loftus road... on 06:03 - Jun 12 with 1560 views | urrrrssss |
| Leaving loftus road... on 14:07 - Jun 11 by Northernr |
I've always been so horribly torn on this (oh God, here comes another one of his rambles).
It would absolutely kill me to leave Loftus Road. For selfish reasons I'd quite happily see us stay there forever, even if it means we're a bit shitter than we need to be on the field. We've all got a lot of history, baggage, connection with the place. I still get emotional just going there. Nights like Leeds at home are what it's all about, and it feels like the people you loved and lost are all still standing there with you on nights like that. So that's my bias.
I do accept the 'Lee Hoos argument' about it being a complete millstone. Your ground, ideally, needs to make you money, and ours costs us it. I think if they could have got LCS off the ground, or been part of that Westfield development on the old dairy site which surely is the biggest missed op of them all, or even showed some real creative flare and imagination and built a totally unique thing around the television centre, then I'd have just about been on board.
But... Hillingdon Golf Club? Ruislip? Heathrow? I'm sorry, but no. Is there really much difference between that and just dragging the club two or three more stops up the Southern Trains line from Shepherd's Bush and plonking us in Milton Keynes after all? It just wouldn't be the same club. I think that would probably be me calling it a day.
My other club, Hull FC, went through this. Basically the perfect stadium move. The old ground, The Boulevard, was a wild place, far smaller and worse than Loftus Road, 80% standing, 60% uncovered. The main stand didn't even knocking down when they moved out, it collapsed in a fcking storm. Absolute deathtrap. I loved it. Friday night there, howling wind, change ends at half time, "you shagged Farrell's missus", frighten the life out of some of the big clubs. I saw Jason Smith kick Leeds Rhinos to death there one Friday night and was in love immediately. They moved to one of the better new grounds, 2 minutes walk away - you could see them building it from behind the posts at the old place - paid for by the council. Basically if you could design a stadium move, this would be it. And, initially, transformative. Crowds doubled, they've won the cup a few times, attracted some big players. Slowly but surely though, it's still the same club. And now they're back at the bottom of the league, playing in front of the same 7-8000 people they always were, only this time with 20,000 empty seats. The Boulevard, like Loftus Road, you could get it fcking going in there on a Thursday night with 3,000 people. The KCom at the moment, and it's a new ground I quite like, right in the middle of the city, is a morgue. I'm going to watch them play Leeds again there this weekend. And already there have been "shall we just stay at home and watch it on TV" noises from home.
Has moving to the end of a retail park, into the same type of stadium as everybody else, done a lot for Derby? Coventry? Southampton? They look pretty much like they always did to me. Look at Bolton for goodness sake - that ground is closer to Wigan than it is Burnden Park, are they any better off for it? They don't look it to me. Same sort of league positions and history. Middlesbrough had some absolutely amazing times at the Riverside when it first opened, now they're back to exactly what they were before - only you have to cross a railway line and walk through a container port to get to it. Sunderland the same. Wigan went up and burned bright, now pretty much back to where they started. These clubs perform the same as they always did, except now you have to drink in a Harvester. I accept that Loftus Road holds us back in many ways, but I don't accept that we're all sorted and ready to go once we're playing in the same 30,000 Meccano set as everybody else in fcking Osterley.
I think football's coming to a bit of a crossroads. You're either in that club at the top or you're not.
If you're in, then you can expect your club to basically become DisneyLand. It'll be all beavertown breweries on site and £3,000 corporate packages in the "tunnelside bar", where you can stand with your glass of wine and see Jack Grealish's big legs up close as they walk out. Concessions will be abandoned - maybe even season tickets in time - and the target market will be Asian and American tourists. They'll make money like Miami Heat made out of me when I was over there in January - $80 ticket, $30 "arena fee", $30 "booking fee", $10 state tax, Pappa John's Pizza to my seat $35, large can of Brooklyn Lager $20 - I'd dropped 200 sheets before they even sung the fcking national anthem. They will increasingly play abroad - it's inevitable a round of Premier League games will be played round the world in the next ten years. Even fcking Brentford, Palace and Brighton are now getting invites to summer tournaments in the US and elsewhere, and I've seen all of them play league football at Scunthorpe.
If you're not in that club, then you have to ask yourself what exactly you are there for. You're not going to win anything, ever again. The cups, the Premier league, are completely out of reach. Your entire existence is to get into the Premier League, stay there for as long as you can, finish 17th every year, bank the money. In an attempt to do that every club at our level, new ground or not, loses £20m+ a season. So, as costs of ticket and life in general rise, what's in it fans of clubs like ours? Habit? Connection? Identity? Pride? Bloody mindedness? That's about it. And you take a club like ours out of a ground and an area like ours, stick it in a stadium like any other on some brownfield site in Northolt, and you're breaking a lot of those chains. People will come when the going is good, and fck off en masse as soon as it's not.
I'd really, really look at pressing on with what we've got. Take that School Land if we can, take that corner of Batman Close, use it to build a big wrap-around thing, improve the corporate, the hospitality etc. Expand the safe standing all over the gaff. We have one of the most unique grounds left in football in this country, and it's in a superb location with amazing transport, pubs, places to eat, biggest shopping mall in western europe right on its doorstep. We should be doubling down and selling that. Union in Germany have risen as far as the Champions League doing a similar thing - fck modern football, this is us, three sided terrace ground in the woods, built back up by the supporters. Treat it as a selling point, not a problem. Real, proper, entertaining English football, old school stadium with great atmosphere, amazing location. Get involved.
I'd be pushing that. Otherwise we're just like everybody else. And everybody else is just as fcked as we are, new ground or not.
I
This post has been edited by an administrator |
Couldn't agree more.
My input, Rebuild the Loftus Road end and make it into all safe standing ( no upper or Lower ).
Make as much of the rest of the Stadium all safe Standing where possible ( everyone still has a seat ). |  | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 07:01 - Jun 12 with 1505 views | CamberleyR |
| Leaving loftus road... on 06:03 - Jun 12 by urrrrssss |
Couldn't agree more.
My input, Rebuild the Loftus Road end and make it into all safe standing ( no upper or Lower ).
Make as much of the rest of the Stadium all safe Standing where possible ( everyone still has a seat ). |
You may not need to make it all safe standing if it were rebuilt like Ipswich have done with the Bobby Robson stand at Ipswich (managed to find a pic)
(the white clad stand on the left that goes along Sir Alf Ramsey Way) It seems a cleverly designed stand how they've done it. You could have upper seating and lower safe standing.
I posted earlier in the thread about rebuilding the SAR stand like it but somebody pointed out that that stand is south facing so you'd have light problems for anything facing it but wouldn't have the same issue in Loftus Road. | |
| |
| Leaving loftus road... on 07:24 - Jun 12 with 1470 views | hoops_legend |
| Leaving loftus road... on 14:07 - Jun 11 by Northernr |
I've always been so horribly torn on this (oh God, here comes another one of his rambles).
It would absolutely kill me to leave Loftus Road. For selfish reasons I'd quite happily see us stay there forever, even if it means we're a bit shitter than we need to be on the field. We've all got a lot of history, baggage, connection with the place. I still get emotional just going there. Nights like Leeds at home are what it's all about, and it feels like the people you loved and lost are all still standing there with you on nights like that. So that's my bias.
I do accept the 'Lee Hoos argument' about it being a complete millstone. Your ground, ideally, needs to make you money, and ours costs us it. I think if they could have got LCS off the ground, or been part of that Westfield development on the old dairy site which surely is the biggest missed op of them all, or even showed some real creative flare and imagination and built a totally unique thing around the television centre, then I'd have just about been on board.
But... Hillingdon Golf Club? Ruislip? Heathrow? I'm sorry, but no. Is there really much difference between that and just dragging the club two or three more stops up the Southern Trains line from Shepherd's Bush and plonking us in Milton Keynes after all? It just wouldn't be the same club. I think that would probably be me calling it a day.
My other club, Hull FC, went through this. Basically the perfect stadium move. The old ground, The Boulevard, was a wild place, far smaller and worse than Loftus Road, 80% standing, 60% uncovered. The main stand didn't even knocking down when they moved out, it collapsed in a fcking storm. Absolute deathtrap. I loved it. Friday night there, howling wind, change ends at half time, "you shagged Farrell's missus", frighten the life out of some of the big clubs. I saw Jason Smith kick Leeds Rhinos to death there one Friday night and was in love immediately. They moved to one of the better new grounds, 2 minutes walk away - you could see them building it from behind the posts at the old place - paid for by the council. Basically if you could design a stadium move, this would be it. And, initially, transformative. Crowds doubled, they've won the cup a few times, attracted some big players. Slowly but surely though, it's still the same club. And now they're back at the bottom of the league, playing in front of the same 7-8000 people they always were, only this time with 20,000 empty seats. The Boulevard, like Loftus Road, you could get it fcking going in there on a Thursday night with 3,000 people. The KCom at the moment, and it's a new ground I quite like, right in the middle of the city, is a morgue. I'm going to watch them play Leeds again there this weekend. And already there have been "shall we just stay at home and watch it on TV" noises from home.
Has moving to the end of a retail park, into the same type of stadium as everybody else, done a lot for Derby? Coventry? Southampton? They look pretty much like they always did to me. Look at Bolton for goodness sake - that ground is closer to Wigan than it is Burnden Park, are they any better off for it? They don't look it to me. Same sort of league positions and history. Middlesbrough had some absolutely amazing times at the Riverside when it first opened, now they're back to exactly what they were before - only you have to cross a railway line and walk through a container port to get to it. Sunderland the same. Wigan went up and burned bright, now pretty much back to where they started. These clubs perform the same as they always did, except now you have to drink in a Harvester. I accept that Loftus Road holds us back in many ways, but I don't accept that we're all sorted and ready to go once we're playing in the same 30,000 Meccano set as everybody else in fcking Osterley.
I think football's coming to a bit of a crossroads. You're either in that club at the top or you're not.
If you're in, then you can expect your club to basically become DisneyLand. It'll be all beavertown breweries on site and £3,000 corporate packages in the "tunnelside bar", where you can stand with your glass of wine and see Jack Grealish's big legs up close as they walk out. Concessions will be abandoned - maybe even season tickets in time - and the target market will be Asian and American tourists. They'll make money like Miami Heat made out of me when I was over there in January - $80 ticket, $30 "arena fee", $30 "booking fee", $10 state tax, Pappa John's Pizza to my seat $35, large can of Brooklyn Lager $20 - I'd dropped 200 sheets before they even sung the fcking national anthem. They will increasingly play abroad - it's inevitable a round of Premier League games will be played round the world in the next ten years. Even fcking Brentford, Palace and Brighton are now getting invites to summer tournaments in the US and elsewhere, and I've seen all of them play league football at Scunthorpe.
If you're not in that club, then you have to ask yourself what exactly you are there for. You're not going to win anything, ever again. The cups, the Premier league, are completely out of reach. Your entire existence is to get into the Premier League, stay there for as long as you can, finish 17th every year, bank the money. In an attempt to do that every club at our level, new ground or not, loses £20m+ a season. So, as costs of ticket and life in general rise, what's in it fans of clubs like ours? Habit? Connection? Identity? Pride? Bloody mindedness? That's about it. And you take a club like ours out of a ground and an area like ours, stick it in a stadium like any other on some brownfield site in Northolt, and you're breaking a lot of those chains. People will come when the going is good, and fck off en masse as soon as it's not.
I'd really, really look at pressing on with what we've got. Take that School Land if we can, take that corner of Batman Close, use it to build a big wrap-around thing, improve the corporate, the hospitality etc. Expand the safe standing all over the gaff. We have one of the most unique grounds left in football in this country, and it's in a superb location with amazing transport, pubs, places to eat, biggest shopping mall in western europe right on its doorstep. We should be doubling down and selling that. Union in Germany have risen as far as the Champions League doing a similar thing - fck modern football, this is us, three sided terrace ground in the woods, built back up by the supporters. Treat it as a selling point, not a problem. Real, proper, entertaining English football, old school stadium with great atmosphere, amazing location. Get involved.
I'd be pushing that. Otherwise we're just like everybody else. And everybody else is just as fcked as we are, new ground or not.
I
This post has been edited by an administrator |
Sorry for focusing on just one point but I would welcome Beavertown or at least some IPA or craft beer to our ground :)
Otherwise I do agree with most of your points | |
| |
| Leaving loftus road... on 09:07 - Jun 12 with 1413 views | saxbend |
I wonder if anyone has done calculations to estimate what the optimum combination ticket price and capacity could be.
On the basis that the more a ticket costs, the fewer people will pay it (either due to means or principle) the total revenue you can generate has its maximum at a certain ticket price for a given capacity. And for our known limited capacity I am sure that the club has calculated the best options to maximise gate revenue and set prices accordingly.
But say we had a 25000 seater stadium there might be a ticket price low enough that we would fill it and still make as much or more than we do as things stand. It might even be possible to do better at a lower price with 30000 seats or more.
We know we can sell 40000 tickets when the occasion is massive. I seriously doubt we would sell 40000 each week even if tickets were only a tenner at full price. But the fan base does exist, so there is an optimum pair of numbers in there somewhere. If we got that right then a move would be justified, but the location is a factor too. The same people who can afford to go regularly when the price is low enough may not go if it means travelling too far from W12. The further away a new ground would be, the less reliable any calculations would be. |  | | |
| |
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
