| Leaving loftus road... 01:47 - Jun 9 with 24735 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..... |  |
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| Leaving loftus road... on 09:11 - Jun 12 with 3396 views | stainrods_elbow |
| Leaving loftus road... on 11:03 - Jun 11 by francisbowles |
Deluded. |
Tedious (and deluded). |  |
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| Leaving loftus road... on 10:00 - Jun 12 with 3347 views | Esox_Lucius |
| Leaving loftus road... on 18:37 - Jun 11 by Northernr |
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. |
Do you think we lost a lot of our die hard supporters when we moved from the White City stadium... or even moved to the White City stadium ? or any of the other 20 ish grounds we have called home?
What is going to stem the financial bleeding in the future? £20m+ p.a. that could be used to improve the team all borrowed and converted into equity.
The season after next will be 60 years of going to games there and some of the most wonderful days of my life have taken place in there and I still get emotional on a regular basis at games but the little dark cloud over my head in the last decade has been the spectre of the owners finally say "Enough" and dismantling the club. Perhaps a read of "Who moved my cheese" might prove beneficial. Change doesn't have to be traumatic. |  |
| The grass is always greener. |
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| Leaving loftus road... on 10:30 - Jun 12 with 3300 views | Konk |
| 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 |
I think we're a lot like Rangers in this respect As a club who've never won a major trophy, our main selling point is playing in a nice, old style English ground, surrounded by terraced streets, the park, and the river. It's a quintessential English football setting.
Like QPR, we might win one of the cups in the next 100 years, if we get lucky, and us moving out to Worcester Park or somewhere and building a 40,000 stadium, wouldn't change that at all.
I did pretty much every home game when we played at your place and it was great for atmosphere, pubs, and public transport; better than the Fulham in those respects, but fu ck me, my legs were glad when we got back to the Cottage. Loftus Road is a proper English football ground with a load of character in a world where those are disappearing throughout the league.
I was at a Tottenham game last season and although the stadium is amazing and more or less on the same site, it doesn't feel like an English ground, which somewhere like Anfield still does. Facilities wise, views, legroom, comfort etc it's incredible, but it feels a bit like it could be anywhere in the world. Reading, Cov, Stoke... just a pain in the ar se getting to them from the City centre. Brighton, who had no option but to look outside the city, have built a nice stadium, but that train faff is just a ballache, and chatting to Albion fans I know, it does their heads in every home game.
I think QPR should stay where you are if possible, but need to be looking at 25,000+. If you don't have a bit of spare capacity, then it makes it difficult for people to start following the club. It makes it difficult for people to start bringing kids/grandkids. I started taking my son to Ashton Gate because it's affordable, round the corner, and getting tickets together with mates was easy. We now have a big group of his mates and their parents/siblings who have season-tickets with us, but if we hadn't all been able to get seats together when the kids starting showing an interest in going, I doubt that most of those now season-ticket holders would have bothered or done it as regularly. |  |
| Fulham FC: It's the taking part that counts |
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| Leaving loftus road... on 13:00 - Jun 12 with 3191 views | Northernr |
| Leaving loftus road... on 10:00 - Jun 12 by Esox_Lucius |
Do you think we lost a lot of our die hard supporters when we moved from the White City stadium... or even moved to the White City stadium ? or any of the other 20 ish grounds we have called home?
What is going to stem the financial bleeding in the future? £20m+ p.a. that could be used to improve the team all borrowed and converted into equity.
The season after next will be 60 years of going to games there and some of the most wonderful days of my life have taken place in there and I still get emotional on a regular basis at games but the little dark cloud over my head in the last decade has been the spectre of the owners finally say "Enough" and dismantling the club. Perhaps a read of "Who moved my cheese" might prove beneficial. Change doesn't have to be traumatic. |
As I said, I accept the Lee Hoos financial argument. I think you could do a bit more with our current site with a bit more imagination, and a rebuild round the back of SARS, but I accept it's challenged.
And I also declared my bias at the start - I don't mind being a bit shitter than we really need to be, but at Loftus Road, as opposed to marginally better, but somewhere else.
However, most of the clubs our size that moved into shiny new stadiums on the edge of town all lose £20m+ a season as well. Derby, in fact, one of the bigger financial meltdowns there has been, taking Pride Park all the way into League One with them.
The whole 'we've had 20 grounds' argument doesn't hold any water for me. We played at Park Royal in 1908 or something daft like that, before either of the wars, and when the club was only 20 years old. It's irrelevant. The only marginally relevant one is White City, itself now 50+ years ago, and it was so sht we moved straight back. |  | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 09:25 - Jun 13 with 2943 views | francisbowles |
| Leaving loftus road... on 09:11 - Jun 12 by stainrods_elbow |
Tedious (and deluded). |
Essox has put it very well.
'little dark cloud over my head in the last decade has been the spectre of the owners finally say "Enough" and dismantling the club.'
To deny this is a real possibility is to bury your head in the sand.
I've been going to LR since 1970 and since 2017 have driven the two of us a 200 mile round trip with our season tickets, to cheer the team on. I would love it, if we somehow could find a way to stay there, find a way to stop losing the huge amounts the CURRENT owners are prepared to fund. If buying the school is a possibility then maybe, just maybe, it might be.
Whilst improvements are a must, as we are likely to stay there for sometime, where will the revenue come from to fund them. We are basically throwing good money after bad, ' fiddling while Rome burns'.
So apart from saying how much you love the romance and tradition, which I whole heartedly agree with, as well as blaming Lee Hoos for absolutely everything, how do you think we can make Loftus Road generate enough money to carry on funding the club through good times and bad? | | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 15:42 - Jun 14 with 2734 views | SpongeParr |
| 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 |
Great post.
I will add though, that the clubs you mention (boro, Hull, Southampton etc). You say that they have turned back to where they should be.
My argument would be, and is, that they would be lower than they are now. You have to invest to stand still these days. Otherwise, you'll be over taken.
LR is amazing, of course it is.
But taking the romance out of it, how can you say a place whereby you have to choose a warm beer or a piss at HT, is a good venue? A place where every seat is a restricted view. All seats are uncomfortable. Food is basic and even more basic in different stands. Drink is 1 choice or nothing.
Attendances are sold out at the moment, despite us not being great. Dispite all of the above. I fear that some fans lack the imagination and ambition to be bigger and more successful.
How many fans don't come back? Or don't buy because there are only restricted view left? That answer, is a lot.
QPR are not a big club. But we are bigger than LR shows.
I do want a new stadium. I would love LR to be re built. I dont want to move far from LR. It's not asking much. | | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 16:03 - Jun 14 with 2700 views | Dave_Lazy |
Would it matter?
Yes, my fathers ashes are in the ground and it remains one of the few connections I still have with him.
At the beginning of last season I seriously debated as to whether to cancel my season ticket due to the football and results happening. The fact that I was able to be at the same place that he visited so often and now is at rest there, kept me going.
Selfish? yes. Tenuous? yes.
But it's the memories and attachment I have that goes further than the venue. |  | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 17:56 - Jun 14 with 2623 views | SalisburyHoop1968 |
| Leaving loftus road... on 10:30 - Jun 12 by Konk |
I think we're a lot like Rangers in this respect As a club who've never won a major trophy, our main selling point is playing in a nice, old style English ground, surrounded by terraced streets, the park, and the river. It's a quintessential English football setting.
Like QPR, we might win one of the cups in the next 100 years, if we get lucky, and us moving out to Worcester Park or somewhere and building a 40,000 stadium, wouldn't change that at all.
I did pretty much every home game when we played at your place and it was great for atmosphere, pubs, and public transport; better than the Fulham in those respects, but fu ck me, my legs were glad when we got back to the Cottage. Loftus Road is a proper English football ground with a load of character in a world where those are disappearing throughout the league.
I was at a Tottenham game last season and although the stadium is amazing and more or less on the same site, it doesn't feel like an English ground, which somewhere like Anfield still does. Facilities wise, views, legroom, comfort etc it's incredible, but it feels a bit like it could be anywhere in the world. Reading, Cov, Stoke... just a pain in the ar se getting to them from the City centre. Brighton, who had no option but to look outside the city, have built a nice stadium, but that train faff is just a ballache, and chatting to Albion fans I know, it does their heads in every home game.
I think QPR should stay where you are if possible, but need to be looking at 25,000+. If you don't have a bit of spare capacity, then it makes it difficult for people to start following the club. It makes it difficult for people to start bringing kids/grandkids. I started taking my son to Ashton Gate because it's affordable, round the corner, and getting tickets together with mates was easy. We now have a big group of his mates and their parents/siblings who have season-tickets with us, but if we hadn't all been able to get seats together when the kids starting showing an interest in going, I doubt that most of those now season-ticket holders would have bothered or done it as regularly. |
I went to the London Stadium on Sunday to watch the Baseball. Let me tell you that the seats in terms of leg room are no better than our beloved Loftus Road. No room whatsoever. I am 6'4 so I reckon I know about legroom. Having suffered for many years at HQ I was expecting better at a new stadium.
However, the vast amount of food, drinks and toilets available was mindblowing. For someone now in there mid fifties, I really liked the ease and choices that were available. And the atmosphere in and around the Stadium was fantastic. But a very different event in comparison to our beloved QPR where we are at the ground for a shorter time. I for one want to be comfortable- but not in a soulless stadium that so many others have mentioned. |  | | |
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| Leaving loftus road... on 23:09 - Jun 14 with 2469 views | stainrods_elbow |
| Leaving loftus road... on 15:42 - Jun 14 by SpongeParr |
Great post.
I will add though, that the clubs you mention (boro, Hull, Southampton etc). You say that they have turned back to where they should be.
My argument would be, and is, that they would be lower than they are now. You have to invest to stand still these days. Otherwise, you'll be over taken.
LR is amazing, of course it is.
But taking the romance out of it, how can you say a place whereby you have to choose a warm beer or a piss at HT, is a good venue? A place where every seat is a restricted view. All seats are uncomfortable. Food is basic and even more basic in different stands. Drink is 1 choice or nothing.
Attendances are sold out at the moment, despite us not being great. Dispite all of the above. I fear that some fans lack the imagination and ambition to be bigger and more successful.
How many fans don't come back? Or don't buy because there are only restricted view left? That answer, is a lot.
QPR are not a big club. But we are bigger than LR shows.
I do want a new stadium. I would love LR to be re built. I dont want to move far from LR. It's not asking much. |
Absolute tosh that yet again drearily wants to turn football fans into consumers. A football ground isn't a 'good venue' because of the kind of beer it sells or how padded its seats are/aren't. If you can't understand this, and WHY it's isn't, I pity your soullessness too much to explain to you. If it were me running the club, I'd pack the seats in even tighter, bring back smoking in the stands (even for those who don't smoke) and reintroduce leaking corrugated iron on the Loft, just to feck people like you off.
As for our fan base, we had our biggest average home crowd last season since 2014/15 (when we were in the Prem), despite fighting relegation almost to the end of it and being dreadful to mediocre for much of it.
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/queens-parkrangers/besucherzahlenentwicklung/ver
If fans really felt as strongly as some ludicrously claim that they're so disenchanted with the facilities they're staying away/not coming back/not coming at all, then they'd be doing the opposite and voting with their feet. And if you and others of the ilk think our crowds are somehow going to magick the way to 25-30k if we move to a bowl in Hounslow, I suggest you read some QPR history and go away and have a long think, but here's a clue: They won't. [Post edited 15 Jun 4:56]
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| Leaving loftus road... on 13:53 - Jun 17 with 2228 views | SpongeParr |
| Leaving loftus road... on 23:09 - Jun 14 by stainrods_elbow |
Absolute tosh that yet again drearily wants to turn football fans into consumers. A football ground isn't a 'good venue' because of the kind of beer it sells or how padded its seats are/aren't. If you can't understand this, and WHY it's isn't, I pity your soullessness too much to explain to you. If it were me running the club, I'd pack the seats in even tighter, bring back smoking in the stands (even for those who don't smoke) and reintroduce leaking corrugated iron on the Loft, just to feck people like you off.
As for our fan base, we had our biggest average home crowd last season since 2014/15 (when we were in the Prem), despite fighting relegation almost to the end of it and being dreadful to mediocre for much of it.
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/queens-parkrangers/besucherzahlenentwicklung/ver
If fans really felt as strongly as some ludicrously claim that they're so disenchanted with the facilities they're staying away/not coming back/not coming at all, then they'd be doing the opposite and voting with their feet. And if you and others of the ilk think our crowds are somehow going to magick the way to 25-30k if we move to a bowl in Hounslow, I suggest you read some QPR history and go away and have a long think, but here's a clue: They won't. [Post edited 15 Jun 4:56]
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By trying to disprove what I have said, you proved it.
Our attendances have been great this year. Imagine how good they would be with a stadium that isn't hindering us?!
I want a new stadium, I want a great atmosphere, I want to be standing and I want to be pissed. Why does a new stadium mean we can't have that? It's a really shit argument that it is one or the other. It isn't.
Hounslow, when did I say that? I didn't. Think you're confusing who you're quoting.
Unfortunately for you, times have moved on. Some fans do care about not having pillars in their way. Some fans do want more than a bacteria infection to eat. Some fans do prefer their beers to be cold. | | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 14:51 - Jun 17 with 2130 views | TK1 |
| Leaving loftus road... on 10:00 - Jun 12 by Esox_Lucius |
Do you think we lost a lot of our die hard supporters when we moved from the White City stadium... or even moved to the White City stadium ? or any of the other 20 ish grounds we have called home?
What is going to stem the financial bleeding in the future? £20m+ p.a. that could be used to improve the team all borrowed and converted into equity.
The season after next will be 60 years of going to games there and some of the most wonderful days of my life have taken place in there and I still get emotional on a regular basis at games but the little dark cloud over my head in the last decade has been the spectre of the owners finally say "Enough" and dismantling the club. Perhaps a read of "Who moved my cheese" might prove beneficial. Change doesn't have to be traumatic. |
Could the fact that the 'die hard' supporter base stayed loyal during the last move (which was 62 years ago) be because moving from Loftus Road to White City, and back, was a 13 minute round-trip on foot?
Whereas if you walked to Hillingdon from Loftus Road it would take four hours along the A4020. Or 35 minutes by car. Or 25 minutes by train (once one came).
I support QPR the entity, not the brand. You could persuade me that the QPR entity would be essentially similar enough to give it a go if a new stadium was within walking distance of the current ground, but we're as close to Edgware or Hackney as Hillingdon (or any of those western hinterlands I have no connection to). As Clive says, you may as well move us anywhere. I'd love to know the actual breakdown of where QPR's season ticket holders live: I think that Hillingdon stat was something Chris Wright said in 1997 and it's become a fact. I doubt very much there's hordes of under 30s out in Middlesex desperate to buy tickets for QPR if only it was closer.
Meanwhile, there's lots of 30+ fans who wouldn't bother going anymore if it moved ten miles out of London. I doubt any of the group of season tickets I go with would consider it. And we're die hard, as you say. This is, in fact, how we die hard. I think the expression is fck around find out.
London clubs' identities are completely bound by location. It's why Arsenal and Tottenham built grounds within walking distance. Millwall are not Millwall in Welling, Fulham are not Fulham in Mitcham, Crystal Palace are not Crystal Palace in Croydon, and QPR would not be QPR in Hayes.
I'd miss it a lot, but Orient is within a healthy walking distance from my home so maybe I'd give that brand a go instead should QPR change its core brand identity. It would all be much of a muchness.
ps. a new ground will not stem the £20 million losses per season. Middlesbrough have a big, shiny modern ground in a single team city - and they've lost £92 million over last four years. It's a much much bigger problem to solve than more bums on seats drinking expensive IPAs and a handful of corporate conferences during the week: it's a systemic football inflation problem caused by wages and unrealistic TV deals that will collapse the sport as we know at some point. A new ground in Hayes doesn't fix anything. | | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 15:17 - Jun 17 with 2062 views | TK1 |
| Leaving loftus road... on 14:51 - Jun 17 by TK1 |
Could the fact that the 'die hard' supporter base stayed loyal during the last move (which was 62 years ago) be because moving from Loftus Road to White City, and back, was a 13 minute round-trip on foot?
Whereas if you walked to Hillingdon from Loftus Road it would take four hours along the A4020. Or 35 minutes by car. Or 25 minutes by train (once one came).
I support QPR the entity, not the brand. You could persuade me that the QPR entity would be essentially similar enough to give it a go if a new stadium was within walking distance of the current ground, but we're as close to Edgware or Hackney as Hillingdon (or any of those western hinterlands I have no connection to). As Clive says, you may as well move us anywhere. I'd love to know the actual breakdown of where QPR's season ticket holders live: I think that Hillingdon stat was something Chris Wright said in 1997 and it's become a fact. I doubt very much there's hordes of under 30s out in Middlesex desperate to buy tickets for QPR if only it was closer.
Meanwhile, there's lots of 30+ fans who wouldn't bother going anymore if it moved ten miles out of London. I doubt any of the group of season tickets I go with would consider it. And we're die hard, as you say. This is, in fact, how we die hard. I think the expression is fck around find out.
London clubs' identities are completely bound by location. It's why Arsenal and Tottenham built grounds within walking distance. Millwall are not Millwall in Welling, Fulham are not Fulham in Mitcham, Crystal Palace are not Crystal Palace in Croydon, and QPR would not be QPR in Hayes.
I'd miss it a lot, but Orient is within a healthy walking distance from my home so maybe I'd give that brand a go instead should QPR change its core brand identity. It would all be much of a muchness.
ps. a new ground will not stem the £20 million losses per season. Middlesbrough have a big, shiny modern ground in a single team city - and they've lost £92 million over last four years. It's a much much bigger problem to solve than more bums on seats drinking expensive IPAs and a handful of corporate conferences during the week: it's a systemic football inflation problem caused by wages and unrealistic TV deals that will collapse the sport as we know at some point. A new ground in Hayes doesn't fix anything. |
Just to add...the idea that a new ground will solve the club's £20 million yearly losses is a fairy-tale from 1996. It's as out of date as Omniturf.
West Ham United have a huge new ground, one that they didn't have to pay to build, slap bang in probably the only part of the country that has genuinely been 'levelled-up' over the last 14 years: amazing transport links, a ground that is probably the best example of multi-use in Europe - busy every day of the year pretty much. I walk through the Olympic Park most weeks and it is lovely, particularly compared to the Boleyn. You should see their clubshop: enormous, fans come in from Essex all week and leave weighed down with Irons-crested bags. They even won a cup last year!
Still lost £18 million quid that season. And that's as good as it can get for them, new ground and all.
The only thing that is going to inoculate football from the coming crash will be sovereign wealth or billionaires bankrolling vanity projects (which, ironically, we have). Neither are something you wish to rely on but that's where we've taken the sport, unfortunately. | | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 15:26 - Jun 17 with 2019 views | Juzzie |
| Leaving loftus road... on 15:17 - Jun 17 by TK1 |
Just to add...the idea that a new ground will solve the club's £20 million yearly losses is a fairy-tale from 1996. It's as out of date as Omniturf.
West Ham United have a huge new ground, one that they didn't have to pay to build, slap bang in probably the only part of the country that has genuinely been 'levelled-up' over the last 14 years: amazing transport links, a ground that is probably the best example of multi-use in Europe - busy every day of the year pretty much. I walk through the Olympic Park most weeks and it is lovely, particularly compared to the Boleyn. You should see their clubshop: enormous, fans come in from Essex all week and leave weighed down with Irons-crested bags. They even won a cup last year!
Still lost £18 million quid that season. And that's as good as it can get for them, new ground and all.
The only thing that is going to inoculate football from the coming crash will be sovereign wealth or billionaires bankrolling vanity projects (which, ironically, we have). Neither are something you wish to rely on but that's where we've taken the sport, unfortunately. |
Problem with football is the more money a club makes the more agents & players will want to take off them so you just end up chasing a never ending tail.
What happens when you have exhausted every avenue to bring in money and you're still in debt because agents & players are draining even more out ....... |  | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 15:33 - Jun 17 with 1980 views | SpongeParr |
| Leaving loftus road... on 15:17 - Jun 17 by TK1 |
Just to add...the idea that a new ground will solve the club's £20 million yearly losses is a fairy-tale from 1996. It's as out of date as Omniturf.
West Ham United have a huge new ground, one that they didn't have to pay to build, slap bang in probably the only part of the country that has genuinely been 'levelled-up' over the last 14 years: amazing transport links, a ground that is probably the best example of multi-use in Europe - busy every day of the year pretty much. I walk through the Olympic Park most weeks and it is lovely, particularly compared to the Boleyn. You should see their clubshop: enormous, fans come in from Essex all week and leave weighed down with Irons-crested bags. They even won a cup last year!
Still lost £18 million quid that season. And that's as good as it can get for them, new ground and all.
The only thing that is going to inoculate football from the coming crash will be sovereign wealth or billionaires bankrolling vanity projects (which, ironically, we have). Neither are something you wish to rely on but that's where we've taken the sport, unfortunately. |
I could be wrong, but the club don't get that, the council/government would as West Ham don't own the ground.
Pretty sure that they don't get all of their match day revenues either. | | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 15:56 - Jun 17 with 1901 views | TK1 |
| Leaving loftus road... on 15:33 - Jun 17 by SpongeParr |
I could be wrong, but the club don't get that, the council/government would as West Ham don't own the ground.
Pretty sure that they don't get all of their match day revenues either. |
You're right they don't get revenue from non-matchday events like baseball or gigs. They get all match day, retail and commercial revenues though beyond the normal business rates. 62,500 capacity stadium. Turnover of £236 million.
Still lost £18 million.
Spurs have the biggest matchday revenues of any club in the country: £4.8 million per match.
They lost £86 million *post-tax* and are actively seeking new investors, following previous £50 million loss. That's Spurs, best new ground in Europe, the model that all new stadiums should follow: suffering unsustainable losses that requires significant new investment at board level to ensure long-term sustainability according to Levy.
Wonder how QPR's game-changer stadium in Hillingdon will measure up? And just what are the events it'll host in Zone 6 that Arsenal, West Ham and Spurs can't host in zones 2 and 3? I must go to that Arctic Monkeys gig in...Hillingdon. | | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 16:22 - Jun 17 with 1808 views | Boston |
19,400, comes with fan friendly watering facility.
Minnesota Utd, St.Paul MN.
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| Leaving loftus road... on 16:40 - Jun 17 with 1757 views | SpongeParr |
| Leaving loftus road... on 15:56 - Jun 17 by TK1 |
You're right they don't get revenue from non-matchday events like baseball or gigs. They get all match day, retail and commercial revenues though beyond the normal business rates. 62,500 capacity stadium. Turnover of £236 million.
Still lost £18 million.
Spurs have the biggest matchday revenues of any club in the country: £4.8 million per match.
They lost £86 million *post-tax* and are actively seeking new investors, following previous £50 million loss. That's Spurs, best new ground in Europe, the model that all new stadiums should follow: suffering unsustainable losses that requires significant new investment at board level to ensure long-term sustainability according to Levy.
Wonder how QPR's game-changer stadium in Hillingdon will measure up? And just what are the events it'll host in Zone 6 that Arsenal, West Ham and Spurs can't host in zones 2 and 3? I must go to that Arctic Monkeys gig in...Hillingdon. |
How much would they be losing, if they didn't have this income? Are Tottenham's losses part of paying for the stadium?
If WHU aren't getting non match day revenue, then that's pretty much the same as us.
I don't know all of the financials, but I do know that we could be making a lot more money with a better stadium. | | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 17:50 - Jun 17 with 1676 views | Juzzie |
| Leaving loftus road... on 16:40 - Jun 17 by SpongeParr |
How much would they be losing, if they didn't have this income? Are Tottenham's losses part of paying for the stadium?
If WHU aren't getting non match day revenue, then that's pretty much the same as us.
I don't know all of the financials, but I do know that we could be making a lot more money with a better stadium. |
"We need to move to a new stadium to be sustainable" clubs say.
Club moves to new stadium, still in debt.
Why? I suspect because players & agents are now demanding more money because they know the income generated has gone up, as alluded to earlier.
I'd imagine stadium costs will have already been factored in (they don't count towards FFP I believe) and budgeted for over the duration the costs are spread over.
They are effectively in the same position they were in before, but with a nicer stadium mind.
Their average League position over the last 20 years is 6th and they have won one trophy, the League cup in 2008, in that time. Hardly up there with the likes of Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea etc.
They've been top 4 (as that's where the money kicks in via CL qualification) 7 times in that 20 (35% success rate to qualify for the CL). Is that enough to meet their annual income needs? I'd say not.
Clubs will always be standing still because as soon as any income opportunity is realised, the players & agents just nab it and, again, those income opportunity ideas will not only run out but all existing one's in place will have to be kept going (and that's a lot of work & pressure to maintain that) otherwise they'll slip into debt further. | | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 19:22 - Jun 17 with 1569 views | stainrods_elbow |
| Leaving loftus road... on 15:17 - Jun 17 by TK1 |
Just to add...the idea that a new ground will solve the club's £20 million yearly losses is a fairy-tale from 1996. It's as out of date as Omniturf.
West Ham United have a huge new ground, one that they didn't have to pay to build, slap bang in probably the only part of the country that has genuinely been 'levelled-up' over the last 14 years: amazing transport links, a ground that is probably the best example of multi-use in Europe - busy every day of the year pretty much. I walk through the Olympic Park most weeks and it is lovely, particularly compared to the Boleyn. You should see their clubshop: enormous, fans come in from Essex all week and leave weighed down with Irons-crested bags. They even won a cup last year!
Still lost £18 million quid that season. And that's as good as it can get for them, new ground and all.
The only thing that is going to inoculate football from the coming crash will be sovereign wealth or billionaires bankrolling vanity projects (which, ironically, we have). Neither are something you wish to rely on but that's where we've taken the sport, unfortunately. |
At last - a voice of hooped sanity! And yet some of us - myself included - are accused of being moony-eyed romantics just for not falling for Hoos' 'argument' about not leaving LR equating to the club's failure to be 'competitive' - which has been far more linked to an incompetent Academy, dipstick/thick as shit Chairmen/CEOs, and a 'hire and fire' (or be shafted) approach to management recruitment that would make a brothel madam wince.
Type up your post, fold it into a paper aeroplane, and ping it to LH as the door hopefully hits his arse on his (belated) way out!
You Rs! | |
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| Leaving loftus road... on 19:23 - Jun 17 with 1562 views | stainrods_elbow |
| Leaving loftus road... on 16:03 - Jun 14 by Dave_Lazy |
Would it matter?
Yes, my fathers ashes are in the ground and it remains one of the few connections I still have with him.
At the beginning of last season I seriously debated as to whether to cancel my season ticket due to the football and results happening. The fact that I was able to be at the same place that he visited so often and now is at rest there, kept me going.
Selfish? yes. Tenuous? yes.
But it's the memories and attachment I have that goes further than the venue. |
Post of the year! (Unless people don't care about fans' fathers' ashes in their relentless fear of being 'overtaken'.) | |
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| Leaving loftus road... on 19:30 - Jun 17 with 1545 views | stainrods_elbow |
| Leaving loftus road... on 13:53 - Jun 17 by SpongeParr |
By trying to disprove what I have said, you proved it.
Our attendances have been great this year. Imagine how good they would be with a stadium that isn't hindering us?!
I want a new stadium, I want a great atmosphere, I want to be standing and I want to be pissed. Why does a new stadium mean we can't have that? It's a really shit argument that it is one or the other. It isn't.
Hounslow, when did I say that? I didn't. Think you're confusing who you're quoting.
Unfortunately for you, times have moved on. Some fans do care about not having pillars in their way. Some fans do want more than a bacteria infection to eat. Some fans do prefer their beers to be cold. |
Nice try, but you're still delusional.
We haven't had any sell-outs this year, despite very healthy crowds. Even in our near-Div. 1-winning season, we only averaged 23,000 or so. Ron Phillips (you're probably too young to remember, but never mind) actually ran an editorial in 76/77 asking the fans why we weren't turning up in numbers much greater than c.20,000 to see us play FC Cologne in the UEFA Cup. So you're obviously someone who learns nothing from (QPR) history.
If you're in love with top-notch burgers and cream over wide concourses, and that is more important to your 'matchday experience' than watching football at a gorgeously crumbly cave of a ground that is inseparable from all our finest moments - go and watch Tottenham! | |
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| Leaving loftus road... on 19:48 - Jun 17 with 1521 views | Ned_Kennedys |
| Leaving loftus road... on 19:30 - Jun 17 by stainrods_elbow |
Nice try, but you're still delusional.
We haven't had any sell-outs this year, despite very healthy crowds. Even in our near-Div. 1-winning season, we only averaged 23,000 or so. Ron Phillips (you're probably too young to remember, but never mind) actually ran an editorial in 76/77 asking the fans why we weren't turning up in numbers much greater than c.20,000 to see us play FC Cologne in the UEFA Cup. So you're obviously someone who learns nothing from (QPR) history.
If you're in love with top-notch burgers and cream over wide concourses, and that is more important to your 'matchday experience' than watching football at a gorgeously crumbly cave of a ground that is inseparable from all our finest moments - go and watch Tottenham! |
What are you talking about? We had a number of sold out games towards the end of the season.
Unless the staff who were turning away punters at the box office were lying. |  | | |
| Leaving loftus road... on 19:52 - Jun 17 with 1519 views | Hayesender |
I grew up round the corner from Loftus Road. It is because I could hear the roars from our garden that stopped me becoming an Arsenal fan like my father and brother. As a child the noise used to fascinate me, and my dad taking a young me to Highbury just didn't do it for me.
Funnily enough, it was around my parents divorce when my dad came Knockin one day in 1981 to see if I fancied going to see QPR. I can almost touch the excitement I felt that day still. Off I went and stood in the school end to watch us draw with Rotherham (1-1 I think), and I was immediately in love with everything about the place.
Since moving down to the south coast last year, I still get that excitement when jumping on the train up to London to visit the old place (I'm 53 ffs).
I've said this before, but the thought of travelling up to some hellish soulless ikea set in the middle of bloody Hillingdon would see me done.
I have no answers as to what we can do with the old girl, but selfishly I wanna stay there until my time comes |  |
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| Leaving loftus road... on 21:28 - Jun 17 with 1383 views | CamberleyR |
| Leaving loftus road... on 19:48 - Jun 17 by Ned_Kennedys |
What are you talking about? We had a number of sold out games towards the end of the season.
Unless the staff who were turning away punters at the box office were lying. |
Yep, my first ever game was against Arsenal on Easter Monday 1976 when the 'official' attendance was 31,000 but it was absolutely rammed everywhere and even to my 11 year old eyes there felt like more, I reckon there must have been at least a couple of thousand extra in there. |  |
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| Leaving loftus road... on 11:38 - Jun 18 with 1222 views | SpongeParr |
| Leaving loftus road... on 19:30 - Jun 17 by stainrods_elbow |
Nice try, but you're still delusional.
We haven't had any sell-outs this year, despite very healthy crowds. Even in our near-Div. 1-winning season, we only averaged 23,000 or so. Ron Phillips (you're probably too young to remember, but never mind) actually ran an editorial in 76/77 asking the fans why we weren't turning up in numbers much greater than c.20,000 to see us play FC Cologne in the UEFA Cup. So you're obviously someone who learns nothing from (QPR) history.
If you're in love with top-notch burgers and cream over wide concourses, and that is more important to your 'matchday experience' than watching football at a gorgeously crumbly cave of a ground that is inseparable from all our finest moments - go and watch Tottenham! |
We sold out plenty of times last year. We sell out of non restricted views every game.
I am too young for your comparisons, I am 34.
You and I are not going to agree on it, which is fine.
My point is that if we had a bigger ground, we would sell more tickets. Sell more tickets, we have more money. Easier to get beer, ill drink more beer there. Sell decent food, ill buy decent food. At the moment I spend next to nothing at LR. If it were easy enough to get the rest, id probably spend £40 a game there. If there are more like me then that's a huge increase in revenues.
Making more money and then spending more on wages etc is a slightly different argument and I agree. But that is why I don't really understand why people want FFP gone. All it means is that everything goes up. Your £1m player is suddenly £5m and your team isn't much better.
Which makes it more important to get money in, so we can spend it without the need of breaking FFP.
Above all, I also love LR. Don't get it twisted, it's a great shithole and I love standing in Y block giving it some. it would just be better if I could get more alcohol! | | | |
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