How’s that water pressure? Fans forum Friday, 9th Sep 2016 01:28 by Clive Whittingham Fans Forum number one of 2016/17 took place at Loftus Road on Wednesday evening. Stand by for some new, and lots of stuff you may have heard before. I did have to stifle a laugh during one of several long… drawn out…. exchanges during Wednesday night’s fans forum when the official Twitter feed for the event received a submission simply saying “old men banging on about absolute bollocks”. The YouTube footage of the event is embedded below with the notes, take your pick of both, either or neither and draw your own conclusions. I find the criticism that it’s the same old faces attending these events, and they’re therefore somehow devalued or rendered pointless, harder to laugh at. “Maggots, there for their free pint,” one message board poster described them (us, me) as. Let me promise you now, I can have a far more pleasurable evening in two dozen places other than the hot, stuffy confines of Loftus Road on a sweltering Wednesday night and would comfortably be able to stretch to the cost of two Peronis to do it if necessary. Of course it’s the same faces. The club is trying valiantly to get other people along to these, and a friend of mine who hadn’t been before dropped them an e-mail the week before inquiring about attendance and got two free tickets no problem at all — CEO Lee Hoos (LH) is desperate to hear from a wider cross section of the support wherever he can. But QPR means different things to different people. For some it’s a hobby, others an obsession. At the end of the day, whether you hold the fans forum in Shepherd’s Bush at 19.00 on a Wednesday night, or in Sheffield City Hall at 09.00 on a Monday morning, it’s going to be the same 50-150 people who are keen enough to go. They’re the same 50-150 people who are going to want to attend a midweek away match at Blackburn. They (we, I) are the nutters, and groaning about their presence at these things is basically slagging off the most fanatical QPR supporters for supporting QPR fanatically. Long story short, if you’re so bothered about having new faces at the fans forum, get to the next one yourself. This criticism, and some of the less savoury exchanges on Wednesday, shouldn’t detract from the importance of such meetings nor dissuade the club from holding them. QPR never used to hold them at all, and the results of the general lack of communication with the fan base were seen that night when Phil Beard’s unread messages suddenly all turned up in person to give him a fully justified piece of their mind. The difference between Beard and his successor Lee Hoos is absolute night and day. When even some of those in the room grew weary of one point being made and got restless, Hoos stepped in immediately and said everybody should be treated with respect and allowed to make their point, whatever that point was and however long it was going to take. Hoos insists on these events overrunning if it means everybody in the room gets to ask their question, and he’s fastidious about replying to people who get in touch with him and the club. He’s an absolute gem of a CEO, and Les Ferdinand is growing in confidence and stature as DOF alongside him. It’s a real shame these two weren’t running the club when it was throwing money around it because you can’t help but feel they’d have thrown it a good deal more constructively, with better long term results. Sadly, they’re here now dealing with the consequences while also trying to put a competitive team on the field. Something else worth considering before kicking the cat to death because we’ve dared to lose at home to Preston North End. Anyway, in case you're an idiot, LH = Lee Hoos, LF = Les Ferdinand and JFH = Davis Love III. On the pitch- LF said there was only one player we wanted this summer and didn’t get. “It wasn’t that we didn’t try to bring him in, it was just circumstances surrounding the players we had at the time meant we wanted to leave it until January. The player’s circumstances then changed and we tried to do it but we were unable to.” If I had to hazard a guess I’d say this was Barnsley centre half Alfie Mawson who was being lined up should Steven Caulker leave, only Caulker stayed and in the meantime Swansea came and paid big money for Mawson. Could easily be John Bostock or any number of others linked during the summer though. - JFH said he was “very, very happy” with the seven players he’s brought in this summer. “A lot of work has been done behind the scenes to get them in through the door. The scouts, Les, do a lot of work, and I’m very happy with the boys. They’re all at the right age.” LF reiterated the process the club currently uses to make signings whereby the manager identifies positions we’re weak in, a list of players within the doable price bracket is put together, scouts are sent to watch, then Les and/or Jimmy will go and watch. “Some you come back and say I don’t think they’re for us and how we want to play, others we start the process with agents and try and get the deal over the line.” - LF reiterated that agents tend to “rub their hands together” when they hear QPR are interested but are now quickly “brought back down to earth”. “The boys that are here are here because they want to progress their careers, they want to progress Queens Park Rangers, they’re coming in in the right frame of mind and are fully aware of how we want to progress the club.” - JFH said the club had faced very strong competition for a lot of the signings made this summer. “You have everybody pulling at their ear, we have to show them the real plan and why they should come here. The fans, everything comes with it.” LF said they’d expected Yeni Ngbakoto to be their first summer signing after a meeting before the end of last season only for other clubs to come in which meant he was one of the last deals done. “There were so many clubs after him, we had to persuade him that QPR was the right place for him. I took him round the White City and introduced him to a couple of my mates on there.” - JFH said Idrissa Sylla was a player who “likes crosses and is a goalscorer, but has a lot to his game and is a good team player. We have to improve him, we want him to be a little bit more powerful, but he is a goalscorer and hopefully he will score lots of goals for us. There are goals in him, he can hold the ball up, he’s somebody we identified who can score goals for us.” - On Michael Doughty and Darnell Furlong both joining Swindon on loan, LF said: “We were of the opinion that both would benefit from going out and educating themselves further in men’s football. Michael has been out quite a few times, Darnell we felt would certainly benefit from going out and playing league football which he wasn’t going to get the opportunity to do here. As progression goes, it’s a good move for Darnell.” JFH said: “It was an easier decision with Darnell, he was in League Two last year and did really well so we felt a step up would be good for him. We asked if he could step up to the Championship now, is he better than James Perch and Nedum Onuoha? At this moment, no. Sitting here as the third right back wouldn’t be right for his development, so we wanted to send him to a club where he can develop and in a year’s time we’ll look again at whether he can challenge them then. With Michael it’s a different scenario, he’s 23, he was going to be one of five central midfielders, he felt he would be number five, I couldn’t guarantee him he’d be number two or three so he begged and begged us to let him go because he felt he was at an important time and needed to play every week rather than wait here for a place that mighthave come in four months, five months, six months or not at all this season. I wanted to look after the boy, he’s a really good boy so we want to do right by him. He needs the football. He looks good for Swindon, because he had a hard pre-season with us. We hope he comes back and challenges for positions here, in a year’s time he’ll give us a dilemma where we maybe sell him or keep him to compete.”
- On Cole Kpekawa’s move to Barnsley LF said: “We want to develop our young players, but sometimes you come across a situation that benefits all parties. With Cole, we didn’t want to lose him, but we felt it was the best thing for his career. If we didn’t allow him to go, I don’t think he’d have had the career everybody was expecting him to have here at QPR. I won’t lambast or disrespect him, but you’ve all heard the saying about taking a horse to water. That’s where we felt we’d got with him. The manager took him on pre-season, he did pre-season with the first team and didn’t reach the levels we needed him to get to. When we got back we felt he needed to get his fitness levels up, so we set out a programme for him. Next thing I’m getting calls from his agent saying the kid wants to leave. I really do hope he goes on and has a good career, because if he does we’ll benefit, not from his football but financially. When I was here as a young boy I had to go to Turkey to realise my potential, Cole has had to go away from an environment that’s comfortable for him and hopefully that will spur him on to be the footballer we think he can be.” - LH said ‘undisclosed fees’ stops agents and clubs knowing how much money we have to spend, which helps in negotiations over other signings. - JFH said “standards, values and respect” were important among the playing squad. “It’s about good habits, work ethic, players giving everything they’ve got not only on a Saturday but every day in training as well. That needed to be brought back and now we have to make it stick.” LF added: “the first thing I say to potential signings is the manager works hard, and if you don’t want to work hard this isn’t going to be the club for you. We expect professionalism from the players on and off the pitch and we’re getting that now. For a long time we haven’t had that here.” - On Sandro JFH said: “At the beginning of the summer, Sandro let us know he preferred to leave. We then had a little problem when he returned from holiday, and that was addressed. Since then he has been a magnificent professional, and at this time he looks very well in training. In the last month he’s been one of the better ones. He’s here, he’s a QPR player, I owe it to QPR as the manager to give him a chance. If he is as professional as the others he deserves the same chance as the others, at the moment he is.”
- In a fine example of how to stand up, ask a question, and sit down again, one punter asked whether Jordan Cousins had been bought to play right wing. JFH said he’d bought Cousins to play in the middle, but he’s playing wide right at the moment because we’re bedding players in, have a few injuries, and he’s versatile enough to do it. He added that two up front was now a possibility with the players brought in. It was all over within about 30 seconds. Bliss. - An incident during the Rochdale cup tie where JFH spoke to some supporters in the Paddocks he’d heard criticising one of the younger players selected that night was raised. JFH said: “I’m hearing supporters saying they want to see younger players coming through, their own QPR players in the first team. We want that as well, it’s the future. I’m a big believer in the supporters supporting, supporting, all the boys. The atmosphere gives you more adrenalin. It is important, but it’s even more important when you have a 17 or 18-year-old boy who has never played in the arena, never played in front of thousands of people, they need that extra help. They need that extra cheering. It might give them wings. It might not. But it might. Support them. Be there for them. We want to bring our youngsters through, give them all the help you can when we do.” Off the pitch- Training Ground. LH said: “We’ve had planning permission granted at Warren Farm, there was then an application for a designated footpath running across it. They lost, and nobody should be surprised that this was not successful. Now, and this is driven by two residents in particular under my understanding, they have put in for a judicial review. We have put our case forward for why we don’t believe judicial review is applicable, and that will be heard within the next four weeks. If they rule judicial review is applicable, that could take nine months. I still think we’ll win, but it would delay us. I feel confident enough to enter into discussions about financing and partnerships. The other issue is, Warren Farm is on a substantial slope and would need to be levelled out; the licence for that I would expect to be done in the next two to three weeks. The judicial review is the last throw of their dice. I’ve put my neck on the line from the very first minute I arrived here saying if I do nothing else I will deliver that training ground because I believe it is key to taking the club forward.” - Old Oak Common. LH said: “We have a strategic land interests around Old Oak. We’ve got our first win, which is planning permissions to develop a housing development in conjunction with Genesis. That is a huge first step because, don’t forget, it’s not just writing a cheque for a new stadium, we have to have enabling development to finance the new stadium. This is our first really big piece of enabling development. Car Giant have their position on things which I respect, we have our position on things as well and in addition to our position we now have planning permission as well. That’s much more important than having an opinion and we’ll continue on that path. If there is an alternative available, we’ll look at it, but right now I can’t identify a suitable alternative so we’ll proceed and press forward with Old Oak.” - Wouldn’t it be quicker, easier, cheaper, better to develop Loftus Road? A survey was raised that apparently showed the capacity of Loftus Road could be raised to between 26,000 and 27,000 with development. LH said: “I’ve never seen a survey saying that and the reason I don’t think it would be possible, even if you could get 26,000-27,000 in here, is the footprint is the footprint. We can’t handle the 18,200 we have now, with the concourses we have. Ellerslie Road isn’t getting any wider. If we put in a planning application for this stadium now, we’d never get it, it wouldn’t comply with anything because it’s such a small site. When people come here they have a choice at half time, go and get a beer or go to the toilet, but they can’t do both because it’s so congested. I can’t widen those concourses. We could probably add a few more to South Africa Road if we built out over the road, we could maybe do a bit with The Loft, but everything else is really restricted. Operationally, I don’t know how you’d get the concourse width to make it work.”
- LH said he was preparing a presentation to the board about the demographics of the QPR support base, which made for fairly grim reading. LH said: “The age profile of season ticket holders shows a pretty high percentage are 50 and above, and a pretty low percentage are under 40. We really need to work on that to move the club forwards and make sure we have the next generation of fans coming in. Not easy when you have Arsenal and Chelsea on television. It’s about making it personal, making it fun, being connected with your fans so you may be able to see Arsenal on TV but if you come on a Football in the Community course with us you will actually meet the QPR players.” - One supporter wrote in to complain that he couldn’t get a drink before the start of the Preston match (poor bastard) and he felt the club were losing money by refusing to serve him. LH said it was to do with football licensing laws which he didn’t agree with and couldn’t understand. LH said: “I don’t understand the licensing laws around drinking: you can’t drink in sight of the pitch, and you can’t serve within ten minutes of kick off and you expect us to go down and slam the shutters, and again before the final whistle. When the Taylor Report was written this was probably legitimate, but football has moved on. It’s a dialogue we need to continue to have.” - LH also isn’t a fan of the strict rules on supporters standing up. He said: “I don’t get the rules on standing. If people at the back don’t want to stand up then I get it, the people at the front should sit down. But if there’s a dedicated section where they want to stand, what’s the big deal? They do it everywhere else, why is football so different? You can’t start with the premise that all standing, by definition, is unsafe.” LF added his voice to this, recalling his days playing in front of terraces at Loftus Road, and JFH agreed and pointed out that standing takes place at the highest level in Germany. - There was then a submitted question, greeted with applause, about why season ticket holders no longer have their names on the back of their seats. Each to their own, one man’s muck is another man’s brass, what’s important to one is irrelevant to another etc etc but Lord give me strength. This is a club that’s been in administration, been rattling buckets for its very survival, been in League One, been under transfer embargos, been run by a gang of foreign billionaires who happily and openly stated they didn’t care about the supporters are what they thought, and now we’re getting upset because our season ticket seats don’t have our names on the back. To be fair, one contributor in the room did make an excellent point about the effect it has on kids turning up to Loftus Road for their first season as a season ticket holder and seeing their name on the seat — eloquently put, absolutely right. But in general, grown men getting annoyed at this? Anyway, for what it’s worth, LH said: “I’ve managed to eek out a budget of around £30,000 to try and deal with the very worst facilities I’ve found here which were the toilets in Ellerslie Road. Hopefully this season the people who sit there will notice some improvement. For me it’s a nice thing to do, it’s a nice thing to have, but initially I assessed it at around £10,000 and it actually turned out to be around £12,000 to £15,000 so while it’s nice to have it’s really important that I address other issues around the facilities we have. If it’s an issue maybe there is something we can work out so we can do it again in the future — would you pay an extra £2 to have your name on the seat? That would cover the cost and then I can eek out budgets for other areas that need to be addressed.”
- One of LFW’s favourite bugbears, about the Football League scheduling the most distant away matches on midweek evenings, was raised by a supporter who asked LH to be the supporters’ representative at Football League meetings and lobby them to change this. JFH jumped in on this and agreed, saying that Newcastle away on a Wednesday night with a Blackburn away game that week as well was a nightmare for managers, coaches and players. LH said from a commercial standpoint it was also a problem and every club would like it changed, but the fixtures are a complex thing to put together and were difficult to change. He also pointed out that the Football League’s grand proposal to reduce the number of teams in each league was partly to eradicate midweek games altogether. Honestly, and I’m not just saying this because it grinds my gears, this was the question he dealt with in the least satisfying way. If all the clubs went to the Football League meeting and said this has to stop now, it would stop. QPR should be leading on this. Newcastle away on a Wednesday night indeed. - The lack of space for wheelchair supporters at Loftus Road was raised - there are 19 spaces of which 17 are season ticket holders, Level Playing Field says a club with an 18,200 capacity should have 140 wheelchair spaces. LH promised to take up the individual supporter’s situation with them afterwards, and was concerned with the response they’d had from the club, but added that the stadium lacks in a great many things including disabled access and reiterated Loftus Road would never get planning permission in its current state if it was built again now. There’s also a new policy this season where carers no longer get free coach travel alongside the disabled passenger as before. LH promised to look into this. Old favourites- Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, is the family stand ever going to be relocated from the Lower Loft? A fans’ forum staple this one and, presumably in the hope that it may one day slide from the agenda, LH brought some figures. LH said: “I got asked about this on my first day here and it’s a recurring question. The answer I’ve given every time is that family stands are important, I get the concept, it wasn’t executed well here with a lack of consultation, but where would you move the family stand to? In addition, now, I’ve sifted through some numbers. I asked the box office how many people were displaced when we made the Lower Loft the Family Stand, and the answer was 399 season ticket holders. I expected it to be higher. The next question is how many season ticket holders do we have now in the Family Stand? The answer is 1,039. Even if I do move the Family Stand, where would I put 1,039 season ticket holders now? And the one thing I don’t want to repeat is the same thing people said wasn’t right four years ago and just move them without consultation. QPR is meant to be a family orientated club, so we can't just displace families like that. It’s important we have a Family Stand, I can only apologise that it wasn’t originally done in proper consultation, but there isn’t a solution where I can put a Family Stand somewhere else. The Lower School End is mentioned, but the concourse there is too narrow to have any kind of family activity, and it’s sitting right under the away fans which isn’t the best place when you’re trying to get people involved in the club from a young age.” - There was a prolonged pitch to the panel about whether the newly created Forever R’s ex-players association should be doing more than its initial remit, which pledges to bring former QPR players together for functions and matchdays, and also raise money for charity, but not to provide money and welfare to ex-players who have fallen on hard times or ill-health. Stan Bowles with Alzheimer’s is the obvious example, but former player, manager, coach (and everything else besides) Frank Sibley is now also apparently suffering with Parkinsons. It was pointed out that the club profits from Stan Bowles merchandise in the club shop but doesn’t pass this on to Stan and his family. - A youth coach who works with clubs in Surrey says there is still a distinct lack of QPR scouts at games in his area compared to other clubs from London and further afield. LF said there were a lot of Surrey-based kids in the academy when he arrived, and in addition he’s focusing on bolstering scouting in inner London. LF said: “We’re trying to increase our presence all over the place. We’re active. Apparently we’re nowhere, but there’s loads of kids in our academy so I’d be interested to know where they’ve all come from.” - Joe the Taxi’s regular question about the fence between Q and R blocks has been investigated by LH who has been told by the council that it must remain as part of the licensing conditions as it stops people moving from the Ellerslie Road stand to the Blue and White Bar. LH agreed the view was awful because of it, it doesn’t need to be there and there must be a better way of doing things. He promised to continue to work on it. - Printing away tickets in a different colour to help door staff in pubs identify supporters is a good idea, according to LH, and once the club has worked through its current stock of tickets may well be adopted. The Twitter @loftforwords Pictures — Action Images Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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