Forum | this new stadium that we want to build? by HollowayRanger

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this new stadium that we want to build? 20:51 - Dec 6 with 6967 views

if we do managed to ever get it built and leave the safety of the bush

where we gonna get our points from!

	Listen to the band play!
Poll:	How much will you pay for adult season ticket next season if in championship

this new stadium that we want to build? on 23:16 - Dec 7 with 1710 views

TheBlob

It's not so much the season ticket holders that determine your ultimate support.You have to have the exposure to attract the now burgeoning market of the tourist fan,the Premier League is an extremely popular product and the subject of part of package deals to London.The increased flow with new and fast links will ensure a steady market,competition will be fierce but that's where success n the field comes in.I don't think you can pin attendances down to a definite number as yet.I remeber in days of yore when the "floating" fan used to swell the numbers - that can happen again if things are priced sensibly.

Poll:

So how was the season for you?

this new stadium that we want to build? on 23:38 - Dec 7 with 1684 views

QPR_Jim

this new stadium that we want to build? on 22:59 - Dec 7 by Ingham

For me, all the good points - and the good ones are solely about lining QPR's pockets, not the vast apparatus of hangers-on that materialise when something as big and as lucrative as a stadium project comes up - boil down to one thing..

The football. It is the football that sorts out the men from the boys. If we have 80,000-capacity football, we'll need an 80,000 capacity ground. World class players, top four finishes EVERY season as a minimum, with a minimum number of Premiership titles and Champions League successes year in and year out.

And that is the problem they all dodge. Football clubs are treated as businesses by investors and players and managers not because they are - there is no resemblance between a football club and a business - but because they are incapable of delivering the required standard of football.

If we had the quality, the long-term built-in system for success (a kind of Liverpool-style boot room but at QPR), the know-how and the experience, the White City venture in the 1960s might have made more sense. To be sure, the ground was not suitable at all, but if we were big enough, and had the numbers on our season ticket waiting list that Arsenal did when they moved to the new ground, the Club might well have had the clout, the influence, the support, and the money to build a ground to house any number of supporters.

But these people cannot do it. The kind of football geniuses who put together the Liverpool era of dominance or the United era of dominance more recently are found maybe only once in a generation, if that. The geniuses who temporarily transformed Ipswich, Derby, Forest - and QPR - were similarly talented, but were unable to change the size of those Clubs long-term in such a way that they remained at the top.

And even those brilliant talents - Ramsey, Revie, Paisley, Clough & Taylor and Robson at Ipswich - do not exist in the modern game, chiefly, I believe, because the smaller Clubs have stupidly tried to compete with the biggest Clubs on the basis of borrowing and spending, when the biggest Clubs - which are properties, not businesses - can attract much bigger loans in the same way that bigger properties in the housing market can.

In football terms, any fool can put up a new building, of any size, and dump a club in it. But any fool can't fill up the seats, unless the Club ALREADY has the support, as Arsenal did when they moved. A remarkable contrast to QPR, where Arsenal - a Club with title wins in every compete decade since the 1930s bar the sixties - designed the new ground for not one more supporter than they knew they already had.

Any fool can't win the Title. Business is not like football, where we know every Club bar one will be a loser by the end of any competition. Where there are no customers, but supporters who don't change their club despite its getting progressively worse, more inconvenient to get to, or more expensive.

Change the football, and we have the basis, not only for expanding the Club if our talent, know-how and experience is great enough, but for telling by exactly HOW MUCH we can expand the Club, down to the last supporter. Then we will know whether LR is enough. I am not against a bigger ground, but LR was our 'new ground' not that long ago - the first fully modernised stadium in the country - and when it was, it was found to be unsuitable (to those who think it is too small, uncomfortable, or limiting).

It is not a matter of being careful what we wish for, but of entering the real world, and matching our talk to our capabilities. Those who attended to the football achieved remarkable things. Robson's 10 year spell at Ipswich when that small Club stayed in the top four for a decade. The Dutch, who changed their profile at Club and International level by outplaying opponents, not by moving to enormous stadiums, any more than Liverpool did.

All that big talk at Fulham. Fayed said he would make them the rivals to Liverpool, Man Utd and Real Madrid. Clubs with around 40 English league titles, and the best part of 20 European Cup/Champions League successes between them. Did he achieve anything of the kind? No.

None of it materialised. They lost £15 million a year clinging on to mid-table, never growing, never becoming a challenger, even, never getting bigger, richer, cleverer, more brilliant. The reality was embodied in the (rather likeable) device of bolting seats onto the existing unmodernised Craven Cottage.

If these people insist that Old Oak makes sense, let's be realistic about it. Stay at LR, which has worked for our entire FL and PL history, and use Old Oak for the odd big game we know will provide 40,000 attendances.

And if our football is such that we have 22,000 on the season ticket waiting list - learn from a Club which has been truly successful like Arsenal, in other words - take the ground for a season, on approval. And renew it year by year that we're in the top four, which is where we'll need to be, in my opinion, to get a full house at home every week in a 40,000 capacity ground.

The strangely fumbling, meandering, incoherent way QPR has been run for decades does not amount to a mandate for change.

That is not a denial that the Club can be changed, quite the contrary. But it is a denial that it can be changed WITHOUT the kind of talent, genius, brilliance of performance, and results - which essentially means win, win, win, win, win year in, year out - and without any SIGN of anything of the kind.

Great thread. If only the board could come up with something even approaching the intelligence and know-how exhibited across a wide variety of positions in discussions of this kind.

"If these people insist that Old Oak makes sense, let's be realistic about it. Stay at LR, which has worked for our entire FL and PL history, and use Old Oak for the odd big game we know will provide 40,000 attendances. "

You never fail to mention an option where some other mystery business builds a football stadium without any commitment from a football club to use said stadium when built. We couldn't presumably afford to build a whole new stadium whilst retaining Loftus Road, so it would have to be a separate entity. If that was to happen you'd have to question the sanity of the people building it to have a business model that includes building a football stadium with not tenant lined up and the sanity of the board for going along with it. Knowing QPR we're only ever 5 min away from the FA chucking us into the conference , then what would they do with the stadium? Also we'd have to rent it when we did use it, so the fact it wasn't ours would be more problematic than anything else. Any new stadium should be owned by the club.

I agree with your comments about improving the quality of football that will be important when attracting fans to watch the team. However premier league attendances keep increasing despite the prices rising year on year. That suggests to me the popularity of watching the sport live would help should we move to a new ground regardless.

You talk a lot about Arsenal but I wonder whether Arsenal would have had the success necessary to build a substantial waiting list for season tickets if they were operating out of an 18,000 seater stadium rather than a 38,000 seater stadium?

this new stadium that we want to build? on 12:13 - Dec 8 with 1618 views

nadera78

The only thing that makes me think Old Oak might happen is that it's the only way TF and co will ever get their money back. 25,000 homes is a hell of a lot of money.

The truth is though, in the unlikely event that we do move, it will be a decade from now. We don't own any of the land for a start - the central 50 acres is owned by a man keen to develop it himself, we have agreements to buy about 100 acres, the remaining acreage hasn't even been spoken of. So even if we do eventually get hold of the full site it won't be for a long time and after a difficult negotiation (or even legal battle). Then the build will take time, so we're looking at 10 years.

And then....we'd be surrounded by one hell of a building site for at least another 10 years.

So the owners are looking at 20 years before they get back the money they've spunked up the wall on sh#t players over the last three years.

this new stadium that we want to build? on 12:24 - Dec 8 with 1609 views

paulparker

If we move to a new stadium & its a very big if , we wont have anything like HQ
im pretty sure that most stadiums have to be a certain way apart from the pitch
(probably for advertising) , we will end up in a Bowl like all the others do especially if TF and co are looking to hold concerts and events ,
like it or not we wont have a choice in what the stadium looks like or indeed if we want a new one , old oak common is what TF is in it for , that's what he is gambling our future on
if it were me I wouldn't move, if we have to maybe have something like the New Den
with a capacity of 25k , again it wont happen , we will lose our identity if we move , we will lose a special , special place,

And Bowles is onside, Swinburne has come rushing out of his goal , what can Bowles do here , onto the left foot no, on to the right foot That’s there that’s two, and that’s Bowles Brian Moore

this new stadium that we want to build? on 12:35 - Dec 8 with 1593 views

ElHoop

For me it's a no-brainer - we have to move, but I can understand why plenty don't want to leave Loftus Road. For all its faults, it's a special place to watch football.

Some day, hopefully many years from now, there won't be a QPR. Why? It's either:
1. Because the world has ended and that has finished QPR too.
or 2. The world has carried on without QPR.

Not much we can do about 1 unless we move to a different planet, something we've admittedly looked like wishing to achieve on occasions. So if QPR ceases some time in the future, why would it happen? Most likely to happen in my view because we ended up without a ground and the consequences of that meant extinction or a merger into ultimate extinction. Is that more likely to happen if we leave or stay? Impossible to guess, but I think that we have to take any opportunities to improve our home, whether it means going or staying. At the moment those opportunities seem to lie in moving on to somewhere reasonably local. If we stay then who, ultimately, will want to pay for the existing ground to be rebuilt?

In Saturday's programme there was a piece about previous Burnley games/programmes, and in the early 1970's we got about 22,000 for a Championship home game against Burnley. That would be impossible now. You can't walk up and go to a QPR game. You can't even sit next to friends unless you have season tickets together. It's too difficult to go to ordinary games on the spur of the moment. We need more capacity to enable a bit more flexibility. 18,000 is too small. You can hide behind the number 40,000 and say it's not viable, but neither is 18,000. Why will we one day expire as a club? Difficult one.

this new stadium that we want to build? on 12:48 - Dec 8 with 1572 views

TacticalR

I think the problem is not just with Loftus Road. Actually, the whole area needs to be re-developed. As in many parts of London we have two-storey Victorian houses and a Victorian infrastructure in the middle of a 21st century city.

Air hostess clique

this new stadium that we want to build? on 13:02 - Dec 8 with 1552 views

BrixtonR

this new stadium that we want to build? on 23:16 - Dec 7 by TheBlob

I've always wondered why they don't do a deal with the council for a large area on the White City estate (South Africa Road side) and flip the ground round. Similar to Spurs.

I would have thought that the flats over there are pretty close to the end of there finite useful life being built in the late 1930's. Rangers could agree as part of the deal to build modern housing on another site e.g. within the Old Oak common project or a brownfield site and then subtract that from the price of the land they buy off the council. Everyone wins as the council gets a cash injection from the sale of prime west London real estate the tenants (& the council within their Stock) get more modern housing and Rangers get to stay in the area in a larger modern stadium. Apologies to anyone on here who lives on that part of the White City estate and doesn't want to move !

this new stadium that we want to build? on 13:17 - Dec 8 with 1532 views

QPR_Jim

this new stadium that we want to build? on 13:02 - Dec 8 by BrixtonR

The problem with that situation is that those flats may be a mixture of council tenants and leaseholders. If they have a 100 year lease on just one of the flats in the block then the council will be stuck.

this new stadium that we want to build? on 13:18 - Dec 8 with 1531 views

nadera78

If anyone's interested, the BBC have put their White City site up for sale. They paid £300million for the freehold about 8 years ago. The 1980s building is already empty and the other two will be in a couple of years. Just a thought.

this new stadium that we want to build? on 13:31 - Dec 8 with 1514 views

BrixtonR

this new stadium that we want to build? on 13:17 - Dec 8 by QPR_Jim
The problem with that situation is that those flats may be a mixture of council tenants and leaseholders. If they have a 100 year lease on just one of the flats in the block then the council will be stuck.

Yeah that's a good point. It does seem the council has the final say on the estate as a whole so I suppose if there was a situation like that they would be able to sort it.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/plot-to-rid-council-estates-of-poor-6704870.html

this new stadium that we want to build? on 13:41 - Dec 8 with 1500 views

TacticalR

this new stadium that we want to build? on 00:23 - Dec 7 by CamberleyR

This has all been said before. The footprint that the ground currently occupies is not big enough to expand on, especially if we all want more leg room.

If you take as a template that even a 25,000 capacity stadium would need two side stands holding 7,500 seats and two behind the goals holding 5,000 that would be impossible on the current site. The SAR stand may just be able to be rebuilt to hold 7,500 if the offices were moved elsewhere but no way could that size of stand be built on ER currently.

It also isn't quite as simplistic to say that houses will be purchased and knocked down. If just one person doesn't want to sell that would be it. Also how would you feel if you weren't a QPR fan and you owned one of the houses on ER and the club said to you we want to buy your home (even above market rates), to knock down to make our ground bigger? You'd tell them to fck off and quite rightly so. I know I would.

On your last point, this is what one interviewee said about Liverpool's ground development:

"If Liverpool had been honest from the beginning, said they wanted our houses to expand their ground, we're realistic, we know they're a huge football club, most of us support them, deals could have been done. Instead they were underhand, blighted the area and we've had to live like this for years."

Anfield: the victims, the anger and Liverpool's shameful truth
http://www.theguardian.com/football/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2013/may/06/anf

Air hostess clique

this new stadium that we want to build? on 13:49 - Dec 8 with 1485 views

TheBlob

this new stadium that we want to build? on 13:02 - Dec 8 by BrixtonR

Well they've done that with other sites in London for "regeneration" purposes ie.the Ferrier estate in sarf London and Elephant and Castle.It will go eventually not least as part of a policy of squeezing certain "undesireable" elements out of the great city.
Whatever happened to Heseltown?Heseltine's vision to build a huge ribbon development on both banks of the Thames Estuary that was going to absorb the spillage.You've got to have these infrastructures before you can relocate people.Or move them oop norf?

Poll:

So how was the season for you?

this new stadium that we want to build? on 14:51 - Dec 8 with 1446 views

Juzzie

Yes, it 'can' happen if the club are willing to spend over a hundred million pounds just buying up the properties around the ground (and the years of delays this will take) then the demolition and rebuilding costs plus the rent we'll have to pay to groundshare for at least 2 years, maybe more, and so on.
All this to end up with a stadium that will probably hold 7k-12k more that it currently does and will only really be able to be a single-use venue so straight away cutting off other potential income streams.

The fact of the matter is no one would do it. Don't need a report to tell us that.

this new stadium that we want to build? on 15:20 - Dec 8 with 1405 views

TacticalR

I just really like the idea of a stadium taking up a block in the city, like the one in Genoa. And haven't these guys already spent more than a hundred million to get us not very far?

Air hostess clique

this new stadium that we want to build? on 15:46 - Dec 8 with 1381 views

bosh67

I just put on Clive's excellent write up that we should stay and replace the roof, take out the stand pillars and put an all around one level roof in. Raise the level of the seats at each end to match the main stands and put seats in the corners. With a better designed glass roof we could even add more seats to the upper part of the main stands. No more obstructed views, no raising of the overall height and a capacity of 24,000-25,000. We'll never need more. It would still be our Loftus Road and all it would take is technical ingenuity with what we have, a new roof system, more seats and a facelift. Instead of spending stupid money on a 40,000 seat stadium somewhere else we could get this job done over a close season for about the same price as Ronaldo's standing foot.

	Never knowingly right.
Poll:	How long before new signings become quivering wrecks of the players they were?

this new stadium that we want to build? on 15:49 - Dec 8 with 1355 views

TheBlob

this new stadium that we want to build? on 15:46 - Dec 8 by bosh67

Jim Gregory proposed something similar and with a sliding roof.

Poll:

So how was the season for you?

this new stadium that we want to build? on 15:59 - Dec 8 with 1342 views

ElHoop

this new stadium that we want to build? on 15:46 - Dec 8 by bosh67

With improved legroom so that you can actually sit in your seat properly if you are not a munchkin, 24-25,000 represents a 50% increase in capacity. I'm pretty sure that this wouldn't be possible without finding more land around the ground.

this new stadium that we want to build? on 16:07 - Dec 8 with 1334 views

BklynRanger

this new stadium that we want to build? on 13:41 - Dec 8 by TacticalR

Thanks for that link, Tactical, I hadn't seen that before.

I lived just off Breck Road for 3 months in 1996 and the area was grim then. It's not hard to imagine how bad it could have got if Liverpool conspired to keep properties empty for decades. Pretty disgusting stuff - If QPR ever did that we'd seriously question what the club had become.

Mind you, not an equivalent but I'm sure I could find a few damning stories about old uncle Lakshmi if I did 5 minutes googling.

this new stadium that we want to build? on 16:50 - Dec 8 with 1298 views

TacticalR

this new stadium that we want to build? on 16:07 - Dec 8 by BklynRanger

The thing that was interesting about the Liverpool case (apart from the sordid way that they went about things) was that their original strategy was to expand Anfield, then for years their strategy was to build a new stadium, then John Henry decided that the new stadium would not be economically viable and the club went back to their original strategy of expanding Anfield!

Air hostess clique

this new stadium that we want to build? on 16:55 - Dec 8 with 1282 views

qprewan

this new stadium that we want to build? on 16:50 - Dec 8 by TacticalR
The thing that was interesting about the Liverpool case (apart from the sordid way that they went about things) was that their original strategy was to expand Anfield, then for years their strategy was to build a new stadium, then John Henry decided that the new stadium would not be economically viable and the club went back to their original strategy of expanding Anfield!

Yes maybe this will be the case with us too after TF loses a long fight with Car Giant!

this new stadium that we want to build? on 16:57 - Dec 8 with 1272 views

TGRRRSSS

Ingham

IN response to your "anyfool can build a stadium and put a club in, but cannot get the fans.

Er hate them though I do isnt that what MK Dons essentially.???

AS for us, Old Oak Common is best option methinks.

this new stadium that we want to build? on 17:18 - Dec 8 with 1240 views

bosh67

this new stadium that we want to build? on 15:59 - Dec 8 by ElHoop
With improved legroom so that you can actually sit in your seat properly if you are not a munchkin, 24-25,000 represents a 50% increase in capacity. I'm pretty sure that this wouldn't be possible without finding more land around the ground.

Perhaps the club needs to encourage more munchkins?

	Never knowingly right.
Poll:	How long before new signings become quivering wrecks of the players they were?

this new stadium that we want to build? on 17:20 - Dec 8 with 1239 views

TacticalR

Ironically, the club used to own half the houses next to the ground...

In April 1948, after winning the Third Division (South) championship, the club bought the freehold of the stadium plus 39 houses in Loftus Road and Ellerslie Road for £26,250.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loftus_Road

Air hostess clique

this new stadium that we want to build? on 17:22 - Dec 8 with 1235 views

bosh67

this new stadium that we want to build? on 17:20 - Dec 8 by TacticalR
Ironically, the club used to own half the houses next to the ground... In April 1948, after winning the Third Division (South) championship, the club bought the freehold of the stadium plus 39 houses in Loftus Road and Ellerslie Road for £26,250. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loftus_Road

Would be a better idea for the club to buy the stadium side of South Africa Road and redevelop parts of that.

	Never knowingly right.
Poll:	How long before new signings become quivering wrecks of the players they were?

this new stadium that we want to build? on 17:24 - Dec 8 with 1228 views

ElHoop

this new stadium that we want to build? on 17:18 - Dec 8 by bosh67
Perhaps the club needs to encourage more munchkins?

Yeah, how about 'We represent the Lullaby League, The Lullaby League, The Lullaby League
And in the name of the Lullaby League,
We wish to welcome you to Cargiantland.'

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