QPR held their first fans forum for the best part of six years at Loftus Road on Thursday night with manager Harry Redknapp, CEO Philip Beard and players Clint Hill and Jamie Mackie at the top table.
If you had preconceived negative perceptions about fans forums at QPR, either through prejudice or past experience, then it’s unlikely that Thursday night’s event in the W12 club at Loftus Road would have swayed you from them too much.
If you work at the club and fear such events can simply turn into an opportunity for the same old faces to moan about insignificant issues, for want of something better to do with their time and a love of complaining, there was plenty of ammunition for you here. If you write such things off as sycophantic PR opportunities where Clint Hill is asked how he feels to be captain and Jamie Mackie is quizzed on his favourite colour then you would also not have gone home disappointed. You could, if you wanted to, comfortably go away believing these things to be an absolute waste of time.
But this was a small wake up call. Not to Harry Redknapp and the two players unfortunate enough to have to sit through it, but to Phillip Beard and the club as a whole. Beard started the evening with a letter to all supporters in attendance thanking them for their continued backing of the club through the present dark times on the pitch, and gave an opening spiel over the microphone about how wrong it was that the club had not held such an event for so long but how communicative they were in other areas – notably Tony Fernandes on Twitter and in pubs around Shepherds Bush before and after the game.
If he genuinely believed the club communicates well with its fans before this evening then he’s surely in no doubt now that 140 characters on Twitter and chance meetings in the Crown and Sceptre is no way for a business at the level QPR finds itself at to be talking to its customer. Fans present grasped the microphone with glee to ask why a certain player hadn’t turned up for an event at a certain school, why squad members no longer attended a certain supporters’ group’s Christmas parties, why we’d taken 1,700 tickets at West Ham instead of 2,200, why 400 people had been moved out of the Lower Loft and so on and on and on and on. I sat there – cringing at times it must be said - and waited for the infamous question about the water pressure in the ladies toilets to rear its ugly head again. It was that small time.
Redknapp, Mackie and Hill looked bemused. At one point Beard even said himself that he couldn’t believe he was sitting at a table with somebody who almost became the England manager last year and two of QPR’s best loved player in years and yet it was him fielding all the questions, and often about really tiny issues. I should imagine those watching at home online were bored to tears.
But to be honest, I was actually quite proud of the QPR supporters present for not being drawn into asking Harry Redknapp various bland football questions and giving Jamie Mackie invitation to talk about how terrific the lads are. Instead people stuck to their guns and asked about the things that are bothering them. Phil Beard tried to swat a lot of it aside, promising meetings and e-mail conversations at later dates or claiming not to know the intricate workings of whatever complaint had been raised, and he was right to do so because such an event is not there to discuss Christmas parties and ticket touts on South Africa Road. But what it should have highlighted to him is the support base currently has no real avenue to raise any concerns of any nature with anybody at Loftus Road. Countless times Beard promised to respond via e-mail to concerns raised until, rather more softly than I suspect she would have perhaps liked, Linda Favell from the Official Supporters Club pointed out that many of the issues he was now promising to respond to via e-mail or claimed to be unaware of had been raised with him previously by various supporters and groups and been ignored. You could tell that for some supporters this was their first opportunity to actually speak to somebody at the club about their grievance – petty or otherwise – and quite rightly they didn’t care whether that made for good TV or not.
The club promised to have another such forum in September, and a regular return to these events on the calendar is much needed and welcome. But if, in the meantime, we do not also see a return to the smaller rep meetings with the club, and the opening of communication channels where e-mails and letters are actually answered, then come September you’re going to have whoever is manager and captain of QPR then once again sitting there looking slightly bemused while those same old faces raise those same old questions. You may wonder who the hell cares whether Ale Faurlin turned up to some school assembly or other. Well, each individual QPR fan cares about something different and if you refuse to listen to them or respond to them on anything other than Twitter then you get bizarre situations like this where a Premier League manager and players sit through a question and answer session based predominantly around tiny, individual issues that could quite easily be sorted out in a more appropriate, more personal, manner if the club was so inclined.
This was a much welcomed start, and when a conversation did break out the key points were…
- The Lower Loft was a point raised on several occasions, with the decision to make it a strictly enforced family stand a cause for controversy. Beard said he was inhibited by the size of the ground and raised the issue – discussed at the time on our message board – of the Fulham home match last season where Down’s Syndrome teams from both clubs went onto the field at half time for a penalty shoot out and then watched the rest of the game from the Lower Loft only for those families involved wearing Fulham shirts to be abused by a minority of QPR fans. Beard said it was one of ten examples he heard about last season where parents struggled with the language and atmosphere in the supposed family stand. He said that the atmosphere at Loftus Road remained better than most other Premier League grounds and that he thought the move – to shift 480 season ticket holders in the Lower Loft without kids elsewhere – was the right decision. He said: “We need to build our fan base, we need families, we need kids – I’m happy to look at how else we could configure the stadium and how else we could do it. The risk for me is we could have lost a large number of families who would have decided not to continue supporting the club. We can’t make everybody happy.” He said he was happy to meet with the LSA to discuss a better way of doing it, but also that 10,500 season ticket holders in an 18,500 capacity stadium made it difficult to manage and nobody would ever want to move from where they were sitting. So much could, of course, be solved by a new stadium. They lost 280 seats when the new television studio was installed – a Premier League requirement.
- On financial fair play Beard said the Premier League, at a meeting earlier in the day, had agreed to put together a financial fair play structure for the league which would mean that for the next three seasons no club could have cumulative losses of more than £105m over the three seasons, and that a wage restraint of £52m next season, £56m the season after and £60m in the third season would apply to all clubs. Clubs currently spending more than that would be allowed to continue spending that, but no more, with an increment of £4m each year for the three years.
- On the allocation of the entire School End to away fans Beard said they were obligated to offer both tiers to an away club that felt they would sell them. The upper tier is offered first and the lower on a sale or return basis – which means visiting clubs must decide if they need the lower tier as well, and pay up front for those seats, then meet the cost of any unsold seats. But if an away club requested both tiers QPR were obligated to give it to them. He did say they had persuaded the council not to insist the first six rows be fenced off when the QPR fans are in the lower tier – something that took 686 seats off the capacity at some games last season.
- On the reported wages being paid at QPR: “If you believe everything you read in the press… I said to a journalist I will send him a bottle of champagne the day he writes anything that is actually accurate. It’s extraordinary. I’d rather be sitting here today with the activity we did in this transfer window than be the CEO of Aston Villa or a bunch of clubs around us. I’d rather sit here with Harry Redknapp as manager than any other manager in the Premier League. The reality is we’ve had to re-engineer a club over two or three transfer windows, and the power of hindsight is a wonderful thing. If the worst thing happens and we don’t stay in the Premier League you have to accept that some players are not going to be right for what we need to do next season and we have to find other ways to manage their contracts. A lot of players came in on free transfers and their value has gone significantly up – Julio Cesar could stay with us for the whole of his contract but the world class player might want to go and do something else. Harry will sit down and look at every scenario. Please don’t believe that Chris Samba is on a contract like you might have read in the paper or that other players have come here for different numbers and different terms. We have a bunch of very successful businessmen who own this club and the reality is they know what they’re doing, we know we’ve taken some decisions that in hindsight we might have done differently. We are where we are, we all have to stick together now and fight tooth and nail to get through it. Whatever happens we’ll fight on to get through it.” Later – rightly – refused to go into detail on specific contracts, only to say “Harry has brought a different kind of player to the club, players are coming to the club for the right reasons.”
- Committed to looking at congestion problems getting into the Upper Loft.
- Said we would take the full allocation on offer for Fulham away. When asked about the club taking lower allocations for recent away games, particularly West Ham, he said: “There were two games at the start of the season – Man City and another game… Norwich – we ended up with over 1,500 tickets left. When an away side comes here they have to decide whether to take upper and lower and sometimes we have to make a decision as well.” Luke Peppard from the LSA pointed out that the risks on taking extra away tickets and not selling them were small fry compared to the wages being paid to players like Jose Bosingwa each week.
- On the new training ground: “The land has been gifted us by Ealing Council, planning is in, we aim to start in spring as soon as planning has been approved.”
- On the new stadium, which he said was a minimum four or five years away: “We have a group owners committed to doing it. As great as this place is, you only have to listen to the comments tonight to see it’s just not what is required to stabilise a position in the Premier League and kick on. The craziness of trying to move that on, whenever Tony Tweets about it the press pick up on it and land values don’t go down when people think you’re interested in buying, the reality is we have to keep moving forward. The medium to long term aim for the club is to get to a state of the art stadium for the club.” Said the Unicrest Dairy site was complicated by lack of political backing and affordable housing requirements but there were other sites that could be regenerated with a stadium where the political backing would be 100%.
- On safe standing – it’s on the radar, if we can find a way to do it safely and clubs start to embrace it then it will be looked at and considered seriously.
- On the Portsmouth comparison: “Yes we’re ready for whatever circumstance happens. The reality is three clubs go up and three go down. If we go down our intention will be to come back as fast as possible. One hundred percent this is nothing close to being like other clubs that have gone through financial difficulties. In the last ten days of the transfer window this club broke its transfer record twice to try and help Harry with some support.”
- On Mittal/Bhatia involvement: “They own 33% of the club, Amit is here most games when he’s in the country. Tony is a very media savvy business guy and Flavio and Bernie were very quiet and hardly said a word. Amit is very involved, they’re big business guys and they’re travelling a lot. Tony has taken the front side as being the chairman, Amit is wonderful and very passionate about the club.”
- On Twitter and social networking Harry said: “If you’re going to go on Twitter you have to take the good with the bad and if you can’t take the bad then get off it. It’s not something that would interest me. The chairman seems to be into it quite a lot. You’re obviously going to get criticism, you’re not always going to get pats on the back, if you can’t handle that then get off it.”
- On Remy: “He’s close to being fit for Saturday. He trained this morning, did some work with the fitness coaches, there’s a chance he could be fit for Saturday. He’s very close. I don’t want to rush him on Saturday and he breaks down when he’s not 100% right.” Junior Hoilett has also returned to training this week following his hamstring injury at Chelsea.
- On DJ Campbell, who has gone on loan to Blackburn but is on a short term loan so he can be called back at 24 hours notice after 28 days: “There was no one else to name in the squad who might get in the team. We weren’t sure if Blackburn were going to come back in for DJ or not, there was nobody else we could stick in there. Nobody wants to play an open game more than I do, that’s the way I’ve always had teams playing, always looked to go and win games. But it’s a balancing act, at the moment Remy came in and picked up an injury, Bobby isn’t capable of playing a game after a hip operation. I like DJ Campbell, I don’t know whether he’s going to get me the goals I need in the Premier League. He’s a great lad, he works his socks off. I’m hoping Remy will be fit this weekend, we’ve got Jamie, Adel likes to play behind the front as well. When you open yourself up too much… the defeat by Liverpool made us have a bit of a rethink about what we’re capable of doing. We’re short of goalscorers. I decided Cisse wasn’t going to get in my team so I released him.”
- On Luke Young: “Luke is struggling with an injury, he came to us the day before the squad was announced and didn’t feel he was capable of playing – he’s on the verge of looking at his future really.”
- On whether he’ll be here next season if we do go down: “That will be up to the board really. I’ve got no plans to want to go anywhere else, I’m enjoying my time here and I’m desperate to keep us up believe you me, it’s the biggest challenge I’ve ever taken on and I would give anything to be able to keep us in the division this year. I’m not even thinking about next year. If the owners decide they want to go down a different road I would accept that but I’ve got no intention of saying I want to manage in the Premier League and nothing else. I had one of the happiest times of my life in the Championship with Portsmouth. If the worst comes to the worst and we came up next season it would be a great year again, but I still believe we can stay up and that’s all my focus is on, staying up this year.”
- On the ticketing situation, allocation and location of fans at Loftus Road: “It’s strange to me to see all the away supporters sitting behind the goal. I find it such an advantage to the away team, I’m not used to it. Normally you go away you get stuck up in the corner, everywhere I’ve been our supporters get stuck up in the corner. Here they’re right behind that goal, when it’s a full house behind the goal of away punters I find it strange – they’re kicking into their end second half Norwich and it feels like an even game, I find it unusual.”
- On a complaint about Taarabt and Granero fighting over free kicks: “I know Adel did score one once. I’ve seen Frank Lampard and Paulo Di Canio fight for two minutes over a ball. Let’s hope next time we get a penalty they have a fight over that and Granero takes it.”
- On Jose Bosingwa: “What happened on the day he didn’t sit on the bench was disappointing for everybody, including you people - you pay the wages it’s your club. It’s not something I understand happening any more than you do but it’s happened and he’s here and whether you like it or not he’s going to get paid every week. We have to move on from that now, we all make mistakes in our life he’s apologised, he knows he’s made a big mistake, it’s up to him to try and come back and try and win you over with the effort and work rate – it’s not going to be easy. What do I gain out of not putting him in the squad anyway? If he shows me, if his attitude is right – he’s got to try and win you people over.”
- On the Odemwingie/Crouch situation: “On transfer deadline morning it really looked like we had a choice of Peter Crouch or Odemwingie, I spoke to Tony Pullis the day before and there was every chance that Crouchy was going to come. Tony changed his mind on the morning, rang me at 1 or 12 and said I can’t let him go. Obviously we then had a problem with the Odemwingie transfer which was a shame because he would have been an outstanding player for us, both would have been good for the club. It wasn’t for lack of effort. I felt one of those two would come off. Crouchy was dead keen to come back here. It was unfortunate with Odemwingie, I felt sorry for the boy. He travelled down, he felt the deal was done or would be done. He got himself down here to have a medical and get the forms signed if it was done rather than having to drive down at the last minute, and what he did wrong was turn up at the football ground. There were lots of players turning up on deadline day where deals didn’t come off and it happened to be here, the cameras were here and it’s put the boy in a difficult situation now. He’s a nice lad and a good player.”
- On Mbia diving around: “He does roll around a bit I must be honest. He has calmed down. He gives everything, he’s a good lad, when we drew with Tottenham he was fantastic that day. I think he’s a good player. We’ve got to be careful, I took him off the other day when he’d been booked.”
- On the scouting and training ground: “My only focus has been on staying in the Premier League. I’ve really not got into sitting down with Phil and the chairman to look at the new training ground. I’d love to have a big input into it all, but at the moment my whole life is revolving around trying to stay in the Premier League. You never switch off from that. If you talk to me about training grounds, I’ll worry about that at the end of the season.”
- Hill on Twitter: “Jamie and I had a go on it last year and it’s interesting, you get to meet some wonderful and weird people. It has its benefits and its down sides. I came off it because I was looking at it every minute, I’ve got two kids and I’m looking at what people are Tweeting and saying and I thought I don’t need this. That’s the reason I came off it.”
- Mackie on Twitter: “I was getting pestered on there too much, my girlfriend was getting jealous.”
- Mackie on the league position: “It’s there and it’s hanging over us but we need to be professional and approach games. The manager has set us up and we believe we can go and win football matches now. We need to not look at the league table, approach games in the right manner and I’m sure we’ll pick up points. It’s not something you should think about too much or it will affect your game.”
- Hill on the captaincy: “I’ve got it because Nelsen has unfortunately had to leave which was a big loss for us. It’s a brilliant achievement for myself, I’ve been here quite a while now and seen the club come through some tricky situations. It’s a special club, the season we had coming up from the Championship there was a great togetherness. It’s a great achievement to step out and lead this club.”
- Mackie on the changing dressing room atmosphere: “Obviously at this football club in the time Hilly and myself have been here there has been a lot of change. As player you have to embrace change but a lot has happened very quickly, a lot of different characters and a lot of different cultures. Players like myself, Hilly, Shaun Derry, Adel Taarabt who have been here a little bit longer know the standards we’re trying to set and we try and ass that on to new players that come in. All the new players who have come in, some take longer than others, take that on board and everybody is now pulling in the right direction.”
- Hill on being dropped for bigger names who subsequently didn’t pull their weight: “We’ve been written off more than a car in a car crash over the last two and a half years. You’ve got to be strong, confident in your own ability. At the start of the season I didn’t star great, the first three or four games I couldn’t quite reach the standard that I was at last season, but slowly but surely we’re starting to get there. When you’re losing games confidence can go, people get edgy, now we’re getting a bit more positive, bit more confidence with some positive results.
- What was said between Shaun Derry, Hill and Ashley Young when the Manchester United player attempted to dive for a penalty at Old Trafford this season was not repeatable. “There were no pleasantries,” said Hill. “That was the second time in two seasons he’d tried to do him so he got the full on verbals and rightly so.”
- Mackie on the effect of abuse on individuals and the team: “You don’t always play to the standard people expect of you and rightly or wrongly people shout things. I feel there’s a line – if it gets to being racist then the line has to be drawn – but if somebody says to me ‘you’re the worst player I’ve ever seen’ and they batter you you have to take it on the chin. You just have to get on with it, it’s part and parcel of being a footballer and you have to have a thick skin in this game.”
- Mackie suggested that Clint rarely stops talking about his goal that never was at Bolton last season. Hill insisted: “I have scored in the Premier League alright?”
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As if to gift wrap a conclusion for the bloggers such as me, the evening ended with a prize draw into which everybody’s tickets from the evening were entered. The prize? To a room full of away season ticket holders? A free ticket to the Swansea away game on Saturday. They’re trying, but they’re not quite there yet.
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Pictures – Neil Dejyothin