Here's the detailed breakdown from last night's Fan Forum held at Loftus Road featuring Holloway and Hoos. It was kindly written by Saffa Michail who represents QPR.Org QPR Fans Forum - Lee Hoos & Ian Holloway Quote Post by SM » Fri Mar 17, 2017 4:30 pm Hello all, I had planned to try and get something written up on this last night, but due to the timing (it went an hour over-schedule!) this was virtually impossible. As with the previous couple of events, there wasn’t any groundbreaking news, but it was a very interesting evening with an excellent insight into the future plans for the club… The evening was very heavily focused on the finance side, with a deluge of questions being fired at Lee Hoos on the subject, but there were some fascinating little snippets, particularly with regard to Gary Penrice re-joining QPR, along with a squad update and news on the Stan Bowles benefit game. In total, the question and answer lasted almost bang on two hours. Some of the questions were bounced back a couple of times during the evening, so for the sake of clarity I’ve compiled everything discussed under each header. Holloway apologised on a number of occasions for "rattling off" which made this a bit difficult to structure, but the below covers everything discussed. The evening started by Paul Morrisey (PM) welcoming Lee Hoos (LH) and Ian Holloway (IH) to the room. Les Ferdinand was originally supposed to be in attendance, and whilst nobody at the club confirmed the exact reason why he wasn’t able to come, there was a lot of talk that it was due to a charity event that he needed to attend in Newcastle. Paul Morrisey opened by asking Ollie how it felt being back at QPR. IH - Going by championship sackings I might have another 5 months go go! Listen, I’m privileged and delighted to be back. On the way here, I was listening to a song “back together again” in the car. That’s how it feels for me. There’s been lots of changes compared to when I was last here. After those six defeats in a row everyone stuck with me, let’s see where we can go from here. I want some proper hero’s at QPR again... People who will wear that shirt in the same way that all of us would. Ferdinand is a prime example of what we’re after, loads of potential and the right attitude. QPR gave him the platform to go on and do great things. I want to do the same for some of our youngsters here too. LH - We’ve made good progress in the 2 years since I’ve been here. The average age has decreased considerably. We’ve re-balanced the squad really well and I’m pleased with where we are heading. You can read the rest here ... http://qprdot.org/phpbb3mb/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=79770 The video of the evening is getting put up on YouTube at 7pm. If someone can post it on here I'd be very grateful as I'm off to the pub now for a couple of Shandy Top's.
Cheers for this Nines, much appreciated. Looking forward to seeing the video, it still hasn't made it to the club's YouTube channel yet as far as I can see.
Clive from LFW's write up is good, his bit about SLF and constant questioning of his role is a great read. We should make it a pinned post. Les Ferdinand Despite it being explained clearly at the last three fans forums, despite it being explained in interviews on the official site, and on here, and in the programme, and on the Open All R’s podcast, and on the Loftcast podcast, and in an interview in AKUTR’s… it is apparently “still a source of much debate on the forums” about exactly what Les Ferdinand’s role is as director football. Bear with me, I’m going to select a club from the bag and tee off on this one for a moment if I may. Even though this has been explained countless times already, it shouldn’t have even needed doing once - you should just be able to open your eyes and see with them. The average age of the squad is down (by 18 months in just two years), the wage bill has been cut by half, agents fees have reduced to a minimum from a point where we paid more than anybody else, the academy has been properly staffed, two youth team players are now first team regulars after ten years without one, the scouting set up is properly staffed with two more hires this week, players are now being sold at a profit as opposed to being given away, paid off or sitting out their deals. When was the last time we had a player melting down on social media? That used to be a weekly thing when Lord Joey of ****sville and co were here, Les wrote the code of conduct and apart from Caulker (who we'll get rid of shortly) the behaviour of the squad has improved immeasurably. Was I the only one awake when Hughes, Joorabchian and Fernandes spaffed £150m up the wall building the most loathsome bunch of pricks I've ever seen in Hoops? Was I the only one awake when 'Arry turned up and did exactly the same? Everybody said "we need a football man, preferably a QPR man, between the manager and the board to stop managers and Fernandes doing this” and they were right. And now it's happened. And everything is quite clearly and obviously getting better. And yet we’re still getting planks from Facepaint groups wanting an explanation of Les Ferdinand's role. I honestly think we should be a lot stricter about allowing these people out of the house by themselves. Ahem. Anyway, the official answers were… Hoos: Les is the director of football which means different things at different places but here it means he brings all of the football departments together, overseeing the integration between the academy, under 23s and first team. He deals with agents once players are identified. It’s about bringing the team together which we do very well. Les is a gem. Ollie: Management is changing. The managers used to do everything, we did the contracts, we did the signings and the chairman trusted you with it. But the size of the businesses, the amounts of money, you can’t possibly do that yourself. My 18 months with Sky, I learnt so much about how an organisation should look, everybody had a job, everybody had a clear role. Without Les I wouldn’t have wanted to come back. The part of management that is uncontrollable is dealing with agents, trying to do deals, trying to get the players, I wouldn’t have time to do the bulk of what I want to do – educate them, work with them. Les is invaluable to me. He’s absolutely vital to allowing me to concentrate on galvanising my group. When it comes to the business side it helps to keep me out of it, go and talk about your contract over there I just want to talk about football. A vital part of us, how we’re going to do this, he’s got a massive role. I can trust Les, the owners trust him, Les wants to be a success and he wants the club to be a success. I’d like to get Les on the grass if I can, we’ve got a lot of strikers here who would benefit from just half an hour with him, I can’t do that yet but I will.
That was really interesting and the feel and mood of how Hoos and Ollie speak to the forum representatives is very encouraging - open and honest when they can but professional. Thanks for posting.
I suppose it is Hoos that was saying why certain things weren't possible but he didn't shrug anything off and promise to look into it later (only to say no from the safety of an official announcement). He explained his reasons clearly and logically. I've been trying to think why I was so happy about reading this and I think it comes down to a) not having dramas to be evasive about, b) those present sounding like they are in control of their respective areas of responsibility while being happy to work with the rest of the senior management and c) the consistency in long term plan.
Agree. I have read two write ups on it now, suppose I should watch it too, if nothing else to try and kill my cynicism about Ollie sounding (in b/w at least) too good to be true. But first Rotherham.
