Interesting and kind of rubbishes the suggestion that the club has never been serious about a new stadium.
Since money spent on stadiums is exempt from FFP, wealthy owners like ours can get on with this subject to planning permissions. But of course, that would put the club back into debt unless we rent from the owners.
We all know that Loftus Road can't deliver the sort of stadium the club needs. Has the club ever applied for planning permission to develop housing on the Loftus Road site? The other question I'm asking myself is how much of a risk would it be to move to a stadium that the club did not own? Selling an asset to rent a stadium rather than build and own a new one doesn't feel right, but I suspect it might be a possibility. The business is trading but broke, no matter how rich the owners are. Whatever happens, Loftus Road cannot last in it's current form and neither can the clubs finances. EDIT: Goldies post appeared as I was writing this...
That’s the only way I can see the owners getting anything from owning the club - they build and own the stadium and rent it to us and also have income from other revenue generating activities there, plus developing the LR site.
They seem to have tried every option feasible/supportable without success. This is a warning shot to H&F Council that they need to support an option or see the club move elsewhere. Can’t help it also plants the seed in fans minds that this is becoming an ever closer realisation.
To be fair Col I could have knocked up that document in 5 minutes. It basically telling us we can't expand LR which we sort of guessed, that we lost out on 3 sites, which we knew and LC is the last chance to stay in W!2 which is obvious. No mention of the BBC or OOC is there? The bit about the meeting could have been done with 4 people for all we know. However Let's look at the positives. HQ has had it's day if we are to progress (sustain)We need to move. The LC stadium has always been my choice (after BBC) as it's W12. What is important for me is design and capacity. I don't want a soulless Reading, Bolton and co (bowl) or something stupid looking like La Harve. The club needs to look at this and take fans advice as they are the ones that visit the grounds. Capacity will always be a talking point. What do we need v what we want. At the moment they could build a 20K stadium and we probably would struggle to fill it due to the crap way our club is run and the dire football on offer. However, if they are wanting to go up to the Premiership then it must be a minimum of 35K. We may not fill during time down in the championship but if/when in the Prem we play Arse/Scum/Spuds/Spam/Utd and co you could easily give them 7-10K tickets. I would also want room for expansion (just) in case a miracle happens and we become a good club. One thing that is funny though... What do I always say when the fans are P'D. They come out with another stadium tweet.
Not sure the police would allow that or it would have been done before. We’d not sell 30k home tickets if we were an established top half Prem team for ten years.
You don't know that. Did you ever read that article by the club when we were in the Prem where they said they could have sold a lot more tickets if the ground was bigger and we had better facilities. If you are going to think small we might as well stay at HQ.
Just being realistic about our current support and realistic catchment area. Watford, dislikeable as they are, have done it the right way with cheap tickets but have benefitted from a huge catchment area and the ability to do it slowly at the same ground and now have a decent stadium of 24000 and struggle to sell out as a pretty established Prem team when it’s not a top side in town.
Seems mid-Championship is about 27,500; so anything less would be below par and unambitious. Would allow for a wide range of events. Re any concert type events, a stage set-up generally takes away a third of the seating - so would leave at least 15-18,000 seats and a wide range of corporate boxes. H&F Council have to see the possibility of income generation from such a stadium as well as the uplift in possible athletics meetings and development of community projects. The report may state the bleedin’ obvious, but sometimes people need reminding of the bleedin’ obvious!
I agree that at the present state of the club we would struggle. However you weren't around when we got 25K 28K 30K 35K in 70' 80's and for some of that time we were crap. Personally I would be planning for a bright future otherwise what is the point?
I agree but these things can be done in stages. A 25000 stadium would be plenty with the ability to build further should it be needed. It can’t do much good on the pitch to be playing in a half empty stadium. Most of those fans are pensioners now or brown bread. We have a lack of fans my sort of age.
Bullseye and that will be the next episode Moving to a new stadium that we rent and of course may have very little impact on the design. It will be spun by then that we are a club without a home who by the way are broke. So when we talk about our identity that is why it’s so important imo . Our owners are they QPR people? Compared to the fan base they aren’t The document I agree is a ten minute press release produced to say its LC or we do a MK dons Can anything survive in London without money ... No of course not Things have to run on a sound business foundation. Beggars can’t be choosers
25K is too small and how many actually expand (other than Stoke/Man City). Agree though the age of a QPR fan is older...Why? Because in 95/96 when the Prem started really going well we got relegated to The championship and Leagues Two. It took us a few years to get back and we missed out on being an established club. We have blown the last 2 chances as well. Hopefully when we can run our club properly we might get a new generation of fans.
Is that true? Not doubting you, in fact on reflection when I go I seem to be surrounded by people round about my generation, we certainly outnumber the under forties. Perhaps the market for West London football is saturated, and apart from the rare exception like your good self younger people either aren’t interested in live football, or can’t afford it, or if they want to see it they are only interested in top 6 clubs.
Of course I believe it’s to do with culture but I would say that ... it’s my job to mesh product to market We are a club with a heritage only our generation remembers The top London side for many years in our golden generation I was hoping that when we had new owners that tapped into this preserved the heritage and built from there ... it’s the fundamental rules of brand that if left unchecked would be left with a dying generation trying to relive pass glories. That’s every football clubs challenge of course Our brand is back on course regardless of the short team failures or successes on the pitch. The brand has to be strong enough to endure change, promote heritage and challenge the future Only then will we attract new growth by attracting new fresh fans I explained this to the club first hand Fast forward and we are playing in pink? We look like we have an option to rent a football ground ? That’s not negative is it in 2018 ... ask West Ham? Wherever we end up is fine as QPR is in our generation’s blood How we end up will require good design in everything we do from now on
All of my boys have been to LR 2/3 are solid Rangers fans the 1/3 hates football and everything about it All three were never pushed to Rangers and one supported Chelsea and went regular with his step dad who is a simple **** Going to LR without any hard sell by me sold them real football and 2/3 were born
