My lad was a Gooner, due the the influence of a mate and his sons and because foolishly I sang the praises of the way they played football in the early 2000s. But at the age of about 10, when we were still a struggling Championship team, he announced that he reluctantly had to switch to QPR. It’s given him nothing but misery for 12 years now but remains steadfast.
When my two lads were small, one had a man Utd shirt and the other a Liverpool shirt (neither bought by me!!). Both were completely hooked on Rangers after their first visit to LR. It is a special little ground and club.
Absolutely it’s real football That’s why I struggle with the new ground plans and outsiders playing with what we are Change happens and so will we but I believe it’s so important to preserve the culture of the club. I also believe that we used to be respected for footballing qualities Sick of being laughed at today Pink Shirts FFS
When my boy was younger he had a QPR season ticket for 5 years. He was club mascot and loved the Rangers. Now he is not interested in it. Back at that time I used to go with a mate and the 3 kids. the other 2 kids would always complain about the facilities and out of 5 fans none of us are season ticket holders anymore. The club missed a good chance back then.
Just a reminder of HQ back in 1968 at our first ever top flight match, we've come a long way baby and gone backwards...
I have written to the club twice and made it clear we need a super stadium design. Something that stands out and will attract fans. Not a stoke or this club or that club ground but something architectural. Capacity wise, personally I would not go lower than 40k. Good post.
Looks like LCS or down the A40 somewhere (and rip the soul out of our club). Seeing as there's already a stadium on site, will the tree huggers keep away?!
I believe the club (as someone has said) are putting pressure on H&F. I really don't want QPR to be on an industrial estate stuck to a B&Q.
None is us want that and, in fairness, I'm.sure none of The Board do too. My concern is that we've lost four sites either through bad luck, business factors and, the case of Old Oak, misjudging the people the other side of the table. I hope they don't annoy The Council to the point where we lose its support.
It might be that we have lost the previous sites for one or more of the reasons you state and because the business case simply hasn’t been strong enough for it, that housing,retail and business (jobs) are seen as more valuable to a larger number of people (and more profitable for a very small number of people). The LCS might be a bit different, it’s already a (falling to pieces) sporting venue which the council can’t afford and as far as I know the only other proposal for it is as an entertainment venue (a proposal involving Populous I think who were our partners on the Old Oak project......)which can easily be combined with sport. If it’s zoned as leisure that’s a big plus, and trading LR for housing would be as well. On the face of it LCS should be easier than the other sites but even if the council agree eventually there will be loads of objections and it will take a very long time to deliver. If the owners develop LR themselves that could be where the money for them is, in the consultation document it estimates that it would cost £100m to buy the property bordering LR, I’d guess you could get many more homes than those on the site.
Thanks Ellers. I see we're just one interested party they're speaking with. We should run a sweepstakes on when ground will be broken for the new stadium. I'll go for 23.9.23!
I suppose it depends on how much urgency H&F attach to this. You'd think financially it would make sense for us to develop the site and the associated benefits the area would get would be the incentive but it doesn't always work that way. I can't see the owners being keen to rent but if it is the only option it would need to be a massive lease on favourable terms a la West Ham. I still think whichever way it goes this won't be as simple as it seems, it is QPR after all. If it does go ahead it would be daft to have anything above 25,000 capacity, we'd struggle to fill that outside the big six if we did go up...
They are aiming for 30K which it says in the document. I know we have all had this debate on here a million times before but even though we struggle to fill HQ at the moment, i believe it would be a different story if we were a regular prem member. I always thought 35K was capacity to aim for but if it is 30K with room for expansion if needed then I would be happy with that now. Funny since TF has taken a back seat we are going ahead with the TG and now stadium....
That's the problem, to go up and stay up long enough to make the bigger capacity viable. Brighton had a 26k capacity and increased to 30k when they went up, something similar would be sensible perhaps adding a tier at a time to grow 'organically'...
Got to make this a way for H&F both to save money and to generate revenue for them to bite. Perhaps we own the stadium but pay them ground rent on a very long lease.
Keep and develop the asset ourselves and then rent the finished asset ... offset that to pay the rent of the new stadium
I'm actually quite down about this latest stuff. H&FC are clearly keen to keep an athletics facility while not extending the current footprint so I don't see how we could create the kind of intimate stadium we all want. Running tracks and football don't mix. Also, the fact that the borough seem to want to retain ownership will be a big problem for our owners. The rent would need to be really low to make it viable (as with the dodgy deal WHU swung for the Olympic stadium) but it's certain Fulham FC would not stand for us having such a benefit from the council.
