To put it simply???...... I have been going to QPR for over 40 years! 60's... I was a toddler, and used to watch the 'R's on my dads or a neighbours shoulders, before being returned to my mum in the flats behind the school end. ( I grew up with Wayne, he is the big curly haired guy you see on the telly escorting the ref off the pitch. ) 70's, ... ( Now very young, - teenager ) I used to stroll-up to the turnstile and pay my50p to watch Sir Stan of Bowles, Givens, Thomas, Masson, Needham? Lge Div 1 & Europe... and wait outside the players entrance to get my autograph book signed, ( If only I had a camera phone back then... D. Clement & M. Leach RIP ) anyway.... 80's... Bought my 1st season ticket, went home & away from 82-85 inc.. 3 cup-finals. Plus every home game in subsequent years. 90's.. Went to every home game I could, I joined the London Fire Brigade, due to the shifts, this restricted the amount of games I could attend. In '98 ( Until 2002 ) I became a Fire Officer at QPR, and I had Carte-Blanche, in regards to where I watched the games. I had access all areas, ( Unfortunatley we were s**t at this time.) I've swivelled in Gerry's managers chair, with my feet-up, watching us get relegated.. Watched matches from the TV gantry, the tunnel, and even sat in the luxury boxes with Stan Bowles, or ex ( or injured )-players ( Faraday,Maguire, Maddox, Waddock, Brevett etc ) getting a pro's take on our fortunes. ( Not good ) I even sat with 'Ginger Pete' the Northern Stadium announcer in the S. Africa Rd corner of the Loft. 00's ... Bad times indeed, 3rd tier, losing the play off final in Cardiff, I ( and my wife ) had 2 kids but still managed 10 home games a season, + 2 away games. 2010 - present, due to shifts, not worth the investment of buying a season ticket, I can still walk-up on the day & get a ticket when I need to. We go top of the the league, I can now only purchase last minute tickets, because I don't know if I can get the time off work until the day before, i'm now restricted to a restricted view seat! ( Bobbing my head around a pylon, to see the goal. ) And the QPR memberships have now sold out. Now;- I've forked out for a membership, and still can't get any tickets for Fulham ( Even at extortionate prices ) unless I have 32 billion loyalty points...WTF! How loyal does one need to be? This is the same for home games, when I'm allowed to buy tickets they are quite frankly s**t! I've supported QPR during our cra(x) ( sorry ) dark times. And now it comes to the good times, who are these people that have excluded me from what iv'e long invested in & waited for far so long. They wern't there when we were s**t, and suffering,....I was! Who are these people?
Now I see why you're QPR999! Dark days maybe but sounds like you've had more than your fair share of privilege. Manager's chair, tv gantry, luxury box with Stanley, tunnel... you couldn't got a better view if they gave you a swivel chair on the centre spot! Count your blessings FIRE but I must say your undaunting obsession beats mine hands down! Surprised your insider status hasn't scored you brownie points...
It's all very well having been there a million years ago but can you think of a fairer way to do it? The Superhoop upgrade thing is a piss take and I didn't get it as I've got an away season ticket but I still didn't manage to get an additional Fulham ticket so had to go through Seatwave and now some bright spark has realised we should've had more tickets. Quite simply, the loyalty point system rewards those of us who were at Wigan, Everton and Rochdale (though I bought my Rochdale tickets on the day making it futile) and Wolves. I'm not saying you're disloyal at all but you can't honestly think you should have a ticket over someone who has been to, say, Everton or Wigan which are both expensive and long journeys and were at a time when our team was relatively ****. If you book in adequate time for home games you can get some decent seats in the Loft. X block is **** and everyone knows it's **** bar the first dozen rows or so so don't sit there.
Sympathies and respect for your history 999, but not sure what you expect. For home games at least you are suffering from a nasty Catch 22 about our tiny but atmospheric ground. For most of your (and my) supporting history the ground has either been big enough (remember 36000 v Leeds in 74?) or the support too low (last 20 years or so) for this to be a problem. We are still not filling the ground (and if we did we would have even more unhappy punters with bad views) and despite the excitement on other threads we will not have a new ground for years if ever. If there were any season tickets left I'd suggest getting into a syndicate to buy one. A problem you didn't highlight but I suspect you suffer from as well is movable match days to suit TV.... Drives me mad. I love going to the games with my boy, but he plays rugby on Saturday afternoons, so not worth buying season tickets and it's driving me nuts having to plan ahead and get online at certain times to buys tickets for home or away games. Options - write to Tony and ask for special treatment, or take the English route - grin and bear it, mustn't grumble etc etc
There's a couple of things that are annoying to say the least at present. I, like many others, don't have a season ticket due to my work and also other interests, that said even when we were previously in the PL and the 15 years since, I had never had any problem just either turning up or, in recent years, booking a match day ticket. However, certain games last season only had the crap tickets available and this season there are unlikely to be too many decent tickets available even for the less attractive opposition. Even if you take up the membership option there's no guarantee you'll get a decent seat, if at all. The season ticket holders rightly are given their benefits but those who don't hold season tickets will have to fight for the scraps that are occasionally available and many of the most attractive matches will be out of our reach. There is no answer to this problem as the ground just isn't big enough to keep everyone happy and it doesn't matter if you followed us through all the traumas of the past 15 years the old 'supply and demand' mantra will be churned out to meet the complaints. Yes, we have an atmospheric old stadium that will be worth a goal start when it's really rocking but it is an outdated, uncomfortable and totally unsuitable ground if we have any pretensions of eventually pushing on to challenge the top six on a regular basis . The only answer is a new stadium and the sooner the better.
know the fella youre talking about ,went to school with him [wayne lammont ] think thats hes name ,also played football in the same team as him . went to wren . totaly agree with all you said . i now live in the iow ,and there; is loads of qpr fans here who cant get tickets . i too have supported rangers for 40 yrs now . am a member , and have just brought a ticket bundle , for 240 smackers . love to go to evert game but just cant afford too ,plus haveing a little 5yr old qpr fan ;makes it hard . at the end of the day , we are all qpr fans . no matter ,season ticket holder ,member or tv fan .l
Bit strong Swords Can see the point of some of the old timers (Even I have had a moan about tickets every so often when queing up at 16th on the phone for tickets) BUT......would we rather just have the 8000 die hards who go week in week out like we used to get OR a full house with said die hards AND the so called 'Plastics'?? As long as they support QPR....Its (Almost) good enough for me. I had the same thing following England. Once i was in the top 174 fans in the England fanclub (went home and away for over 10 years), but slowly it became fashionable to go and i got priced out. But was it better when i went , probably not. Are the current bunch of England fans any less worthy of being supporters, probably not. Just a sad fact of life that times move on.
I couldn't disagree with the tone of this argument more strongly. I have every sympathy for any Rs fan who struggles to get a ticket, but what are we saying here? Do we want QPR to grow or not? Do we want to attract new fans or not? We haven't sold out once so far this season, and general sale tickets are sold on a first come first served basis. What fairer system can there be than that? If anything we should be looking to grow our fanbase as much as we can, not complaining because someone else has brought our favourite seat, and certainly not describing any newcomers as "low lifes". All this "I'm more of a real fan than you" b*ll*cks is just narrow minded and self defeating. I've been going to Loftus Road since 82, although I've never been able to commit to a full season ticket I manage at least 4 or 5 games every season. But, so what? If Loftus Road is getter bigger crowds than in recent seasons then I for one am happy about that.
As someone else who can only make it to 4-5 games a season due to living abroad, I think your spot on 'Taarabt in my kitchen'. I guess it is just an impossible task to find the balance when trying to honour those who have been loyal to the club for years and through thick and thin, but then also wanting to encourage QPR to grow, which requires welcoming new fans with open arms, even if they were nowhere to be seen in the dark ages. The only obvious solution that satisfies every party is a new stadium, with a bigger capacity...but is it worth sacrificing the advantages of Loftus Road for a new place?
Sadly, yes... The club will never be truly competitive in the PL on gates of 17,000ish and the fans like myself that buy match tickets are left with dire views for the big demand games if we can get a ticket. The club will NEVER grow like that, a new stadium is the only viable answer...
I completely agree sooper. A new stadium will offer all fans the chance to go and see games...and the will give additional income from ticket sales to help finances. As we all hope QPR are going to be a bigger and more successful club in 10 years time, we've got to be able to have at least 40,000 a week in the stands.
Some people point out as it is we can't sell out an 18,000 ground but a fair proportion of those seats have a terrible view, mostly for having substantial sections of the pitch obscured by pillars. If it was a stadium with 18,000 seats each of which had a decent view I am pretty sure it would be sold out every PL home game. So I think a bigger stadium with decent views of the pitch could be filled.
I love the idea of this, but practically, will we ever get planning permission to increase the size of Loftus Road? Also, I struggle to see how any stand built directly above any of the current stands would have a good view over the whole of the pitch. Interesting idea though...
It's a total non-starter, all this nonsense about building upwards is really a waste of time, it won't improve the existing cramped conditions and I fail to see what sort of view those in the new top tier would have if the views below them are crap. Apart from the first two or three rows you'd not be able to see much of the nearside of the pitch. Unless they built a roof and hung fans from it in Thorpe Park style seats it would never work!...
