15/05/2013 By Matt Winton Hi. Iâm Matt Winton and many QPR fans will remember that some years ago my family helped the club financially and funded the signings of a number of players. My dad, Harold, was subsequently a club director and was later given the title of honorary president, which he proudly held until he passed away a couple of years ago. I was surprised when West London Sport asked if Iâd write a regular blog on Rangers â and hereâs my first contribution. Everybody seems to have an opinion on QPR and in particular the clubâs transfer policy. Let me say first and foremost that I know from experience that running a football club is incredibly tough and often just as complicated. âTake us back to the days when Loftus Road rocked and was one of the most intimidating grounds in football.â We fans are passionate and often opinionated, but itâs easy to underestimate how difficult decision-making at a club can be, and how easy it is to criticise with the help of hindsight. Even so, I believe Rangers have got things badly wrong in recent years. And like a lot of fans this has left me with some concerns about the future of our club. It is obvious that football has radically changed in the last decade or so, especially since the advent of the Bosman ruling and Sky chucking around obscene amounts of money. It is understandable for people to be sceptical when comparing today with yesteryear, but I fully intend on doing so, because I believe some things donât change. Good practice is good practice. Over the last 10 years some of the gameâs most iconic clubs have heaped terrible suffering on their supporters because of a âboom or bustâ epidemic that continues to be the scourge of our once great game. It is with deep personal regret to me that QPR appear to be trying to replicate this unsuccessful model for the second time in recent memory. After all, lest we forget, it was a similar story in the Chris Wright era, as we trail-blazed our way into administration - fortunately long before the days of points deductions. This left the club with over a decade of crippling debt, that we were unable to service and inflicted massive long-term financial consequences on the club, which only went away finally when the dastardly billionaires Bernie and Flavio appeared on the scene. When you look at QPR over the last 30 years, you will see that the club did once have a very sustainable financial template in place, which unfortunately got muddled in the mid-90s and has seemingly not been revisited since. The financial blueprint I speak of was best practiced by Jim Gregory and Richard Thompson after him, although admittedly Thompson contributed towards moving away from this successful formula in 1995, through a mixture of panic buying (Hateley and Zelic) in response to fan disharmony at the sale of Les Ferdinand, and also to facilitate his own exit strategy. Prior to the 1995-96 season, QPR had been a very well operated football club for the best part of two decades under ownerships that realised the scales of economy that will always be associated with the club. This economy was simple. We had to focus on nurturing and developing talent acquired from the lower leagues, with a view to selling at the right time for substantial profit. In the food chain I guess this made us a feeder club. But it also meant that other clubs were our feeder clubs too. In came the likes of Terry Fenwick, David Seaman, Paul Parker, Trevor Sinclair, Andy Sinton, Andy Impey, Ferdinand and others, all of whom served the club very well before being sold for a profit. These transfers allowed us to break even financially every season, because the club cannot generate enough revenue alone from gate receipts, merchandise and matchday sales at Loftus Road. It has for a long time been impossible to cover the costs of having a playing staff good enough for the top two divisions on our average attendance of 16,000. QPR operated through the 80s and early 90s very successfully on this basis and these were the core values that gave our club a talented and caring playing staff, prudent and successful chairmen, a great sense of community in west London and a fervent support that felt at one with their football club. It is now time for QPR to revisit this business model, and reconsider the ill-conceived idealism that we can be anything other than what our history and heritage tells us we are. This is the simple, tried and tested, advice that I would give to both Tony Fernandes and Philip Beard: 1) We are a London club and therefore will always struggle to attract large attendances. There are simply too many clubs in one city for us to exponentially grow our fanbase. 2) You should not base our business plan around potential television revenues or parachute payments, as this is a guaranteed recipe for disaster. 3) We should not live beyond our means and create endless debt in the business to a wealthy benefactor, as inevitably the club will one day change hands. 4) You must start scouting and buying talent from the lower leagues again. 5) Focus your financial resources on harnessing this talent and selling them to bigger clubs. You will then not lose money and we can again find our place as a well established top-division team. 6) Get some experienced players in the twilight of their careers in on free transfers, who in turn would give the team great balance, experience and also help to develop the clubâs sellable assets, as the likes of Ray Wilkins, Trevor Francis and Tony Currie did. 7) Never again let QPR be the club to pay the highest wages or the biggest transfer fees as this always ends in tears. Please see every example when this has happened before and realise it only ever ends badly: Sheron, Spencer, Hately and almost every signing in the last two seasons. It breads a mercenary culture and creates no long-term stability or structure. Only when this happens, Tony and Phil, will you be able to experience the harmony of what a truly special club QPR is. Take us back to the days when Loftus Road rocked and was one of the most intimidating grounds in football, rather than the slightly poisonous and toxic environment of recent years. Most importantly, save yourself a fortune. I promise you Messrs Gregory and Thompson were never out-of-pocket. http://www.westlondonsport.com/feat...he-nonsense-and-get-back-to-what-qpr-did-best
Absolutely great read. Can't disagree with any of it. On and off the pitch we have to be sound and should accept we will never be a "massive" club but one who can challenge for titles and cups as an outsider. Keep the ambition realistic and then it feels better when small achievements are made.
That pretty much sums up what's gone wrong and what needs to be done to put it right again. Good blog, looking forward to hear more from Mr. Winton in the future
We'be already tried point 6 about experienced players in the twilight of their careers, doesn't work nowadays unfortunately if they don't rate the club. Back on the days when players weren't paid the astronomical sums they are today older players were very grateful for a chance to get in a few quid more before they retired and put their heart and soul into it. Those days are gone sadly when you are talking 'small' clubs like ours.
It is a great read but with the way modern football is, that model will always have us in the NPC with occasional forays into the PL for a season or two if we are lucky. I'm afraid if you want silverware or premier league success, you have to splash the cash. There will always be glorious exceptions - Wigan - but relatively rare. If that is the aim - a 'well run club' knocking about the NPC / PL - that is fine but best to be up front about that so we can adjust our expectation levels. Tony is more ambitious than that. Nevertheless, from the recent tweets etc, he may well have learned some lessons and perhaps we may see more austerity in this closed season.
It's a question of ambition, TF set his sights ridiculously high with little knowledge of the game then gambled huge sums to save his dream. The problem is the obscene amounts of money pumped into the Premier League by TV is going almost exclusively in player wages rather than infrastructure and reducing supporter costs. Next season will see more than double the money paid out and several clubs have already taken out 'bridging loans' of tens of millions against the TV future income so desperate are they to stay one step ahead of relegation and oblivion. Matt Winton's blog is a very succinct view of all that's gone wrong mirroring the Chris Wright era, although it was the supporters who got shafted by the demise of Loftus Road plc. TF's deep pockets will again be tested over the summer, another failure could finish our club off...
