The last time I was at QPR you could enter at the end nearest to Shepherds Bush tube but after the match you had to exit to the north and wander round the houses to get back to Shepherds Bush by which time the station was closed due to overcrowding.
There were two blokes in the North Stand West corner on Monday night who were attracting a lot of attention. At first I thought that they were Arsenal supporters, but in the end I had no idea. One had a green top on and the other a white one. The lad in the green had to be held down at times by his mate, he had really lost the plot.
Maybe he was told he had the building work on the new hotel complex? Lost the plot...geddit? I'l get my coat.
Away fans come out of the East corner and are free to walk wherever they wish, turn left or right - walk to coaches, Walton St, or back towards the city centre. Every home fan in North is held back at gates and told to either wait, or walk around the entire stadium. It's frustrating when all you're wanting to do is walk in one direction and are being held back due to the away fans, but away fans are free to walk into the crowd of home fans at the gates. A few people have tried walking through. I've seen one guy (who the stewards missed) calmly walk through, get halfway through the 'away section', minding his own business (no attempts to provoke away fans or anything) and then a couple of stewards noticed him, ran after him and slammed him against the stadium wall! they then dragged him all the way back to the rest of the home fans at the gateway.
At the SAG meeting, I already expressed the view that the gates were pointless and other than West Brom making away fans walk right round the block, no other Premier League club felt the need to have such segregation nowadays. I'm still a little confused though, if you come out the North and want to go back towards the bridge behind the South Stand, it doesn't really matter if you go east or west to get there does it? Doesn't it only effect people wanting to walk straight into Walton Street car park and how far out of your way do you have to walk to get there?
It affects you if you want to go over the bridge and walkway behind the East Stand. A short walk is a trek around the stadium unless you wait until the police decide you can proceed. Meanwhile away fans have been coming out and mingling with the fans coming out of the West Stand with no problem.
The main 'double doors' which open at the end of the match in the North stand are right next to the gates next to the away section. There is a walkway up the slope (opposite Tiger Leisure entrance) which North stand fans would walk up to get to the top of the steps at the South-East corner. You can see the walkway on the slope from the gates we're held back at. Instead of walking just the length of the East stand to leave, we either have to wait, or walk the length of North, West and South to get to the South-East corner steps. They moved us from the East corner, charged us more for a worse view and then they piss us off further by making us wait to leave, while allowing away fans to do as they please.
That isn't their doing though. It is the SAG and the plod who regard every football match as a potential major disaster. Just read the report on the meeting with the SAG. Wittering about the dangers of persistent standing and even mention of the potential for fatalities due to crowd surfers. Hysterical nonsense.
That's not really true, as long as people aren't standing in front of people who want to sit(in the North Stand, or in E4-E5) then it's no problem, it's away fans standing in the aisles that was the main issue at the SAG.
Experience and observation of the practice sometimes doesn't reflect the theory. I think people in west will struggle to grasp the matchday experience of other parts of the ground. Some of the SAG issues are more about covering their back than helping an atmosphere.
The noisiest in the north stand are currently some in N4 and a few in N3. Of the ones I know, some are not renewing, some are hoping to move back to the east and none are moving to N5. There's a thread on CI from someone in North stand asking where the ulltras have gone, as they haven't been heard of for quite a while. Apparently a fair few have knocked it on the head, some moved to KR.
People in the north aren't aware they exist. They do know of some that are now watching Rovers. Most of what noise there is, doesn't come from the back, but nearer the middle of N4 and two thirds up on N3, and they certainly don't call themselves ulltras, and the ones I know of are not moving to N5.
