| What is 'success' for QPR? 12:18 - Mar 24 with 15102 views | FrankieFiveAngels |
This is my first post on LFW. Have to say there's a bit of trepidation as I've read and enjoyed the wit and wisdom on the forum for a long, long time, so thank you for the entertainment and please be gentle!
I'm a ST holder in Ellerslie Road and have followed Rangers since Sept 1972 when we beat Cardiff 3-0 at LR. I was 6 years old and that was that. We've all been through the ups and downs of following Rangers but despite the 2 recent promotions, I found the Briatore and Fernandes regimes hard to square with my idea of what QPR are about. Even so, I am more optimistic than I have been for some time with JFH at the helm so my glass is half full. Over the last couple of games, it seems that for the first time this season most fans expectations are realistic. that we need to build rather than go up this season. It did get me thinking though, about how the club or us as fans, would define what 'success' for QPR actually means. For me, in the short term, it's for us to be in a position where every season isn't a case of "shit or bust", which seems to have been the case every season since TF took over. In the medium term it would be having a team to be proud of, which includes players coming through the ranks. Long term, it would be promotion - don't get me wrong, I want us to be the best we can be, but I think in recent years, we have paid to high a price to get there.. |  | | |  |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 11:27 - Mar 26 with 2459 views | ade_qpr |
Fine opening post Frankie.
Success - first get it right off the pitch with things like finances, training ground, admin etc
Once the off field stuff is sorted and if done right this club has proved in the past 60/70s promotion lengthy spells in the Premier League and the odd good cup run are achievable. |  |
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| What is 'success' for QPR? on 11:36 - Mar 26 with 2455 views | PunteR |
Just to add, I thought what Steve Sayce said on the podcast about Old Oak was a breath of fresh air.
I don't like the way the club have dangled this carrot of a new stadium.
Moving there is not a success story for QPR. I get the impression that most fans don't want to move to Old Oak. Is it the only option? I see massive new developments everywhere in London,even on our own doorstep, Westfield etc.
I do feel it gives TF an excuse to cover how badly he's run our club in the past.
I also think Neil SI point about becoming a community club again is massively important. Shepherds bush should be about QPR not just a shopping centre. |  |
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| What is 'success' for QPR? on 12:04 - Mar 26 with 2442 views | Northernr |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 11:36 - Mar 26 by PunteR |
Just to add, I thought what Steve Sayce said on the podcast about Old Oak was a breath of fresh air.
I don't like the way the club have dangled this carrot of a new stadium.
Moving there is not a success story for QPR. I get the impression that most fans don't want to move to Old Oak. Is it the only option? I see massive new developments everywhere in London,even on our own doorstep, Westfield etc.
I do feel it gives TF an excuse to cover how badly he's run our club in the past.
I also think Neil SI point about becoming a community club again is massively important. Shepherds bush should be about QPR not just a shopping centre. |
The point that Lee Hoos is hammering home is that Old Oak is about the club surviving. The club cannot survive without a new stadium. They want to move the mindset away from "they just want a concert venue" or "they just want loads of housing" or "It'll be the air asia arena and QPR will be a tenant" and whatever, and get people round to thinking the only way QPR can survive is to have a new stadium.
The issue with this is it's not true. QPR can survive exactly where they are now, they just have to cut their cloth accordingly. Can we survive at Loftus Road spending a quarter of a billion quid every five years, signing players on £40k a week, spending £12m on Chris Samba, giving Joey barton a four year contract. No, of course not, but then I doubt we'd survive at Old Oak doing that either.
The question, to alter the OP slightly, then becomes what is survival for QPR? Do we want to be a reasonably big spending club that nevertheless bobs around the top of the Championship and the bottom of the Premier league, playing in a new stadium - which might be great or might be like most of the other new stadiums - in a new high rise development in Old Oak? Or do we want to cut our cloth and be a middle/lower Championship side with very occasional stints in League One, but at Loftus Road?
The club can survive at Loftus Road, just not in the manner the board want it to, or I guess many of the supporters want it to. It's like when you hear MPs talk about not being able to manage/survive on £80k a year in London or whatever. There are people who live in this city earning minimum wage working in sandwich shops so it can be done. You just can't survive on £80k a year if your lifestyle means you spend £120k a year. |  | | |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 12:29 - Mar 26 with 2416 views | stevec |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 12:04 - Mar 26 by Northernr |
The point that Lee Hoos is hammering home is that Old Oak is about the club surviving. The club cannot survive without a new stadium. They want to move the mindset away from "they just want a concert venue" or "they just want loads of housing" or "It'll be the air asia arena and QPR will be a tenant" and whatever, and get people round to thinking the only way QPR can survive is to have a new stadium.
The issue with this is it's not true. QPR can survive exactly where they are now, they just have to cut their cloth accordingly. Can we survive at Loftus Road spending a quarter of a billion quid every five years, signing players on £40k a week, spending £12m on Chris Samba, giving Joey barton a four year contract. No, of course not, but then I doubt we'd survive at Old Oak doing that either.
The question, to alter the OP slightly, then becomes what is survival for QPR? Do we want to be a reasonably big spending club that nevertheless bobs around the top of the Championship and the bottom of the Premier league, playing in a new stadium - which might be great or might be like most of the other new stadiums - in a new high rise development in Old Oak? Or do we want to cut our cloth and be a middle/lower Championship side with very occasional stints in League One, but at Loftus Road?
The club can survive at Loftus Road, just not in the manner the board want it to, or I guess many of the supporters want it to. It's like when you hear MPs talk about not being able to manage/survive on £80k a year in London or whatever. There are people who live in this city earning minimum wage working in sandwich shops so it can be done. You just can't survive on £80k a year if your lifestyle means you spend £120k a year. |
Sorry Northern, Hoos is talking perfect sense.
Another 2 seasons in the Championship and failure to secure that new stadium, TF will walk and we'll be surviving on the paltry income ticket sales provide.
We are staring a Bolton Wanderers scenario in the face if that happens. |  | | |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 12:35 - Mar 26 with 2413 views | Clive_Anderson |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 12:04 - Mar 26 by Northernr |
The point that Lee Hoos is hammering home is that Old Oak is about the club surviving. The club cannot survive without a new stadium. They want to move the mindset away from "they just want a concert venue" or "they just want loads of housing" or "It'll be the air asia arena and QPR will be a tenant" and whatever, and get people round to thinking the only way QPR can survive is to have a new stadium.
The issue with this is it's not true. QPR can survive exactly where they are now, they just have to cut their cloth accordingly. Can we survive at Loftus Road spending a quarter of a billion quid every five years, signing players on £40k a week, spending £12m on Chris Samba, giving Joey barton a four year contract. No, of course not, but then I doubt we'd survive at Old Oak doing that either.
The question, to alter the OP slightly, then becomes what is survival for QPR? Do we want to be a reasonably big spending club that nevertheless bobs around the top of the Championship and the bottom of the Premier league, playing in a new stadium - which might be great or might be like most of the other new stadiums - in a new high rise development in Old Oak? Or do we want to cut our cloth and be a middle/lower Championship side with very occasional stints in League One, but at Loftus Road?
The club can survive at Loftus Road, just not in the manner the board want it to, or I guess many of the supporters want it to. It's like when you hear MPs talk about not being able to manage/survive on £80k a year in London or whatever. There are people who live in this city earning minimum wage working in sandwich shops so it can be done. You just can't survive on £80k a year if your lifestyle means you spend £120k a year. |
Exactly. It's clearly possible to afford to pay some footballers to play football and run the administrative side of things from the amount of revenue that we generate. Clubs with far less income manage to do it.
I'd like to see us attract support by doing something different, rather than just a cut price version of Chelsea. Get rid of the executive boxes, extend the paddocks, bring back terracing, cut ticket prices and get a reputation for having the best atmosphere in London. A bit like St Pauli in Germany but without the political guff. People go to the football for the spectacle and sense of identity as well as to watch a football match.
Train local kids up to play in the first team and get some sort of bond with the local area. That would attract far more people than just being yet another yo-yo club playing in an out-of-town shopping centre. |  | | |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 12:38 - Mar 26 with 2407 views | isawqpratwcity |
I don't see why a well-designed stadium at OOC can't substitute for Loftus Road.
I'd rather QPR be in the Prem than L1 and I'd hate to think it is just the attachment to this stadium that is preventing us from getting there. Even if we only progress to being a strong Championship/lower-middle Premier club, that's got to be more likely to bring us prospects of cup success if nothing else.
I want the club to be the best it can be, and I think OOC is an acceptable compromise between accomplishing that and staying in our home area. Us older blokes have seen LR a lot fuller and louder than a lot of you young bucks. |  |
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| What is 'success' for QPR? on 12:49 - Mar 26 with 2399 views | Northernr |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 12:29 - Mar 26 by stevec |
Sorry Northern, Hoos is talking perfect sense.
Another 2 seasons in the Championship and failure to secure that new stadium, TF will walk and we'll be surviving on the paltry income ticket sales provide.
We are staring a Bolton Wanderers scenario in the face if that happens. |
By that logic every team in the country that has a ground of 18,000 or less, no billionaire owner and no Premier League parachute payments (approximately 60 of the 92 clubs in the league, and all of the non league) can't survive then. And yet somehow they do, miraculously.
This post has been edited by an administrator | | | |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 13:02 - Mar 26 with 2385 views | Clive_Anderson |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 12:38 - Mar 26 by isawqpratwcity |
I don't see why a well-designed stadium at OOC can't substitute for Loftus Road.
I'd rather QPR be in the Prem than L1 and I'd hate to think it is just the attachment to this stadium that is preventing us from getting there. Even if we only progress to being a strong Championship/lower-middle Premier club, that's got to be more likely to bring us prospects of cup success if nothing else.
I want the club to be the best it can be, and I think OOC is an acceptable compromise between accomplishing that and staying in our home area. Us older blokes have seen LR a lot fuller and louder than a lot of you young bucks. |
I'm sure a new stadium at OOC would be good in the Premier League, but as soon as you go back down (which will happen at some point) then you're looking at a half empty stadium with a completely dead atmosphere.
Is it worth a few more seasons in the Premier League to have to put up with that most of the time? | | | |
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| What is 'success' for QPR? on 13:15 - Mar 26 with 2366 views | isawqpratwcity |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 13:02 - Mar 26 by Clive_Anderson |
I'm sure a new stadium at OOC would be good in the Premier League, but as soon as you go back down (which will happen at some point) then you're looking at a half empty stadium with a completely dead atmosphere.
Is it worth a few more seasons in the Premier League to have to put up with that most of the time? |
Isn't what we're looking at something around medium-large Championship capacity and medium-small Premier, as against our current Championship small size?
Deride 'plastic' fans all you like, but the club really should be trying to build it's support base and the best way to do that is to be more successful and have better teams visiting. Besides, even LR is going to be a fairly quiet place if we spend a few seasons in L1. | |
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| What is 'success' for QPR? on 13:20 - Mar 26 with 2362 views | Northernr |
The other point I would make about this word "survival" is that while you can say, quite rightly, that it's too small, needs modernising, no hospitality etc etc which is all quite true... we own it. Hoos (who I love and really rate by the way, I'm no knocking him for a minute here) pointed out at the fans forum that the club went into admin once and was about to do so again when briatore took it over. One of the main reasons we were able to survive that is because we own the stadium, it's in West London, it's on an ever increasingly valuable patch of land and we can leverage against it.
Being tenants in a new build on Old Oak common takes all that away from us. So what if we fall on hard times there? What if the owners pull out all the backing there? Then how are you going to survive?
I'm playing devil's advocate here on a lot of this. I accept what Hoos says and the situation we're in. I'm just not having this idea that qpr are dead in the water at Loftus Road floating around unchecked. We're not, we'd just have to behave differently if we stayed here. | | | |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 13:24 - Mar 26 with 2355 views | Clive_Anderson |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 13:15 - Mar 26 by isawqpratwcity |
Isn't what we're looking at something around medium-large Championship capacity and medium-small Premier, as against our current Championship small size?
Deride 'plastic' fans all you like, but the club really should be trying to build it's support base and the best way to do that is to be more successful and have better teams visiting. Besides, even LR is going to be a fairly quiet place if we spend a few seasons in L1. |
All clubs our size spent a large proportion of their time outside the top flight. Look at the success stories from a few years ago Bolton, Middlesbrough, Charlton, Birmingham all have had half empty stadiums since they've gone down . And that's if you even get to the Premier League.
I also wonder if the extra revenue whilst in the PL pays for the cost of the new stadium + itnerest, which being in London will be absolutely massive. Didn't really work out for Bolton who got theirs far cheaper than we will get ours if it happens. | | | |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 13:32 - Mar 26 with 2346 views | stevec |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 12:49 - Mar 26 by Northernr |
By that logic every team in the country that has a ground of 18,000 or less, no billionaire owner and no Premier League parachute payments (approximately 60 of the 92 clubs in the league, and all of the non league) can't survive then. And yet somehow they do, miraculously.
This post has been edited by an administrator |
May have relayed this previously, but when Bernie and his crowd walked in the door, a telegraph reporter collared me at half time and asked 'who would you most like Rangers to sign now the new owners are here?' I replied 'well I'd love to see Lee Cook back down here'.
He wasn't entirely taken aback, mentioning of the dozen or so fans he'd spoken to, nearly all had come out with Cook or someone of similar stature, none asking for Ronaldo who the new owners could effectively sign. That was how we thought back then, understandably low expectations.
I loved the 3rd tier days, they were a good laugh, but I also hated the fact Chelsea were moving into a different league altogether, all down to money.
That is why it's different this time. We've had a recent taste of the big time, we've spent stupid amounts of money, we didn't like the outcome, but... we could've liked the outcome, we could have been Leicester and ultimately fans now have much higher expectations at LR.
To a point, you are correct, we could survive without a Fernandez, with this stadium, but it would most likely be mid table, Division One and home gates circa 7,000. Our last excursion at that level came with a siege mentality amongst the fans, maybe that might reignite us again, but I also remember the likes of Northampton at home and this was not a happy place.
As long as we've got wealthy owners then we should still be aiming high. I do worry that this acceptance of mediocrity amongst some of our fans could seep through to the owners and they up sticks sooner rather than later. Some may be happy with that, but be careful what you wish for. | | | |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 13:37 - Mar 26 with 2341 views | TheBlob |
Back to being renowned for flair,entertaining football,being in the Prem with home matches sold out.Back to being London's top outfit,looking forward to getting amongst the established clubs and giving them a right good going over.
Not much to ask is it? |  |
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| What is 'success' for QPR? on 14:02 - Mar 26 with 2322 views | kensalriser |
I'm against moving if the club won't own the stadium, otherwise I'm in favour.
According to soccerstats Loftus Rd is the fourth smallest capacity ground in the division. There's only one smaller ground in the PL. Can't find the figures for League 1 but my guess is that five or six grounds there would be bigger (Sheff Utd, Bradford, Coventry, Wigan, Barnsley and possibly Millwall). Portsmouth in League 2 would be bigger. So, in terms of ground size we'd barely scrape the top half of the entire 92.
Stay at LR cutting our cloth accordingly and we'll eventually be on a par with the likes of Bristol City and Millwall - moving between Champ and League 1 with no chance of anything better. Sounds a bit depressing to me. |  |
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| What is 'success' for QPR? on 14:08 - Mar 26 with 2313 views | Northernr |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 13:32 - Mar 26 by stevec |
May have relayed this previously, but when Bernie and his crowd walked in the door, a telegraph reporter collared me at half time and asked 'who would you most like Rangers to sign now the new owners are here?' I replied 'well I'd love to see Lee Cook back down here'.
He wasn't entirely taken aback, mentioning of the dozen or so fans he'd spoken to, nearly all had come out with Cook or someone of similar stature, none asking for Ronaldo who the new owners could effectively sign. That was how we thought back then, understandably low expectations.
I loved the 3rd tier days, they were a good laugh, but I also hated the fact Chelsea were moving into a different league altogether, all down to money.
That is why it's different this time. We've had a recent taste of the big time, we've spent stupid amounts of money, we didn't like the outcome, but... we could've liked the outcome, we could have been Leicester and ultimately fans now have much higher expectations at LR.
To a point, you are correct, we could survive without a Fernandez, with this stadium, but it would most likely be mid table, Division One and home gates circa 7,000. Our last excursion at that level came with a siege mentality amongst the fans, maybe that might reignite us again, but I also remember the likes of Northampton at home and this was not a happy place.
As long as we've got wealthy owners then we should still be aiming high. I do worry that this acceptance of mediocrity amongst some of our fans could seep through to the owners and they up sticks sooner rather than later. Some may be happy with that, but be careful what you wish for. |
Which brings us back to the original question that started the thread...
Another question, and this comes bck to Steve Sayce on the Podcast, is do you trust these owners to get a ground move right? In every aspect - the amount of debt it saddles us with, who owns the stadium, what it looks like, how many seats etc. When has this ownership ever given us any confidence they wouldn't saddle us with some hideous millstone we hate playing in?
I think I could probably be talked round to be in favour of a move (I'm against at the moment, but it's for petty personal sentimental reasons) but I don't trust Tune to do it correctly. | | | |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 15:05 - Mar 26 with 1691 views | Jamie |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 12:29 - Mar 26 by stevec |
Sorry Northern, Hoos is talking perfect sense.
Another 2 seasons in the Championship and failure to secure that new stadium, TF will walk and we'll be surviving on the paltry income ticket sales provide.
We are staring a Bolton Wanderers scenario in the face if that happens. |
And surviving on ticket income is perfectly achievable. We just need to implement a wage cap of £2/3k a week and be the club we were for 20 years before TF arrived - picking up players others didn't want and getting more than the sum of their parts from them. | | | |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 15:40 - Mar 26 with 1683 views | isawqpratwcity |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 13:24 - Mar 26 by Clive_Anderson |
All clubs our size spent a large proportion of their time outside the top flight. Look at the success stories from a few years ago Bolton, Middlesbrough, Charlton, Birmingham all have had half empty stadiums since they've gone down . And that's if you even get to the Premier League.
I also wonder if the extra revenue whilst in the PL pays for the cost of the new stadium + itnerest, which being in London will be absolutely massive. Didn't really work out for Bolton who got theirs far cheaper than we will get ours if it happens. |
I definitely want us to try for the Premier. I don't know quite how I'd react if the club made a deliberate choice not to aspire for being the best it can be.
There's no success without risk. | |
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| What is 'success' for QPR? on 16:50 - Mar 26 with 1655 views | PunteR |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 15:40 - Mar 26 by isawqpratwcity |
I definitely want us to try for the Premier. I don't know quite how I'd react if the club made a deliberate choice not to aspire for being the best it can be.
There's no success without risk. |
Agree ,you have to take risks but i don't trust TF and Tune to get this right.
The evidence is stacked up against them.
We do need a bigger and better stadium but i'm not comfortable with the Old Oak concept. [Post edited 26 Mar 2016 17:03]
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| Occasional providers of half decent House music. |
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| What is 'success' for QPR? on 14:07 - Mar 27 with 1565 views | Ingham |
Great first post from Frankie, and a great thread. Have to agree with NorthernR, though, steve. If new stadiums have the magical effect that developers claim, how come every Club isn't successful?
Among other things, the points made in favour of a new ground sink without trace when we survey the whole range of League Clubs, all of which have had the benefit of playing in new Grounds for the entire history.
If so many of those grounds became unsuitable the LONGER a Club had it, where is the logic in the Board pretending that things will go so much better over the long term?
If so many of those Clubs win and have won practically nothing in their entire history - City and Chelsea only breaking out of the mould of permanent mediocrity when their ground capacity shrank dramatically - why is the mere possession of a ground of whatever capacity an indicator of a Club well run, let alone profitable, let alone successful?
Why is it that Clubs like ours are so eager to get started on moving the Club to another building, and so obviously terrified to embark on all the things that could possibly make doing so worthwhile.
Transforming the way we recruit players, say. And I don't mean a few pious platitudes about academies and training grounds, but actually DOING it.
Or, first of all, actually finding OUT if they can do it.
A few years ago big money by QPR's standards was spent. But not on big stars. Not on real quality. We didn't bring a manager of proven pedigree to Loftus Road, the kind of character who knew what it took to win the Title or the Champions League, or at least establish us in the top four.
It wasn't that they turned out to be crap, either. It was that they were nothing special in the first place, even if they had played to their full potential.
Why is it so frightening to begin doing this? We don't have to start with stars. Or big spending. We can start by finding out why so many teams are obliged to dump their managers once they hit the inevitable long, losing run?
Put an end to that. Stop leaking goals. Learn how to squeak past sides which outplay us. Learn how to keep doing that, year in, year out, for 10 or 15 years for starters.
And see how much attention, how much admiration, and how many season ticket applications we get for our football and what we've achieved so far ...
... and, like Arsenal, we'll know how many we can attract to a stadium of a given size. They built a ground for not one single supporter more than they had applying for season tickets. And they're a Club which has won the title in every decade since the 1930s bar the sixties (when they built the team that would win it the year after) and the present decade, which isn't finished yet.
If the new stadium is so viable, let Fernandes or Mittal or whoever build it. Lets see how viable it is. And let the Club rent it, on a game by game basis, for our big home Cup quarter final games and the like, and then, when we're attracting 40,000 fans regularly through the quality of the football the likes of Fernandes and Mittal know how to produce, take it for a season, then another if we are successful, and so on.
This is the same racket as the Club is exposed to with the players. The Club's interests never come first, and are never protected the way the players' or the investors' are. If the players were paid only if they win in the new stadium, yes, it might well be viable, with their incompetence making the Club richer and richer as the long losing runs they usually manage with much difficulty generated the cash for the Club to replace them. And then, if their successors similarly failed to impress, THEIR failure would fund their own replacements.
Instead, the Club just has to pay and pay, no matter how bad they are.
The same applies to the Ground. If the Developers, the Builders, the Investors, none of them were paid until QPR became as successful as they all like to PRETEND it will, then the Club could afford to just take a leap into la-la land.
And if that is just too stupid an idea for words, isn't it just too stupid an idea for words for QPR to do the same thing?
There is nothing wrong with the Ground in my view. The Ground, like the Club, is small, has modest sized support, no long history of success to attract more, and is generally lacking in all the things required to make it much bigger, more successful and wealthier BECAUSE of the people who run it.
No-one stopped this lot or their predecessors making us a byword for football, a Club so desirable to support and follow that one huge arena after another had to be put up to accommodate our fanbase.
In fact, the ground is the only thing that DOES work consistently. Is still working, and is still fit for purpose.
When we have all the qualities of a Club that can fill a much bigger ground consistently for maybe the whole century that ground may last, we'll know what kind of ground to build, and we'll have the resources to build it.
As I say, if they're so clever, so knowledgeable about the game, and their predecessors, all wealthy businessmen except for Paladini, are similarly talented, why aren't we the biggest and best now?
I enjoyed your post. This is a perennially interesting topic, especially at a Club like ours, and the game is always changing - in unexpected ways, which is why so few grounds - virtually none - hold the kind of crowds they once did. Our could hold 35,000, maybe more, but it never did, except when we hosted Leeds on the way to the title. Two years later, it was our turn, for a game which, if Liverpool had lost on the same day, would have seen us crowned as champions.
We got barely more than 31,000.
And now that there is no debt, as we are told, why is losing Fernandes a problem? The Club, if it is indeed living within its means, is perfectly viable, and is still a contender to get in the Premiership where it will just be handed £60 million in cash a year merely for turning up.
I go back to the business of learning the game. Why is that always a non-starter? Why is borrowing money so much more important, when we don't have the know-how to spend it wisely? Why is a new ground so much more important when we lack ALL the qualities required to fill it regularly?
Great thread. | | | |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 14:45 - Mar 27 with 1541 views | TheBlob |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 14:07 - Mar 27 by Ingham |
Great first post from Frankie, and a great thread. Have to agree with NorthernR, though, steve. If new stadiums have the magical effect that developers claim, how come every Club isn't successful?
Among other things, the points made in favour of a new ground sink without trace when we survey the whole range of League Clubs, all of which have had the benefit of playing in new Grounds for the entire history.
If so many of those grounds became unsuitable the LONGER a Club had it, where is the logic in the Board pretending that things will go so much better over the long term?
If so many of those Clubs win and have won practically nothing in their entire history - City and Chelsea only breaking out of the mould of permanent mediocrity when their ground capacity shrank dramatically - why is the mere possession of a ground of whatever capacity an indicator of a Club well run, let alone profitable, let alone successful?
Why is it that Clubs like ours are so eager to get started on moving the Club to another building, and so obviously terrified to embark on all the things that could possibly make doing so worthwhile.
Transforming the way we recruit players, say. And I don't mean a few pious platitudes about academies and training grounds, but actually DOING it.
Or, first of all, actually finding OUT if they can do it.
A few years ago big money by QPR's standards was spent. But not on big stars. Not on real quality. We didn't bring a manager of proven pedigree to Loftus Road, the kind of character who knew what it took to win the Title or the Champions League, or at least establish us in the top four.
It wasn't that they turned out to be crap, either. It was that they were nothing special in the first place, even if they had played to their full potential.
Why is it so frightening to begin doing this? We don't have to start with stars. Or big spending. We can start by finding out why so many teams are obliged to dump their managers once they hit the inevitable long, losing run?
Put an end to that. Stop leaking goals. Learn how to squeak past sides which outplay us. Learn how to keep doing that, year in, year out, for 10 or 15 years for starters.
And see how much attention, how much admiration, and how many season ticket applications we get for our football and what we've achieved so far ...
... and, like Arsenal, we'll know how many we can attract to a stadium of a given size. They built a ground for not one single supporter more than they had applying for season tickets. And they're a Club which has won the title in every decade since the 1930s bar the sixties (when they built the team that would win it the year after) and the present decade, which isn't finished yet.
If the new stadium is so viable, let Fernandes or Mittal or whoever build it. Lets see how viable it is. And let the Club rent it, on a game by game basis, for our big home Cup quarter final games and the like, and then, when we're attracting 40,000 fans regularly through the quality of the football the likes of Fernandes and Mittal know how to produce, take it for a season, then another if we are successful, and so on.
This is the same racket as the Club is exposed to with the players. The Club's interests never come first, and are never protected the way the players' or the investors' are. If the players were paid only if they win in the new stadium, yes, it might well be viable, with their incompetence making the Club richer and richer as the long losing runs they usually manage with much difficulty generated the cash for the Club to replace them. And then, if their successors similarly failed to impress, THEIR failure would fund their own replacements.
Instead, the Club just has to pay and pay, no matter how bad they are.
The same applies to the Ground. If the Developers, the Builders, the Investors, none of them were paid until QPR became as successful as they all like to PRETEND it will, then the Club could afford to just take a leap into la-la land.
And if that is just too stupid an idea for words, isn't it just too stupid an idea for words for QPR to do the same thing?
There is nothing wrong with the Ground in my view. The Ground, like the Club, is small, has modest sized support, no long history of success to attract more, and is generally lacking in all the things required to make it much bigger, more successful and wealthier BECAUSE of the people who run it.
No-one stopped this lot or their predecessors making us a byword for football, a Club so desirable to support and follow that one huge arena after another had to be put up to accommodate our fanbase.
In fact, the ground is the only thing that DOES work consistently. Is still working, and is still fit for purpose.
When we have all the qualities of a Club that can fill a much bigger ground consistently for maybe the whole century that ground may last, we'll know what kind of ground to build, and we'll have the resources to build it.
As I say, if they're so clever, so knowledgeable about the game, and their predecessors, all wealthy businessmen except for Paladini, are similarly talented, why aren't we the biggest and best now?
I enjoyed your post. This is a perennially interesting topic, especially at a Club like ours, and the game is always changing - in unexpected ways, which is why so few grounds - virtually none - hold the kind of crowds they once did. Our could hold 35,000, maybe more, but it never did, except when we hosted Leeds on the way to the title. Two years later, it was our turn, for a game which, if Liverpool had lost on the same day, would have seen us crowned as champions.
We got barely more than 31,000.
And now that there is no debt, as we are told, why is losing Fernandes a problem? The Club, if it is indeed living within its means, is perfectly viable, and is still a contender to get in the Premiership where it will just be handed £60 million in cash a year merely for turning up.
I go back to the business of learning the game. Why is that always a non-starter? Why is borrowing money so much more important, when we don't have the know-how to spend it wisely? Why is a new ground so much more important when we lack ALL the qualities required to fill it regularly?
Great thread. |
I've been in the 30,000 + crowds at LR and it was like something out of Dante.You can't treat people like cattle anymore,stuff a decaying edifice full of mug punters.Loftus Road is a sick building,it is cursed.If you want to end the misery you're going to have to remove every trace of its existence and erect a modern replacement fit for our particulat approximation of human life.Smaller but more civilised.Monaco did it. | |
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| What is 'success' for QPR? on 15:06 - Mar 27 with 1531 views | TheBlob |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 14:45 - Mar 27 by TheBlob |
I've been in the 30,000 + crowds at LR and it was like something out of Dante.You can't treat people like cattle anymore,stuff a decaying edifice full of mug punters.Loftus Road is a sick building,it is cursed.If you want to end the misery you're going to have to remove every trace of its existence and erect a modern replacement fit for our particulat approximation of human life.Smaller but more civilised.Monaco did it. |
And where do you put the places of entertainment and enjoyment of a non-footballing nature at the new development I hear you cry?
Iceberg development - all the rage at the moment,water table permitting.Plenty of room underneath LR,might even squeeze in a bit of parking as well. | |
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| What is 'success' for QPR? on 15:12 - Mar 27 with 1524 views | ngbqpr |
Good intro post & cheese choice FFA.
Mid 70s - an exciting, well organised, innovatively coached team put together at very sensible cost, with each player knowing his job. Like current Leicester with more flair.
Early 80s - returning to (and then being competitive in) the top flight (plus getting to the Cup Final) with again a very well coached team with several homegrown players. Southampton anyone?
Early -mid 00s - a team full of players who gelled as a group, looked like they cared, with cult heroes everywhere you looked (the kind of team where over half the players had their own song). West Ham anyone?
All in their own way golden QPR eras...and clubs of not dissimilar size currently proving that even in this moneyed age, similar stories can still happen. Something akin to any of the above would be success in my eyes.
And having lived away from London for 25 years I'm probably being misty eyed / unrealistic...but seeing hooped shirts wherever you turn in West London on a match day. |  |
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| What is 'success' for QPR? on 15:28 - Mar 27 with 1505 views | QPRDave |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 12:04 - Mar 26 by Northernr |
The point that Lee Hoos is hammering home is that Old Oak is about the club surviving. The club cannot survive without a new stadium. They want to move the mindset away from "they just want a concert venue" or "they just want loads of housing" or "It'll be the air asia arena and QPR will be a tenant" and whatever, and get people round to thinking the only way QPR can survive is to have a new stadium.
The issue with this is it's not true. QPR can survive exactly where they are now, they just have to cut their cloth accordingly. Can we survive at Loftus Road spending a quarter of a billion quid every five years, signing players on £40k a week, spending £12m on Chris Samba, giving Joey barton a four year contract. No, of course not, but then I doubt we'd survive at Old Oak doing that either.
The question, to alter the OP slightly, then becomes what is survival for QPR? Do we want to be a reasonably big spending club that nevertheless bobs around the top of the Championship and the bottom of the Premier league, playing in a new stadium - which might be great or might be like most of the other new stadiums - in a new high rise development in Old Oak? Or do we want to cut our cloth and be a middle/lower Championship side with very occasional stints in League One, but at Loftus Road?
The club can survive at Loftus Road, just not in the manner the board want it to, or I guess many of the supporters want it to. It's like when you hear MPs talk about not being able to manage/survive on £80k a year in London or whatever. There are people who live in this city earning minimum wage working in sandwich shops so it can be done. You just can't survive on £80k a year if your lifestyle means you spend £120k a year. |
"Do we want to be a reasonably big spending club that nevertheless bobs around the top of the Championship and the bottom of the Premier league, playing in a new stadium"
This is what we want^^^^
Not this ....."Or do we want to cut our cloth and be a middle/lower Championship side with very occasional stints in League One, but at Loftus Road? " |  | | |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 15:31 - Mar 27 with 1501 views | QPRDave |
| What is 'success' for QPR? on 13:15 - Mar 26 by isawqpratwcity |
Isn't what we're looking at something around medium-large Championship capacity and medium-small Premier, as against our current Championship small size?
Deride 'plastic' fans all you like, but the club really should be trying to build it's support base and the best way to do that is to be more successful and have better teams visiting. Besides, even LR is going to be a fairly quiet place if we spend a few seasons in L1. |
Good post..... | | | |
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