New QPR Stadium? Independent Says QPR Mulling Move

Are we getting ahead of ourselves or are we about to take the R's the next step forward? 35,OOO!! is that really realistic or just wishful thinking. Does anyone know the last time we had a 25,000+ crowd and where are we gonna get the extra 10,000 from? Don't get me wrong, I love Loftus Road, but I have been to far too many soul less all seater grounds that have no personality and no atmosphere. I understand that we are always going to be up against it with an 18,000 capacity, but is that all QPR can achieve? I do not want QPR to go on to bigger and better things without forgetting what kind of club we are and where we come from. What I'm basically trying to say is that I don't want us to leave Loftus Road for a new ground (albeit just down the road), to go to a shiney new place and lose the ethos of the club in the process.

It make sense. Look at teams like Wigan and Fulham who used to get less than 10,000 gates now boast average 25,000. Once we're in the Prem people not just fans but ordinary members of the public will come to the ground, so 25,000 is realistic. The problem is staying in the prem once we get there.

Look at it the other way round and it makes more sense.

These are redevelopment proposals for the BBC site. Notice that despite the 'big talk' part of the narrative - Mittal, the billionaire, Ecclestone the billiionaire - we aren't building a billionaires' stadium.

A stadium to enable QPR to compete with Man Utd and Arsenal, or Chelsea and Liverpool.

No 80,000 capacity here to give us the edge, even though the site would accommodate a much bigger ground.

No, it will be just the same size that the old Loftus Road was.

SMALL.

This is about redeveloping the BBC site. If it was about a bigger, better, more successful QPR, the WHOLE site would be devoted to the new super Club arising in West London.

Not one which has taken 15 years of endless boasting even to get into the Championship play-off places.

Remember Fayed. He did a lot of big talking about a 35,000 capacity stadium enabling Fulham to compete with - he named these clubs - Man Utd, Liverpool and Real Madrid. Real Madrid, for chrissake.

Then, suddenly, it was 30,000. Wha? Oh, now, surprise, surprise. Even 30,000 was too expensive for the great billionaire. So it was a new, state of the art stadium holding 28,500 (Man Utd quaking at the prospect).

Then it was nothing.

Instead, mighty new golden Euro-Fulham just changed their badge. Sound familiar?

And bolted seats on the 100 year old terracing at Craven Cottage. And even with full houses for 10 years, he's been losing £15,000 a year of Fulham's money for a decade clinging to a Premiership place.

All the arguments against building a much bigger ground don't apply to billionaires. Not by their own reckoning. If football in the future, and especially football at QPR, is to be driven by the quadrillions to come in from India, China, Russia, the Isle of Wight, NO outlay will be too expensive. A 60,000-80,000 stadium would pay for itself in no time. Even if it stood nearly empty for 10 years. All those Champions League titles paid for by their billions would fill it eventually.

Provided all the talk is for real. But it isn't.

The real interest and the real money is in the overall site development. So, naturally, the ground must be small to accommodate everything else! The important things.

And, of course, there's that double whammy. Not only is 35,000 too small to put us significantly ahead of the derbys and southamptons, norwiches and boltons ...

... it's also too big.

As QPR, top and unbeaten, struggle even to fill 18,000 capacity Loftus Road.

Football is about talent. Only one club wins, so REAL talent is a rare commodity, not because coaches and managers are no good, but because there is so little to win.

Clubs like Fulham and Bolton, Charlton and Middlesbrough, have racked up vast losses proving that spending a fortune WITHOUT the required talent - long term, sustained success based on being cleverer, more skilful and more effective on the PITCH - gets you nowhere.

Let's see some success first. Real success, not just losing £20 million of the Club's money in a single season and blowing it all on achieving just one promotion.

Let's see QPR outplay, outthink and outwin them all, year after year, for long enough to EARN the money - and the support - to pay for and fill a bigger ground.

I'd say OBK that you have at least as much right to offer your views as I do

Ingham, well said. 5 stars.

I think this is a more difficult problem than it appears at first glance.

The size, for example. 35,000?

Why so small?

Why is the MOST we will EVER get to be limited to 35,000?

No putting genies back in bottles now...we can only grow or inevitably die....the model of a local club operating on 12-15K crowds seems shot and as much as I might like that idea its passed.

New stadium...........bring it on.

How big should a new stadium be? Tough question but maybe 30-35000, could be smaller too. But the most important would be to make it easily expandable, that way the stadium could grow with the club.

ours if you're interested

www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/england.htm

Bring back terracing.

new stadium = more leg room?? Just asking. Currently anyone over 5'6" will be wearing scars across the front of their kneees from previous attendances at Loftus Road.

Even if it happens, QPR won't be playing in a new stadium for several more years at earliest

But presuming you are right Ingham (which I believe you are) the club has long passed the point at which it can sustain its own debt therefore the debt can no longer really be the club because no institution would lend it money. The debt must be underwritten by the owners or the club would have gone under already. It can be argued that the only long term sustainable route for the club is to develop other forms of income i.e. leisure services but even that only narrows the debt gap....the reality is that football per se is now unsustainable and in fact every club is just waiting for the inevitable which is that it will go bust.

if we move stadium we should move to kensal green around hythe rd.its an industrial area so if in 10-15 yrs time,things are going well we can expand,but stay in a residential area and there's no option of expanding.if u've ever been to old trafford u'll no what i mean,utd are in an industrial area,hence why there's never been talk of them moving,bcos they can expand how they like where they are!