QPR 1st has produced its first annual report, which will shortly be forwarded to members and posted on our website. In it, we celebrate our successes over the last year, but also acknowledge our failures.
Summarised in David Price’s opening speech to the meeting held at Hammersmith Town Hall on April 4th, the annual report is a first attempt at public self-assessment. We want to be as open about our failings as we are about our successes and to encourage debate about them. The main failing that we have acknowledged is in communication with other fans groups, particularly the LSA, which severed links with us recently. This was an issue that the Hammersmith meeting highlighted and one that we hope to resolve shortly and have communicated officially to the LSA our sincere wish to do so.
Our other failing was mainly a consequence of our having far more pressing priorities, but our fundraising was pretty nonexistent in our first year. We have already moved to remedy that, appointing John Dyer to lead a team which will concentrate on raising money for QPR 1st This will be a crucial role, since we are very close to concluding a deal which will see QPR 1st giving substantial support to the club’s development of youth players. To do this, John has already produced some merchandise, which includes T-shirts and polo shirts, badges and car stickers. These items were first seen at the Hammersmith meeting, when they had a magnificent reception.
Amongst our successes, we count our work interrogating the various bidders, the clothes for Africa scheme that Tracy Stent ran so brilliantly, our lobbying of local politicians, our successful launch and completion of
elections, our excellent web-site (www.qpr1st.co.uk) and our achievement of 625-plus members – 5% of the average home gate.
For the future, we have set ourselves a number of targets.
* We want to renew our links with the LSA and other supporters groups. The Hammersmith meeting made it very clear that this is what our members want.
* We will be sending out our questionnaire, asking for members’ views on a wide range of QPR-related issues. This will be a crucial tool for us when we are dealing with the club because it means that we will be able to talk to the club about any issue with great authority. We will also continue our policy of calling instant ballots on individual issues.
* We will continue to lobby the club on behalf of small shareholders and we will sustain our quest for board representation for fans.
* We plan to produce a video which will promote QPR to the City, seeking to entice investors to the club.
* We aim to support the development of youth players.
* We will develop a QPR-supporter business directory, so that QPR fans do not have to put their money into the hands of non-supporters.
* We aim to increase membership to 10% of the average home gate.
All of these are aims we have for the coming year. But our core ambition is to demonstrate both to the club and to its investors that QPR already has a Centre of Excellence associated with it, its fan-base. QPR has turned a corner and we at QPR 1st aim to help push the club back up the ladder.
Hammersmith – our annual celebration of QPR-ness
Below is a message from David Price
As chair of both the Hammersmith Town Hall meetings, I have to say that having a hall-full of Rs fans cheering at you is a fabulous experience.
This time, Ian Holloway stole the show with an impassioned speech that would turn the heart of even the most granite-faced boo-boy. His was a message about hard work and commitment. He pulled no punches telling his audience that he wants players who are prepared to work their socks off. I interpreted Ian’s underlying message as being, ‘We’re in a mess. We’re digging our way out of it. With more hard work and commitment we’ll get our pride back.’
But there was a message for we fans as well. That was just as simple and I read it as, ‘stop whinging and get behind your team’. He spoke of the work that goes into developing young players, of how hard it is for youngsters who are just coming into the team and of how we, the fans, should be giving them the patience that they deserve. As someone who sits close to a man who froths at the mouth at the mere sight of Richard Paquette’s name on the team-sheet, I know exactly where Ian was coming from. Let’s stop picking on individual players and get behind them as a team.
Ian Holloway may have been the main event, but others had strong messages as well. To loud cheers, this fanzine’s editor Dave Thomas, delivered a passionate call for the club to stop treating its fans with contempt. He railed against the way that we have been kept in the dark over the last year, demanding that, from now on, the club treats us with respect and openness.
My vice-chair, Justin Pieris produced a chart showing QPR’s record of
end-season positions against the average gate in each season. In an
arm-waving performance that had more than one person thinking of Peter Snow or Magnus Pike, Juzza proceeded to demonstrate how our core support has solidified and what potential there now is for expansion as we rise back up from our present parlous state.
The mayor, Andrew Slaughter, reaffirmed his council’s commitment to keeping QPR in his borough and to rebuilding QPR’s fortunes. At the same time councillor Reg McLaughlin made it clear that the council would not sanction permanent ground-sharing at any of the three club’s in the borough.
Perhaps the bravest appearance was that of chief executive David Davies. He could easily have turned QPR 1st’s invitation down, and we gather was advised to do just that. Instead, he addressed the audience, giving an explanation of his initiative for taking the club out of administration and speaking with considerable passion about his plans to take the club forward. He emphasised his pride at having stopped the losses at the club and put it on an even keel and promised more of the same. Later, he was fervently endorsed by Ian Holloway as “a man I can trust”.
The meeting finished with a surprising intervention by former Wimbledon FC chief executive David Barnard. He took the stand and described how he has been in talks with JR Ivan, a former-member of the Melzack consortium, about making a bid. His comments on the quality of the Ivan bid were not that positive, but he said that if the current management bid fails, he would join or lead a rescue attempt.
The bidders – what’s on the table this month
As things stand, just after the Swindon game, we have just two proposals to take the club out of administration remaining.
In pole position is the current management, which is arranging a loan from an unnamed source of around £10m, secured against the ground. It is using this to pay off half of Chris Wright’s shares and to reduce his shareholding to 20%, of which nearly 5% will be allocated to current acting chairman NickBlackburn. It says it will have sufficient working capital to run the club and manage the debt for at least the next three years.
This initiative is clearly favoured by Chris Wright, whilst the bids
sponsored by the Winton-Fitzgerald consortium and by Brian Melzack have fallen by the wayside. The Winton-Fitzgerald consortium is now in talks with the management team, which has 28% of the shares available for inward investors. The management is also believed to have had talks with JR Ivan. The management team. of David Davies, Nick Blackburn and Loftus Road director Ross Jones, expects to tie up the deal within 10-14 days.
Ivan meanwhile has his own bid on the table. He claims to have asked for, but been denied, a period of exclusivity, for his £20m bid. Rumours of planned purchases of players from overseas, which have been circulating widely, were dismissed to me by David Barnard.
David Price – Chair of QPR 1st.
A final word about the Hammie town hall meeting in this update. We owe a big thanks to many people for last Thursday’s meeting. Firstly to everyone who attended, including Kevin Gallen, who turned up whilst the meeting was in progress, who signed one of our T-shirts, and then along with his brother, sat at the back for the rest of the meeting. Our thanks to all the guest speakers, and to everyone who brought raffle tickets and who donated prizes, particularly to the two fans who donated two £50 amazon gift vouchers and a bottle of House of Commons Whiskey that was signed by Tony Blair!
There were also various other signed QPR memorabilia, including tops signed by Richard Langely and Kevin Gallen, and a goalkeeper’s shirt, that was Lee Harper’s, and was signed by this season’s squad. John McCooke kindly donated that shirt so thanks and hugs (courtesy of Tracy)to him for that.
We have yet to tot up the exact amount made from the proceeds of the raffle but we’ll update once this has been done. Thanks to Austin Penn for the car/window stickers and also to everyone who helped beforehand with the setting up of the assembly room and helped with stewarding on the night.
And finally a big thanks to Phil Weller who donated a picture of Rodney Marsh’s overhead kick during the 1967 league cup final. We hope to have a photo of the picture on the site shortly. Along with the Olly’s cave banner, which was brilliantly designed by QPR fan Leo Phillips (which is shown on the frontpage of this website) and that was signed by Ian Holloway on the night, it was decided to hold an auction via the site, for both of these items. All proceeds to go to the QPR 1st funds.