Bank holiday weekend or not, our work doesn’t stop. Whilst everyone else was at the seaside, having a barbecue, or decorating the spare bedroom, those of us at QPR 1st not sitting at home in front of the computer, or on the phone to each other updating progress in our respective areas and planning a busy week ahead, were off down the pub. The Queen Adelaide on the Uxbridge Road to be exact.
It was a meeting arranged by the Milton Keynes Stadium Consortium, which is headed by Pete Winkelman. He had phoned QPR 1st out of the blue last Thursday. His sales pitch centred on why he understood (he really did, he assured us) that a move to Milton Keynes wouldn’t be popular with QPR fans. But it looked increasingly like the club was going under and here they were, white knights to the rescue. He didn’t actually describe themselves as that, but that was the image he wanted to create. And the reason he thought he could – and had – got away with it is because he is another on a long list of people who believe that all football fans are thick. And therefore gullible. It’s enough to make you weep.
So what do we know about Pete Winkelman? Well, he owns the Linford Manor Recording Studio in Milton Keynes. A lot of big acts make records there. In the Eighties he managed the band (We’ve Got A) Fuzzbox (And We’re Going to Use It). His business partner then was his sister Patsy – and the pair were Birmingham City fans. Now he heads up the Milton Keynes Stadium Consortium. Informed opinion has it that they are strictly second division when it comes to funds.
He and his partners have been trying to attract an established club to Milton Keynes for some time now. They began by wooing Luton, then made overtures to Wimbledon, both without success, and have now got their sights set on QPR. So much for white knights.
For anyone interested, click this link to hear Pete Winkelman back in February talking on BBC local radio in Luton about moving Wimbledon to Milton Keynes.
A name which keeps cropping up in the press as interested in buying QPR is estate agent Andrew Ellis, son of ex-chairman Peter. But details of Andrew’s plans for the club are sketchy and the result of guesswork at best. So far, he has kept his cards close to his chest – and that includes having made any sort of contact with QPR 1st.
So it was a big surprise then to find Andrew at the Queen Adelaide standing alongside Pete Winkelman and putting the case for QPR moving to Milton Keynes. A move of course that will leave Loftus Road empty.
There were about 50 fans present, largely from the LSA. Each of them would take a lot of convincing that relocating halfway up the M1 was the way forward for QPR. It needed a powerful argument and a first class presentation. What followed was a shambles. If these are the sort of people holding the future of QPR in their hands, then we really might as well all pack up now and read the last rites for our beloved club. Except of course they don’t, and we will ensure they never do.
The meeting lasted for just over an hour. The microphone kept cutting out – which at least spared the assembled audience some of the drivel that was being spouted in the name of rescuing QPR. Andrew Ellis took the stage first, and explained why he can’t bid for the club by himself, as he hasn’t got the financial clout. He said that the guys from Milton Keynes had come along to give their views on why they feel a move could be beneficial to everyone, and asked the audience to hear them out. Andrew was backed by Mick McCarthy, who introduced himself as a founder of the LSA, said a few words about the situation at the club, and how none of us want this move, but at least let’s listen to what they are proposing.
Pete Winkleman took to the stage. He explained why he and his consortium feel such a move for QPR would benefit QPR and QPR fans, because they guaranteed the club would prosper. Milton Keynes is ideal for a Football League club as the nearest ones are a full 30 minutes away. As convincing arguments go, it wasn’t exactly up there with the best. He wasn’t helped by a faulty microphone… or the fact that half his audience were chatting amongst themselves or getting up to replenish their drinks.
It seems that for this gallant display of white knightery, the Milton Keynes Stadium Consortium are willing to pay £2.5m. That this kind of sum wouldn’t even get them to the table is perhaps an indication of how safe it is to dismiss the notion of QPR relocating to the part of leafy Buckinghamshire that has concrete cows and a nightmarish roundabout system.
It’s a mickey mouse bid, from a mickey mouse consortium, with mickey mouse ideas. And the only insult in that verdict is to Walt Disney.
He then showed a video of the Milton Keynes bowl and the surrounding area. It’s the surrounding area that’s earmarked for QPR. Currently fields, a new ground will be built as part of a five-year plan, with QPR moving in two years’ time and playing at the Bowl until the new stadium is built. In the interim, funding would be made available for QPR from the consortium for transfers, and running costs. If we haven’t got that quite right, then that’s because trying to watch a soundless video on a 14″ television screen mounted on a table on a stage isn’t that easy.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, if there’s a proper business plan to all this, it wasn’t waved about – not even for effect. Apart from a three-minute video, it wouldn’t surprise if the whole thing was sketched on the back of an envelope. All the same, Pete Winkelman asked those present to go away and think about it. Without laughing, presumably.
Chris Leach, a QPR fan and relative of Mick Leach, took the mike, thanked the Milton Keynes consortium for coming along, and made a brief statement to the effect of, “If we have to stay a small club, then so be it. Our roots are West London and that’s where we want to stay. I think the general feeling is thanks, but no thanks.”