April 18th...
Dave Barton Live At Hammersmith...

On the way to the meeting tonight I was a little apprehensive. I was worried about how it would all go and if the people in attendance would be hostile to the idea of a supporters trust. I needn't have worried.

Upon arriving we were handed a Supporters Direct booklet, which contained lots of useful info on what Supporters Direct is all about.

I haven't had a chance to read it all yet but it mostly stuff that can be found on their web site for those who want to read more. On everyone's seat was a form explaining how the evening will work and who the speakers are.

It also gave you the chance to sign up for membership to QPR 1ST and explained how this all came about.

The hall was pretty packed as the interim committee took their seats and the meeting begun. Chairing the meeting was a QPR fan called David Price and he thanked everyone for attending before asking us to all rise for a minutes silence on honour of the late great Alec Stock.

The silence was greeted with the respect it deserved. David introduced the speakers, which were Brian Lomax (chairmen of the Supporters Direct), Tracy Stent (QPR 1st co-ordinator), Symon Eales (LSA Treasurer), Maurice Fitzgerald (shareholders), Dave Thomas (AKUTR's) and Justin Pieris (ASB QPR Supporters team).

Members of the local council were also introduced and were the first to speak. The first to speak was a season ticket holder at QPR, apologies for not remembering his name, he spoke of his passion for the club and how we wants to do all he can to help the club.

He mentioned that the council wanted QPR to stay in the borough and offered his services to help in any way he could. One suggestion he made was to try and speak to the board of directors and the administrators about how much the club means to the local community, which received applause from those in attendance.

Next up was our local MP Clive Soley, who continued on the same theme saying how proud the council is to have three top class teams in the borough and they want to keep it that way. He spoke of wanting three premiership teams and wanting to do all he could to keep QPR going. He did stress though that the council would not be able to buy the club, which I think we all knew anyway.

He went on to explain how he wasn't a football fan but knew how important QPR was to the local community and he hoped that if we all pull together we would get back to Division one which caused much amusement but it seemed a genuine mistake. (Perhaps he was reading his speech for the next meeting)

Later the local Mayor Andrew Slaughter who came in to speak and just added to what the previous two guys had said that he wanted QPR to stay in the borough and would do all he could to keep QPR going. He mentioned the impressive turnout comparing it with the recent meeting for Fulham, which got a few boos. The supporters in attendance seemed encouraged by his words and it was now the turn of the QPR supporters to speak.

First up was Tracy Stent who told us she was very nervous about speaking. She shouldn't have been though as she spoke with real passion and enthusiasm about what a Supporters Trust is all about.

I won't go into huge details of what she said, the main point of her speech was to explain what a supporters trust is and how as QPR fans we must take this opportunity to start this trust to hand down the club to future generations.

This comment in particular seemed to hit the nail on the head for many people who love this club. Tracy also explained how this was a one member one vote system which was a very important point.

She also explained how they would be bringing around some buckets to raise some money. Tracy showed the hall a copy of the bank account waiting to be set up explaining how the co-oprative bank have accounts for football trusts to help raise money for day to day costs and enable the initiative to have some money to spend as the members wish. I would imagine the initial money raised will go towards printing posters and sending out leaflets to members during the summer.

Tracy received a huge ovation for her speech with some standing up and applauding, it was all going rather well so far.

Next up was a very long speech from Brian Lomax. Brian gave a very interesting talk about how supporter's trusts came about and his own experiences with the club he supports, Northampton. I won't be able to cover all of his points here as he made so man but he basically explained how Northampton went into administration in 1992 and supporters gathered to form a trust and try and bring the club back to the fans.

The club had debts of over £1.5million and with gates of 2,000 it was not a good position. The fans rallied round and with help from the council they made sure that whoever bought the club had to have a Northampton fan on the board and made that a condition for building the new stadium. Brian was one of those voted onto the board and spoke of the ideas the supporters brought forward which helped them clear the debts and make a profit. Some of these included excellent disabled facilities and making the club work within the community to make the local people proud of the club and raise attendances.

I can't do Brians speech justice here but it was quite interesting to hear how well this worked and he went on to tell us how other clubs have followed his lead and that as chairmen of Supporters Direct they have the backing of the FA, Football League, Premier League and Government to make this work.I fear some may have switched off during his talk as he did go on a bit but it was really good of him to travel down to speak to us and his views and information were very helpful I felt in giving us a better understanding of what the trust was all about.

Next up was Simon from the LSA. Simon spoke briefly saying that he was pleased to see so many members of the LSA here tonight but that he could not speak for all members. He announced there would be a ballot to all LSA members whether to join QPR 1ST or not. He added that the LSA and QPR 1ST were not in competition with each over and gave the impression he was very keen to see the formation of this trust.

Introduced next was Maurice Fitzgerald who runs a local business. Maurice told the room how he wants to pull together all shareholders into one. He mentioned that he had a list of all QPR fans who were shareholders and would be contacting all of them in the coming days/weeks. The idea was to give all shareholders a voice as most of us only have a few hundred pounds worth of shares and they are not worth a penny now.

He went on to tell us how he had spoken to local business around Uxbridge and Goldhawk road about the impact QPR have on them. It was not surprising to know that they all loved to have the club in the area as money must roll in to local pubs, restaurants and shops on match days and the impact that no QPR would have was bigger than some will have imagined.

Dave Thomas was next to speak looking very smart in a suit. DT did not

disappoint with an absolutely brilliant speech. I don't want to take anything away from the others who all spoke brilliantly but DT seemed to sum up exactly what this club means to us. I'll try and recall as much as possible.

He started by saying "Cometh the Hour, Cometh the fans" before getting a bit for stick for wearing a suit.

Dave mentioned how "bloody irnoic" it was that the great Alec Stock had died this week. It did not go unoticed that the man who took QPR out of Division three has died with the club set to go back to where we were before Stock came to Rangers. This was met with many nods of agreement around the hall.

DT was soon in full flow though saying how if a 120 year old building was set to be knocked down then their would be an outrage but a 120 year old football club does not seem to matter, it's only QPR after all.

The disgusting local media coverage was mentioned with just three lines given in the Gazette to this meeting, as DT said, the competition to push a trolley round the new shopping centre to be built on Loftus Road would get more coverage.

Dave brought home to us all what this all means to us, we don't want to lose our club and the Fulham Park Rangers saga was mentioned by DT when he said the fans stopped that happening and can stop the club dying again. One comment I did like was that the Daily News (can't remember if that's the right name for the paper) offered season tickets to Fulham Park Rangers. That newspaper is not around anymore but QPR is, DT did not know what happened to Fulham though.

DT compared the difference between QPR and other business well saying how if a new manager comes into your local supermarket who cares? But when a new manager comes in to QPR we talk about it non-stop. DT received a standing ovation for his words, as with all the speakers I can't begin to do them justice here but believe me it was enough to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

Last of the speakers was Justin "Juzza" Pieris and I didn't envy him having to follow DT. Juzza responded though with some brilliant words. He explained how the ASB team was formed. It started out with just seven blokes playing in a park and grew to a team with one Spurs fan. That then grew into the ASB becoming British Champions four years out of five and just showed how something small can grow into something a lot bigger. (No jokes please) Juzza also received a huge ovation as those of us in attendance were offered the chance to ask questions.

This would be my only complaint of the evening, as several questions seemed to be met without answers. I don't think this is the fault of any of the committee but perhaps some standard answers could have been prepared before hand. It wasn't a major problem though as I think everyone's questions were fully answered eventually.

The main question at first was "What are you actually going to do for us", the question came in different forms but it seemed many were still confused as to what the supporters trust was. Juzza and DT tried to answer this but many still seemed confused. Brian tried to explain again as did Sean, who is a Celtic fan who is part of the Celtic trust. Sean seemed to explain it a little better saying that protests by fans are a thing of the past as they worked years ago but now they are dismissed. The difference that a trust can make is massive as supporters have a voice which is not just a couple of fans who can be ignored and QPR fans will have a chance to put our fears, concerns and ideas across to the club.

This appeared to help explain the idea but still some queries remained as to what involvement the committee have had with the administrators already. Juzza was quick to point out that the meeting they had with the administrators was not the most fruitful. They asked if the fans could be told of any bids and developments but were not given any assurances that this could be done. This seemed to worry the majority of us who were perhaps hoping to hear something a little more positive come out of that initial meeting but I am not sure that they are allowed to share such details with the supporters, I could be wrong though.

Another to speak was a guy called John who handed out those leaflets on Monday. He basically said the same thing as was on those leaflets about how this was a good idea and that the club must stay local but warned that he had received a call from Nick Blackburn who had told him that part of the deal of selling the club is that the ground is sold.

That was rather worrying news but why Nick Blackburn would choose to phone a supporter to tell him this is a little strange but wouldn't be the first time Mr Blackburn has telephoned supporters so don't dismiss that news out of hand.

Following on from that, one supporter asked if QPR 1ST was aligned with the Socialist Party after John had given out leaflets promoting QPR 1st via this political party.

DT announced that the trust is in no way aligned to any political party, the trust is for QPR fans and will work in the best interests of QPR fans only. This went down well as I feel the leaflet handed out on Monday worried many in attendance.

Some good points were made about moving from the area. This appeared to be the main concern among supporters with the majority speaking out against moving ground but one bloke asked fans not to dismiss the idea of moving as still having a club was more important.

During this discussion came the quote of the night, which was ' I don't want to go to a Beefeater in Egham'.

It was pointed out to the Mayor that the reason we didn't expand the current stadium is because the council made the land to expensive and houses were built instead. The Mayor responded by suggesting it was the clubs fault that they showed no interest in the land and if they had a deal could have been arranged. He mentioned the speculation at the time of QPR moving away to Heathrow could have had something to do with the decision not to expand Loftus Road.

The committee listened to all these comments but could not really say much on them, as that wasn't the point of tonight's meeting but it seems this will be a huge issue in the future and what with the council seeming to back us in wanting to stay in the area that was a big positive to take from the evening.

One supporter asked the Mayor is Loftus Road could become a listed building to only be used for football. Obviously the Mayor could not say too much on this but said it was something that could be looked at. Other comments made all seemed to be supportive to the idea of QPR 1ST and many thanked the hard work, which has already been done.

I felt the evening was going very well and everyone seemed to be trying to be positive to the idea. One guy who had earlier asked a couple of questions as to what the point was came back on the microphone to tell the committee that he would like to thank them for what they have done and explain that he feels that most people attending tonight expecting to hear what actions will be taken next but wanted to make it clear that everyone was behind the idea.

One idea brought forward was to perhaps print out posters or leaflets to give out at games. The point of this would be aimed towards Chris Wright to ask him to wipe off the debts the club have and give us a chance to start again. Juzza explained that Chris Wright holds all the cards at the moment and DT added that the one thing which would scare him is the supporters.

One guy took a different view to this saying that Wright seemed a sensitive man and if we want to get through to him we should do so by trying to speak to him rather than scare him which I felt was a good point.

The main worry, other than the ground move, seemed to be that the clubs assets could be sold off before anything is done. Brian explained that the trust could take months to put into place if we follow the structure, which have proved successful elsewhere.

What many were worried about was that the club, stadium and players could all be sold off before the trust is formed and then what do we do?

Good PR was also mentioned and one guy said he offered his services to the club to help them out as he works in PR but didn't get much of a look in. He kindly offered his services to QPR 1ST.

Other comments and questions included what happens next and how do supporters get feedback when the season ends. Tracy stepped in to explain that info would be given out on the Internet and newsletters sent out to those who have signed up.

The same guy also said that he had heard there were twelve parties interested in buying QPR. Juzza confirmed that the administrators had told those who met wit them that six parties were interested but obviously things are progressing by the day.

One of the lasting memories of the evening came from Joe Hylton who gave two of the most passionate speeches I have heard in a long time. You could feel the emotion in his voice as he offered his shares to the trust and spoke of how proud he was at the turnout.

Joe spoke very intelligently about how Loftus Road has the best train and bus access of any club in the country and just spoke so much common sense you wondered why talk of a ground move ever became an issue.

Joe spoke again later on praising the hard work of everyone so far and gave a rousing note to everyone to get along to the last two away games, as we have to stay up. If I hadn't have already bought a ticket for both games I would have gone straight to Loftus Road and camped out to get a ticket.

With time running out David Price asked for a vote. First for the setting up of QPR1ST Supporter's Trust, second the interim committee to come back with rough objectives of the supporter's trust and lastly to get legal advice on fund raising, etc.

All were met with a sea of raised hands and shouts of UR'S as the evening ended with a standing ovation for all the hard work put in and it felt like a new beginning for us supporters.

As we all left I felt a sense of real pride and that I had just witnessed history being made.

Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make this all possible tonight and well done to every QPR fan that attended. I really feel we can make a difference now and more proud to be a QPR supporter tonight than I have been in a long time.

Come on You R's

Dave Barton

All views expressed are of the named contributor, and do not necessarily reflect those of this website, or QPR 1st