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Dear fellow sufferers,
It is true for any aspect of life that money does not automatically make you happy. Of course, our baser instincts kicked in within all of us when we found out that billionaires were taking over our beloved Club. But those instincts have been proved to be totally misguided. Our Club has become a laughing stock of the footballing world and any influence we had over the fate of QPR had been snatched from us.
QPR is being managed in a dictatorial fashion - the 'C-Club' ensures luxury for the "rulers" and their cohorts and ingraits, whilst the "masses" pay more for the same cramped seats; the "rulers" mock us through their attempts to manipulate our emotions and milk our cash, whilst communicating major events to us as an afterthought, carefully controlling our access to information; and more democratic lines of communication have diminuished.
The saying that 'the fans are the real owners of the Club' has never sounded more hollow.
The time has come to reflect and then react. First, reflection. Was life really so bad when we were poor? Yes and no. Yes because we were in real danger of going out of business. But we must remember the mismanagement that led us there in the first place. No because the Club was ours to a much greater extent. The ultimate question is 'are we happier now?' I think that the clear answer is 'no'.
Next, reaction. What do we do about it? Surely, the time for action has come. We really can make the owners realise that we do have power. We need a protest campaign that targets the owners and not the players. Let's protest outside the ground next home game. I'm sure people will join in instinctively as they arrive.
Finally, a message of the protest has to be directed to our brothers and sisters supporting other clubs too. After all, the bottom line is that we're all lovers of football. What's happening at QPR is just a more exaggerated version of the whole current structure of football - the mega-rich using clubs as their play-things, whilst the fans get extorted and the corporate entertainment and television money takes the game further and further away from the people. We are being systematically shafted. Is this the state we want to leave our game in for the next generation?
It needs a proper revolution through fan power. Coordinated nation-wide protests and campaigns. It needs us - the average fan - to do something really bold and self-sacrificial. We need to boycott Sky. We need to organise protests where we all go to the ground together and refuse to pay the £30 demanded, offering, say, £15 or £20 instead.
Bottom line - we must act together like a fan's trade union demanding our rights or we will lose our Club and, more broadly, our game forever.
Fans of the world unite!
Bobbins
It is true for any aspect of life that money does not automatically make you happy. Of course, our baser instincts kicked in within all of us when we found out that billionaires were taking over our beloved Club. But those instincts have been proved to be totally misguided. Our Club has become a laughing stock of the footballing world and any influence we had over the fate of QPR had been snatched from us.
QPR is being managed in a dictatorial fashion - the 'C-Club' ensures luxury for the "rulers" and their cohorts and ingraits, whilst the "masses" pay more for the same cramped seats; the "rulers" mock us through their attempts to manipulate our emotions and milk our cash, whilst communicating major events to us as an afterthought, carefully controlling our access to information; and more democratic lines of communication have diminuished.
The saying that 'the fans are the real owners of the Club' has never sounded more hollow.
The time has come to reflect and then react. First, reflection. Was life really so bad when we were poor? Yes and no. Yes because we were in real danger of going out of business. But we must remember the mismanagement that led us there in the first place. No because the Club was ours to a much greater extent. The ultimate question is 'are we happier now?' I think that the clear answer is 'no'.
Next, reaction. What do we do about it? Surely, the time for action has come. We really can make the owners realise that we do have power. We need a protest campaign that targets the owners and not the players. Let's protest outside the ground next home game. I'm sure people will join in instinctively as they arrive.
Finally, a message of the protest has to be directed to our brothers and sisters supporting other clubs too. After all, the bottom line is that we're all lovers of football. What's happening at QPR is just a more exaggerated version of the whole current structure of football - the mega-rich using clubs as their play-things, whilst the fans get extorted and the corporate entertainment and television money takes the game further and further away from the people. We are being systematically shafted. Is this the state we want to leave our game in for the next generation?
It needs a proper revolution through fan power. Coordinated nation-wide protests and campaigns. It needs us - the average fan - to do something really bold and self-sacrificial. We need to boycott Sky. We need to organise protests where we all go to the ground together and refuse to pay the £30 demanded, offering, say, £15 or £20 instead.
Bottom line - we must act together like a fan's trade union demanding our rights or we will lose our Club and, more broadly, our game forever.
Fans of the world unite!
Bobbins