Poor overcrowded stadium for the prem.

[Gerryhatrick]

Hard to believe as it was a long time ago, but we used to get 30,000+ crowds regularly in the '70's when we were in the top div, so when we get to the premiership, even if only 5-10,000 come back, where are we gonna put them with the current capacity?

I hope the club doesn't hike prices to drive away the true fans in order to falsely control and maintain crowd limits at LR, but I bet they do. If our ground could take 25-30,000 and prices were not more than £5-10 more than this year I reckon we still would fill it regularly, so the club will have to increase the tix much more to £45-50 in order for the ones who can't afford to drop away. Sad but...

I can see a big problem without redevelopment or new stadium, but we might be heading for a short sighted solution. Chris Wright said we need 30,000+ to maintain staying in the top, and if we limit ourselves to 18,000 we will yo-yo like WBA.

[dpmd]

How much does Stoke's Brittania hold? They seem to be doing OK.

[SirLes]

Lets just get there first and stay there for longer than a season.

[W6hoops]

Southampton Done ok in the Premiership at The Dell for a few years with a 15000 capacity. We Should be sound enough untill we get a new ground or build at LR

[UB5 Ranger]

Lets just get there first and stay there for longer than a season.

Totally agree, the board will not even think of a new stadium until we can establish ourselves in the premiership!!!

Who would want a stadium like Reading's, after there fall from grace the stadium is half empty most home games.

[superhoop67]

Hard to believe as it was a long time ago, but we used to get 30,000+ crowds regularly in the '70's when we were in the top div, so when we get to the premiership, even if only 5-10,000 come back, where are we gonna put them with the current capacity?

I hope the club doesn't hike prices to drive away the true fans in order to falsely control and maintain crowd limits at LR, but I bet they do. If our ground could take 25-30,000 and prices were not more than £5-10 more than this year I reckon we still would fill it regularly, so the club will have to increase the tix much more to £45-50 in order for the ones who can't afford to drop away. Sad but...

I can see a big problem without redevelopment or new stadium, but we might be heading for a short sighted solution. Chris Wright said we need 30,000+ to maintain staying in the top, and if we limit ourselves to 18,000 we will yo-yo like WBA.

Welcome to Shepherds Bush , use it to our advantage

[Hertford Hoop]

While its a cramped stadium most so called bigger teams won't relish coming to W12

[vblockranger]

well we can say goodbye to European Football unless we move and lets face it that must be the ultimate aim of our minted benefactors...
FFP (Financial Fair Play) rules that are now coming into effect mean we have to earn more than we spend to enter into European Tournaments ...thats player transfers and wages etc all have to be funded by matchday and commercial earnings.
No more benefactor bought Champion League teams (Chelsea and Man City etc) unless their books show they are turning a profit. Hence Chelsea now scrambling around looking for a bigger ground and quite a few other teams also
How are we going to turn a profit with our small ground and measly fanbase and still pay players big wages and shell out for transfer fee's? or should we just accept the ban that Platini will impose and also accept that Fifa and Uefa just genuinely hate English teams..
Prem the limit for us?

[Scarlet pimple]

Ground is too small and out of date end of.

[80sCasual]

Hard to believe as it was a long time ago, but we used to get 30,000+ crowds regularly in the '70's when we were in the top div, so when we get to the premiership, even if only 5-10,000 come back, where are we gonna put them with the current capacity?

I hope the club doesn't hike prices to drive away the true fans in order to falsely control and maintain crowd limits at LR, but I bet they do. If our ground could take 25-30,000 and prices were not more than £5-10 more than this year I reckon we still would fill it regularly, so the club will have to increase the tix much more to £45-50 in order for the ones who can't afford to drop away. Sad but...

I can see a big problem without redevelopment or new stadium, but we might be heading for a short sighted solution. Chris Wright said we need 30,000+ to maintain staying in the top, and if we limit ourselves to 18,000 we will yo-yo like WBA.

At least at that we may be like Arsenal and say we have a waiting list. lol

[Gerryhatrick]

How are we going to turn a profit with our small ground and measly fanbase and still pay players big wages and shell out for transfer fee's?
Prem the limit for us?

This is my point.
If we are near to LR capacity now, when we get to the prem, the club will be tempted to hike up admission prices to the detrement of the some fans (about 20 - 25%) who can only just about support the team with current admission prices, and these fans will be replaced by a new 20 - 25% that can afford the price hike. This will have the effect of improving turnover and profit, keeping capacity the same, and will be sustainable in the short term. It will also justify not needing a new stadium, as we will not be exceeding capacity, so potentially a very clever ploy. But in the long term, we will struggle to stay up. When is the last time we spent more than 1 Million on a player? Have we ever?
The long term view is redevelopment/new stadium, quality player investing, and heavy marketing to attract 25-30,000 regularly, and not price hiking to control the current set up, which will hurt the fans.

[MYU]

Totally agree, the board will not even think of a new stadium until we can establish ourselves in the premiership!!!

Who would want a stadium like Reading's, after there fall from grace the stadium is half empty most home games.

The key here is to reduce the prices so that people do come, if the price is right they should have a full ground.

Bradford City did just that.

[Jamie]

How much does Stoke's Brittania hold? They seem to be doing OK.

30,000

[Balders1967]

Portsmouth did okay (.....well apart from going in to administration) and their stadium is probably the worst one I've been to for a long time.

Loftus Road does not share the same luxury as other clubs who have the advantage of being in a place that only has one football club and who share the same name of the town or city they are based in.

I always think we get a fairly decent turn out at LR considering the diverse ethnic make-up of the local area.

We don't want "YOUR GROUNDS TOO BIG FOR YOU" every week in a purpose built bowl in the middle of an industrial site.

One thing I would change would be to get rid of the 'Members only' part of the Loft so all our vocal support is back behind the goal (at a reasonable price of course).

[PedalR]

I don't think it's tenable to be a Prem team with an 18K stadium.... frankly it'd be embarrassing. We could fall back on excuse of being newly promoted for a year or two but we'd have to quickly come up with plans for a ground that could hold a minimum of 25K. For games against ManU, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea we could easily get 30K plus. Stuck with an 18K capaicity will mean literally peeing circa £500K away for many home games. There's zero point having a prem class team/board in a championship stadium.