Retiring Shirts

[QPRDave]

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/sport/qpr-fans-want-to-retire-the-number-five-shirt-1-3987857

Ok i'm not trying to be disrespectful or controversial, or looking for a row. I've seen this story on newsnow and just wondered what the consensus on here is regarding macca's no5 shirt.
I don't think we should retire the no5. I know we retired Ray Jones' shirt but for me that was different as Ray had a very short career with us sadly, so for me that was his piece of the Rs we could remember him by, and it not being a 1-11 shirt i think made a difference. Alan has had a long magnificent career with us and so can be rightly considered a legend and for me it would be more appropriate to have an area named after him.
I saw a conversation on lfw about this and one poster also made a very good point on there, that by retiring shirts we will eventually run out of them.If you consider this for Macca, then it would have to be done for Gerry, Stanley, Mike Keen? and so on. It was also pointed out that by not retiring the shirt, then the new incumbent of the no will realise what they have to live up to.
Any thoughts?? I love the fact that the QPR no10 for instance has such prestige and history behind it and we demand any special player to wear it.

[nuffieldranger]

I had the same thoughts myself but equally there are only a certain amount of areas to a ground you can name after players too.. maybe we should have a memorial with players names on near the front entrance which we could all pay respects to when we choose to or lsa place a bunch of flowers at it on the fisrst home game of every season would be a a good idea what do you recon

[kron-1664]

shouldnt retire shirts, seriously , i have the utmost respect for Big Mac and was shocked at hearing about his passing. What if sir les or Gerry Francis etc passed, we would run out of shirt numbers. Lets all remember our legends fondly, we dont need to retire shirts to do that.

[brightonr]

Agree with you Dave.

No disrespect to anyone calling for him to be remembered fittingly, but I personally feel that the no.5 should be seen as something to aspire to. If we withdrew the No.10 for one of the greats, or the No.1 for that matter, how could we honour one of the others? I don't think the club would even consider such a course of action for a minute, because whilst it is meant with the best intentions, the more you think it through, the less sensible it becomes and I don't think the current owners are the type prone to rash or emotional decisions. Think they would rather take time to come up with the correct methods of doing things, as they have done with JB. Who is to say wether or not a particular player is worthy of such an honour or not?

Something really big and long standing should be done in my view, even if it means waiting until we get a new ground. Big enough to truly recognise how much he loved Rangers, how hard and determined he fought for us, over such a long period of time, whilst always behaving in a manner that ensured that he had our respect, love and gratitude in such quantity, that such a discussion is even taking place.

[WavyQPR]

Couldn't agree more with this thread...my son is a defender..right back(not maccas position)...but he wears the number 5...now he's not the most gifted defender ..but he has become attached to the number!..he's also 11 years old, a QPR season ticket holder and emotional at times...if the number is retired, it will bother him..and me..keep it live for maccas memory..don't retire it!..legend.

[QPRDave]

Thanks for the replies fellas, i felt awkward posting this, because we all know how much Macca means to the fans of our club, but i saw that article on newsnow.
Brighton i think you're right with a new stadium seemingly imminent maybe we should have something there, a museum or similar.

[Felt]

No disrespect to Macca, but a shirt number should only be retired when a player dies while still wearing it for the club.

[stainrodisalegend]

Have to agree. Loved Macca and great servant of the club who deserves to be honoured. But think gestures like that should be reserved for tragedies, and extremely sad and premature tho his death was all the pointers seem to suggest it was just being down to his addiction to fags. And tho no centre half (in my life time anyway) has played so often for the club, we have also had centre halves who were major club figures (off the top of my head, wickes, mclintock, peacock, even bobby hazell.

[maverick69]

I think the big man would want the exact opposite: Make sure that the club strives to do the number 5 shirt justice instead of giving it to some of the dross since the big man left..

[Factamondo]

if i wore the number five knowing a true qpr legend like big mac wore it id take that as a massive honour and it would inspire me!

[silvercue]

A shirt should not be retired for a club legend IMHO or we will have to start at number 20 one day.

As a very rare tribute retire for a World legend. Maradona, Zidane, maybe Messi one day.

[QPR_NW10]

not sure about retiring numbers - i mean there are only 99 numbers out there...if we're expecting football to go for another 150 years just as strong has it has done...we'll run out of numbers, literally

[winalotto]

I not for all this retiring the shirt number, in a few years time someone may come in and want the 5 shirt, time is a great healer, where as macca should never be forgotten a tribute to him by naming a stand or a area in Loftus Road would be much more fitting and be a true memorial to a great qpr man. A number is a number a statue or a naming of a stand is a permanent reminder.

[BUSHRANGER1982]

If the club had been "retiring" shirt numbers every time a player wearing that number died, and from day 1 in 1882, we would probably be in the "1000's" by now.
There's no need to go overboard on this issue.
Macca's passing away is tremendously sad, but grieve for God's sake without feeling the need to make a big show of it.
The man himself would have thought the idea way over the top.