Austadiums Forum

QPR have moved ahead with their plans.
http://www.new-queens-park.co.uk/

The shot of the wing from behind the corner flag looks pretty hot.

This will be about 3km from Saffer Rd. Close enough that the club doesn't feel like it's been yanked and plonked somewhere else like the Fake Dons.

I'm usually weary of urban regeneration projects of this scale, because they're plain hard to get right. But at least being anchored to a stadium development will give the area a purpose.

One detail I like is that they want to re-name the area "New Queens Park", which is cool. Naming the location after the football club, rather than the other way round.

Another interesting thing is the list of clubs endowed with 40k+ stadiums is hardening up farkn well into the lower end of the premiership, and championship. And yet the elite clubs - some with little to no extra seats to sell - remain at the top. It's all brand. And it's not England making the top brands elite brands, it's us.

It's the Asian, Middle Eastern and African fans that are keeping Real Madrid, Barcelona, Liverpool and Manchester United at the top of the earnings tables

Liverpool does a great job capitalising on its romantic, tragic history, and ignoring the fact its fans are also cold blooded murderers.

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yob wrote:Liverpool does a great job capitalising on its romantic, tragic history, and ignoring the fact its fans are also cold blooded murderers.

Ridiculous. There were certainly people in the Liverpool end at Heysel who were subsequently convicted of manslaughter, but you miss the point that either Hillsborough or Heysel could've happened to any clubs of the time. Hooliganism was rife (Heysel) and facilities were awful (Heysel and Hillsborough).

What the?

The fans causing the crush at Hillsborough were not culpable. Authorities granted them entry to a confined space ignorant of the consequence. A liverpool fan at the back of the line would've thought they were just nudging in to the back of the person in front, with no idea or line of sight to what was happening in the terrace in front.

Heysel was caused by Liverpool fans bashing down a fence with intent to charge and attack opposition fans, and the result was fans being charged, attacked, crushed then killed.

If "any" club "could" have caused this, then why didn't they? Because it's a bull sh*t rationalisation, not a fact substantiated by evidence.

But if you don't want to hear it from me, leave it at the door of the courts jailing people for manslaughter and UEFA who banned England from European competitions. Apparently "everyone was doing it but poor old England got caught up in it" didn't fly as a defence 30 years ago either.

I think you missed my point. At no point did I blame fans for Hillsborough. sh*t facilities and sh*t stewarding were the primary factors.

For Heysel, a rundown stadium (where *both* sets of fans were able to simply pick up pieces of the crumbling terraces to hoik at one another!) as well as the other parts you mentioned. Why didn't other clubs cause this? They weren't in a European Cup final in that particular stadium. Most stadiums for the EC final weren't ramshackle places half falling down. Most stadiums had more effective separation of rival fans and most stadiums had fences that would stop fans from entering the pitch (as Juve fans did, and battled with police on the running track).

Hooliganism was epidemic in the 80s - had it been Panathinaikos or Bordeaux that won their semi-finals against (respectively) Liverpool or Juve, there might have been the same issues.

If you think I'm saying Liverpool fans were blameless, I'm not. What I'm saying is they weren't alone in being part of a toxic, violent, appalling culture of hooliganism now largely eradicated through better policing, better facilities and (to be frank about it) higher ticket prices 'gentrifying' football crowds. They were the ones who were utter c***s that day, and the fans who went down for manslaughter deserved every bit of what they got, but it wasn't the only day and they weren't the only club where c***s were on the loose, it's just that on one day in 1985 they were the ones to be part of a confluence of factors resulting in an appalling loss of life.

I do follow your reasoning. On one point I wasn't trying to moralise you on hillsborough - in fact, nothing gets my goat more than people trying to use those sorts of events to build capital for themselves. It was just in service of the original point - that the liverpool brand has two sides - one inspires nostalgia and romance, and the other doesn't even exist anymore. I've sat in beer gardens in Penang, Bangkok which were a non exagerated sea of locals mad for liverpool watching a broadcast. They all know YNWA, but couldn't tell you what a heysel is.

As far as branding goes, we can safely call that a teflon brand. Up there with Apple products made for lefty yuppies by slave labourers in buildings with suicide nets.

Fair enough, but that's not quite how your first post read.

Back on topic, a used car yard stands in the way...
http://www.theguardian.com/football/201 ... n-cargiant

yob wrote:Up there with Apple products made for lefty yuppies by slave labourers in buildings with suicide nets.

Another Apple-basher I see.

Yawn.

kilonewton wrote:Back on topic, a used car yard stands in the way...
http://www.theguardian.com/football/201 ... n-cargiant

And meanwhile on the same page, Everton announce a lazy 50,000 seat stadium relocation