The Club Census 40 Years Ago

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On the 6th April 1968, our opponents at Loftus Road were Carlisle United and in the match programme that day were the results of a census taken of the QPR fan base. How extensive this sample was I don’t know but it would have certainly been very different if there had been one taken ten years earlier before many more families were to leave West London. The exodus was to be mainly up the Western Avenue and beyond Gypsy Corner. Around this time my family moved from W12 to Perivale and later on to Greenford.

A subsequent factor would have been that from the 1965-66 Season, our fame and reputation was being heralded further afield than the pages of the ‘Bush Gazette’ and the ‘Willesden Chronicle’. In fact, apart from promotion the previous year we also won ‘you know what’ at Wembley and the following month in May of ’68, we were to achieve promotion again and this time to the top flight and our fan base increased and widened yet again.

Interesting to note that the Programme Editorial remarked that the Sports Writers were “sitting back in amazement as we broke down all their fancy theories about being too open at the back, too pretty at the front and too na√Øve to really appreciate what football was all about, but we are still top of the table..” !!!!!!

Roger Morgan was due to play his 150th league game and Gerry Francis had just started for the Juniors. I have been fascinated by just how far and wide our support covers and the results of that census 40 years ago are as follows:-

Local e.g. West, NW, SW and Central London.39.30%
Middlesex.28.20%
North and East London5.20%
Hertfordshire4.10%
Bedfordshire and Bucks2.50%
Surrey2.20%
Berkshire2.10%
Kent and Sussex1.70%
Essex1.30%
Hampshire and Wiltshire 0.90%
Rest of the Country and Overseas12.50%
This last figure seems a bit high and with no proper breakdown, just examples given as Blackpool, Northern Counties, Western Counties and Countries such as USA and Ghana !!!

Steve Russell

4 thoughts on “The Club Census 40 Years Ago”

  1. An interesting exercise and one that would probably yield differing results nowadays. Back then 12.50% for the rest of the country and overseas without the internet, satellite TV, budget airlines, etc wasn’t half bad!

    Must have been the Gospel according to Rodney that did it!

  2. Interesting Stats there Steve.

    These days I would guess that the “local” figure of 39.30% would be a lot less… In recent times we have even reached a membership of 43 in the Manchester R’s alone!

    I bet though if a census had been carried out ten years earlier in 1958 the “local” support would have been nearly 60%

    PS We beat Carlisle 1-0..Frank Clarke Goal..and got a lucky let off near the end when Carlisle hit the post at the school end and the ball rolled along the goal line and away to safety. Phew!

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