Must have been mind boggling in its day

I'm old enough to remember watching games at White City.
4000 people in a stadium built for 65000. Dispiriting was a good word for it.

Ingham probably did say hello. He might even have shouted it. You were just too far away to hear him.

Trouble is now we are as a club talking about moving and yet we had that site and the chance to buy the school ground area and did none of them so I guess its a case of ifs, buts and maybe's
But I think if the club at the time was forward thinking we could have got the old White City site and done it up and had maybe a better chance for the club at the time to move on, that said it was in the days when LR was doing the job for us.

Shame is, all I can say that a great wee ground of West London and it's past was able to be bulldozed down only to make way for that eyesore.
As for us, well again we will have to wait and see what we do if we do move, where we end up.

One thing I do not want to happen is for us to move in with Fulham and something happen to the ground as once gone we may never see a new ground again.

It is funny how time removes much from the memory but some things stick! I have two vivid memories of the White City apart from being dragged there for the dogs by my parents.
One was the night of the first match when torrential rain robbed the Rs of a bumper crowd, and, the second was the infamous pitch invasion.
The Kelmscott Gardens brigade including Kerrins I believe were standing immediately behind the somewhat intoxicated trio of Irish supporters. I can remember their conversations which abruptly came to a spectacular end with the invasion which left us shocked and doubled up laughing (painful!).

[quote="finney"]

Shame is, all i can say that a great wee ground of West London and it's past was able to be bulldozed down only to make way for that eye sore.
As for us, well again we will have to wait and see what we if we do move end up.
quote]

The funny thing is Paul people described the White City as an eyesore in the early 80s - and that was the stadium they were referring to, not the BBC!

I think a big opportunity was missed when there were sites going in the S Bush area that we could have had and could probably have got Olympics money to help build a 30,000 capacity stadium. Funny how Spurs are now sniffing around the main stadium all of a sudden.

If England get the 2018 WC (and that is a very big if as I suspect that bid is going up the Swanee fast) then that might be one last opportunity for a deal on a local stadium. Personally I'd like to stay at Loftus Rd but if we have to move I want it to be in the close vicinity. Arsenal were so fortunate to have such a huge site on their doorstep.

Martin

I know what you mean Martin the old WCS was a bit of a mess to say the least then again so was wembley.

The thing is i guess we did not have gates to back up our case of a bigger LR or a rebuild of WSC.
When Jim Gregory came to us he had vision and hunger and he made Queen's Park Rangers he left a very different man as time does that to us all.

the 80's were also not good for football with the things going on in this country and overseas.
It was not sexy to be a fan and we by being fans an underclass in the eyes of the world.
With the birth of the Premier League and then the fall out of Euro 96 that is when football went into overdrive,
Shame as WSC revamped would have been an ideal place to have a decent sized ground and the way the place is now you are near the airports and the west end.

As always with our club the timing just did not happen.

As does always seem to be the case Paul! I remember my Dad telling me that older generations of Rs were still resenting the fact that in 1908 Rangers finished Southern League Champions and resigned from the league on the assumption that they would be elected to Div 2 of the Football League. Instead Spurs were elected and we had to wait another 40 years for Div 2!

Sums us up that does mate

True, Kerrins old son. Echoes the very interesting thread about whether the Board are serious. And the ensuing discussion about ambition, the size of Clubs, and so on.

We question why the Club doesn't buy better players. Not just this sort of player either. Why not buy the very best? We're told these businessmen are the dogs, not because they know football, they haven't a clue, but because they're businessmen, because they get what they want, and because they are very rich.

But when it comes to the huge ground, the world class players, the trophies, suddenly we're back to being a small Club with a tiny ground and support which hasn't changed in its basic scope since the Club came into the league.

Even the big Clubs are unable to scale up. Arsenal go on and on about how their ground will transform everything when, newly built, it holds 15,000 less than United's. If revenue is that big, and the site is that cramped, why not spend part of that vast future revenue on a really big site with a reall huge ground?

Hmmm. The more I hear about grounds, the more I think their only real significance to directors and shareholders is as a piece of property they can sell. The new ground is neither here nor there. It's the one you already own that matters. You can get money for that. The hype surrounding new stadiums is the smokescreen. Selling is what it's about.

Upton Park, for example. Talk about the Olympic Stadium, sell the football ground.