Independent Rs Messageboard

[Steve Russell]

O 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 naive 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 London
5.20%

Hertfordshire 4.10%

Bedfordshire and Bucks 2.50%

Surrey 2.20%

Berkshire 2.10%

Kent and Sussex 1 .70%

Essex 1.30%

Hampshire and Wiltshire 0.90%

Rest of the Country and Overseas 12.50%

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

[steveqpr881]

About 6 months before my 1st visit to LR.
I was in W6 at the time,now in Berkshire - & I reckon that 2.1% has gone up massively.