by Sir Rodger Doyle »
19 Oct 2009 21:40
The begining of the end.
The Chairman prepares to wind up RFC as a major loss making division of RFC holdings. This allows the profitable parts of the business like the Hotel and conference centre to feed profits into the holding company. London Irish are now the key tenants and need to be supported as such.(hence the early trawling of the RFC database). The football club is allowed to die quietly at the foot of league two with no blame attached to anyone for it's demise, after all it is almost impossible to run one at a profit. With the poxy football out of the way they are able to capitalise on the redundant support left by the death of RFC.
The spare match days are then filled by the hoops from QPR, who also pay the holding company huge amounts to play in the Madejski stadium in their return to the Premier league.
The cost of developing a new stadium anywhere near West London has proved to be hugely expensive and the cuckoo plan is the only one that makes sense. The powers at QPR had been looking to build a 38,000 capacity stadium and would need to arrange planning permission before any deal could be done. After initial anger and mourning, Reading fans begin turn up in droves to watch the newly named Queens Park Royals sweep all before them domestic and european competitions. After a period of time, the holding company from the now defunct Reading football club sells all of its interest to the now re-named Queens Park Rangers.
Reading Town's gates rise to almost 2000.
You read it here first.