We’re wondering if we ought to create a new category on this blog – for Queen’s Park Rangers football club.
The west London team is reportedly the latest English club to become the subject of a high-profile buyout.
And this time Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone and his long-time collaborator, Renault boss Flavio Briatore, are in the frame.
The Championship club announced yesterday that major shareholder Antonio Caliendo and his backers had agreed a sell-out deal.
And Briatore and Ecclestone are thought to have agreed a deal to buy the majority share.
The club ground, Loftus Road, is a prime piece of real estate, situated as it is on the fringes of fashionable Kensington which has some of the country’s highest property prices.
Though whether Shepherd’s Bush itself will ever count as gentrified is a moot point.
Fortunately it is unlikely that residents across the Westway will have to listen to the ear-splitting din of high-performance engines – although there did used to be a kart track just up the road.
Could there be more to this than meets the eye? Unlikely – a former karting venue is unlikely to be hosting the relocated British Grand Prix any time soon, however cross Bernie gets with Damon Hill.
But maybe being a venue owner, especially one that’s a little bit restricted and hemmed in by development, will give Bernie a bit more empathy for the British Racing Drivers’ Club.
Come to think of it, there’s more than a passing resemblance between Silverstone and an old Second Division ground of the 1970s…