In the halcyon days, football was the people’s game, or so we like to recall. It was played by people like us. Prices were cheap and games were good value with competitive football and no play acting/ cheating as I prefer to call it.
Back in the early 1980s, then Tory MP Matthew Paris lived in Scotswood, Newcastle for a week living on benefits. He was able to afford to go to watch Newcastle United play. He got £26 benefits and a match ticket was £2.50. He repeated the exercise in 2004. By now benefits had doubled to £50 a week, but a football match ticket was now circa £25, a 10 fold increase. The increase at Newcastle is not much different to many other clubs.
When I was a student in the mid 1980s living in Manchester I often attended at least 2 football league matches a week. I was able to afford to do this. Now, a solicitor with many years qualified, I cannot afford to do this. Football prices have risen exponentially in the last 20 or so years.
In the 1980s, a good footballer generally earned about as much as a partner in a decent solicitors firm in the town. Nowadays, an average footballer in the Premiership earns as much per week as the same solicitor does. A day out at football can easily cost £100 by the time food, drink, programmes and travel are added to the cost of a match ticket.Indeed at Arsenal, a match ticket for one game costs up to £126. Yes, that is for 1 game! Arsenal get 60,000 people paying such inflated prices.
Turn the clock back 30 or more years and most football clubs were owned by a local businessman or bigwig. Often run as his personal hobby or as a tool to promote his business interests. Now football is all about money. We have club owners like Mike Ashley at Newcastle United who makes it very clear that he has no interest in being popular with the fans. Indeed he takes an almost perverse delight in antagonising the fans. You may ask why he doesn’t try to impress the fans or to make himself more popular. The answer is simple. He doesn’t need to. He knows that no matter how badly he treats the fans he will still get 40,000+ fans turning up each week.
I along with most of my friends have relinquished my season ticket at Newcastle, but other suckers buy them available season tickets and turn up every week. When you have mugs to pay the sky high admission prices, then football has no need to appeal to the fans.
Another gripe about fans of Premiership football is the fact that their team have so few 3pm kick offs on a Saturday with games being moved to Saturday lunchtime, Saturday night, Sundays or even Monday night. This is often done at short notice and after fans have already bought non refundable train tickets. Why do these games get moved? Because football sold its soul to Sky TV back in 1992 and gave Sky the right to dictate kick off times. This means that games are scheduled to suit the TV companies not the fans attending the games. We even now have the FA Cup Final kicking off at tea time on a Saturday to suit TV audiences despite this often mean those fans attending the game can’t get home that night.
The stupid thing is that many of those fans complaining about these fixture changes have Sky TV at home or go down the pub several times a week to watch Sky TV’s live football. Thus the fans are contributing money to Sky to enable them to pay for the right to screen live football and dictate the kick off times.
Then we have replica kits. Many clubs change their kits every season and often have 3 kits, not just 2. Why do the clubs change their kits so often? Well, its simple, so they can sell more kits. Those same fans who complain about the every changing expensive kits go out and buy the latest kit every time it changes.
So, how are football fans there own worst enemy? Well if you haven’t twigged it yet, then perhaps you are part of the problem? I’ll continue…
If you go to a restaurant that is closed whenever you want to enter it, would you keep returning? Imagine if the restaurant opens some Saturday night and not others, would you keep going there? Probably not, but football fans complain about kick off times and then turn up no matter when the game is played.
What about ever changing kits? Well, I am a cyclist and bike manufacturers change their bike ranges regularly, but I don’t buy a new bike because the manufacturer has added a stripe to the bike colouring. Yet football fans seem to think they must buy a new shirt every time the club change it. Do they not realise that their slavish buying of new kit encourages clubs to change the kit and increase their income. If you stopped buying new kit every year, then clubs would not be so keen to change their kit.
The same is true of the ever increasing prices. If you keep on paying the ever increasing prices, then the clubs will continue to increase the prices.
Fans seem to fail to realise that their beloved club is just another business. You wouldn’t keep shopping at M&S if they put their prices up too high or the quality of the product is poor or the store keeps switching its opening times. Yet those football fans keep turning up and handing over their money like lemmings. Why would football clubs want to change when they know they will get guaranteed income.
The same is true of catering in a ground. £4 for a pie or £2.50 for a cup of coffee? Go to a non league club and buy the same pie or cup of coffee for £1.50 and £1 respectively. Why do premiership or football league clubs charge such high prices? Because people will pay those prices. If fans had sense they would get refreshments before/ after the game from outside the ground. At Orient for example, the cafe 100 yards from the ground does a full meal and a tea / coffee for less than the £5+ it would cost for a burger/pie and a cup of tea in the ground.
Football fans, instead of complaining about being bled dry and treated like sh*t by football clubs, the answer is in your hands. Vote with your wallet. Instead of paying through the nose make a stand for value.
If you can’t do without your football fix, then get yourself down to your local non league ground, with admission for as little as £5 at some grounds, cheap food and drink, including alcoholic drinks. You may not see Rooney or Suarez, but you will see 22 players playing for pride, not just a wage packet.
Boycotting the Premiership / Football League clubs and their over priced products will force clubs to think again about their treatment of fans. However, you may not return to watching football at that level when you realise how good football is at non league level, and great value for money.
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