Watching Football Matches

In 1986 I travelled by train to watch Wolves play Tranmere Rovers in a forth Division game at Molineux, Wolves home ground. The whole day cost me around £12, which included train ticket, ground admission (we paid on the day at the turnstiles in those days), programme & food. I might have brought some fags but I can’t remember that minor detail. Fast forward to 2006 and again I am heading by the same route to watch Wolves play Crewe Alexandra , only this time the whole day cost me over £40. The only extra cost compared to 1986 was the Wolves fanzine “A Load of Bull” (which I recommend if you are ever attending a game at Molineux). The train ticket was still cheap (relatively) and the programme had gone up from 80p to £2.50. The biggest rise was admission to the game which had gone up from around £5 to £25. This was of no surprise to me, because I had been constantly attending games across the divisions in the intervening years and seen the cost of admission go up steadily year after year. I am no financial analyst but I don’t believe that inflation over the period had justified such an increase. No, the reason for such an increase can be summed up in one word, Greed.

While in exile in Shropshire during the 1990’s I used to watch quite a lot of midlands football, mainly at Aston Villa, Wolves , Walsall & WBA. In 2002 WBA got promoted to the Premiership under Gary Megson and the following season after they had come back down, I went to watch them play Ipswich town. I hadn’t been to a Hawthorns game for a couple of seasons and I noticed the difference very quickly. It was obvious that West Brom had been in the Premiership as the admission price had gone up by around 40% in that time. Buying my Programme which was now a massive £3 (fanzine 80p), I entered the ground and decided to have a beer , this was a mistake as I should have stayed in the pub. Upon ordering one beer I watched as the girl poured a small can into a plastic beer glass which was only just over half full and had the nerve to ask for £3.50p. I refused as this was such a rip-off even by football standards. I went and sat down in the ground and read the fanzine “Gorty Dick”. In the fanzine was a letter from a fan who was complaining about the beer prices within the ground, something I had just found out for myself. If only I had read the fanzine before entering the ground I thought. The club answered the fanzine’s query regarding the very high prices of their beer, their answer was, “I think you will find our prices compare favourably to other clubs”. using my “Marketing & Sales Ballshit Translator Yearbook”. I found that this term means everybody else is robbing you blind so we thought we would as well. Great book that, you can get it at any expensive bookshop, priced £145.99p. Cheap at half the price!!!

Something else I had noticed while walking around the ground was that there appeared to be a lot of new employees walking around in nice shiny suits. It seemed to me that by getting to the premiership West Brom had attracted the Suits and that was why the prices had gone up. So there you have it, employ loads of blokes in nice suits and suddenly everything starts getting more expensive. I think the term used by those responsible would be “Maximizing your Opportunities”, which to you and me means cheating people by putting your prices up for the sake of making more money. In the world of the money men profit has to be increased season after season so that, err, they can employ more people dressed in suits?

This behaviour by clubs has to stop now that we are in bad financial times. Some clubs have already started making an effort in their ticket pricing, notably at Middlesbrough, Blackburn, Bolton & Aston Villa. I’m afraid the Big Clubs, especially the So Called “Big Four” are not making any effort that I can see.

This attitude will (I hope) rebound back on them. Lord Justice Taylor in his report on the “Hillsborough disaster” said that clubs should not use the excuse of all seated stadiums to raise ticket prices. The Clubs have completely ignored this but what is more unforgivable is that have constantly ignored the fans concerns on high ticket prices. This though is to be expected as they have been taking the fans support for granted even since I can remember.

The ironic situation at my club York City, is that I pay £14 to see conference football because two unscrupulous individuals made the clubs financial well being so bad that the present owners have very little option, other than to charge one of the highest admission prices in the Conference. This is simply so that they can try & survive on the small gates they get, even though they are some of the best in the Conference. Yet both individuals that created the financial situation at York City will be subscribers to “Marketing & Sales Ballshit Translator Yearbook” in order to sound acceptable members of society & not the Pariahs that most people think they are. Funny that they always wore suits, not that I am connecting the two!!!

Hopefully the present economic downturn will persuade them otherwise, somehow I doubt it.

Douglas Martin

17^th April 2009