Th£ Cost of FootballTickets, TV and terrace culture: an investigation by Paul Martin

Premier League announce £30 price capThe Premier

League have announced that

away tickets will be capped at £30 next season in a landmark decision that is set to save travelling fans hun-dreds of pounds.

Supporters groups from across the country have been protesting about the cost of ticket prices in the top flight for several seasons, and they have intensi-fied in recent weeks as Liverpool fans staged a 77th-minute walkout in their match against Sun-derland and a ‘weekend of action’ was planned for March 19th.

The £30 cap remains higher than the £20 limit that the Football Supporters Federation have been campaigning for, but they are pleased with the outcome.

“We regard it as a sig-nificant step forward,” said Liam Thompson, the FSF’s Communica-tions Director. “We still think twenty’s plenty but this is a good start.

“A lot of the naysayers have said we’ve been wasting our time and that billionaire owners will never listen to us, but this shows that pro-testing over a period of time can have an effect, and we’re very pleased about that,” he added.

Arsenal fans are set to save the most, with travelling Gunners in line to spend £367 less than they have done this season on match tickets; a saving helped by the club’s decision to subsidise each ticket by £4, so every away game will cost £26.

“We obviously welcome it from a fans point of view, as we have campaigned for a cap for a number of years,” said Akhil Vyas, a board member of the Arsenal Supporters Trust.

“I think £26 is a good compromise – we’re paying £60 at West Ham in a few weeks,” he con-tinued. “Watching Ar-senal play Spurs or Man City for £26 seems good

value to me. It shows that when everyone is in it together the fans do still have a voice.”

Everton supporter Dave Kelly is an influen-tial member of Toffees’ fans group Blue Union as well as the FSF, and has attended meetings with the Premier League about capping prices for the past four seasons.

“I’m absolutely de-lighted, given that I’ll be paying £55 at Old Traf-ford soon and the same at West Ham,” he said, but he is wary of fans becoming too excited by it before the full details are revealed.

“There is very little talk about what has or hasn’t been agreed and what we’ve signed up to,” Dave said. “I com-pare it to the minimum wage, where suddenly everyone on low pay was on the same money whether you were on more or less before. Are they going to make every ticket £30, includ-ing kids?”

Dave’s is not the only sceptical voice regarding the cap. Nick Harris runs football finance website sportingintel-ligence.com, and sees the announcement as a missed opportunity.

“They could have in-novated from a position of strength – they’ve chosen to do a little bit of that but my argument would be that they could and should do a lot more,” he said

“I suspect that rather than do something re-ally significant, they’ve taken the option of doing something that they think will get them some praise and close down the debate.

“I’m surprised that a lot of fans groups agreed

Nick’s Numbers:• 50,000 – the approximate number of away tickets likely to remain unsold next season - “these could go into a pot for those less well off, such as youngsters, students, pensioners and the unemployed.”• £2 million – the approximate amount it would cost Premier League clubs (£100,000 each) to let these aforementioned fans in for nothing next season by giving unsold tickets away for free.• £500,000 – the approximate amount that every Premier League club would have to contribute to ensure that all Football League tickets could be capped at £20 - “but there’s a cat in hell’s chance of that happening.”• £40 million – The increase in revenue that each Premier League club will see next season purely as a result of the rise in the television deal.• £38.4 million – The increase in revenue that each club would see even if they gave away every away ticket for nothing next season.• £100 million – The figure that the team who finish bottom of the Premier League next season will receive as a result of the new deal.• £2.5 million – The figure that the team that wins the Champion-ship next season will receive as a result of their TV deal.

From North Bank to Non-League

“It’s hard to explain without sounding like a dinosaur,” begins

Steve Harrold, who held an Arsenal season ticket from 1969 before giving it up eight years ago due to the astronomical costs, “but football is a very sterile en-vironment now. The banter has gone, the rivalries have gone; football is now a place where you go and sit down for 90 minutes and applaud politely – it’s like going to the theatre.”

Steve is a classic example of a football fan brought up in an era that now seems a world away. “When I started going on the Clock End at Highbury it was 45p, and nowadays my 15-year old nephew saves all his birthday and Christmas money just to go to one game. I feel dreadfully sorry for him – he’s fanatically Arsenal but he just can’t afford to go.”

The Gunners have made headlines for years due to their pricing, which is remarkably high even by Premier League standards –

their cheapest season ticket is £1,014, whilst individual matchday tickets can cost up to £97. Moving to the Emirates Stadium in 2006 stretched the wallets of loyal fans to breaking point, and this proved to be the final straw for Steve.

“My season ticket went up to £1,300 when we moved to the Emirates,” he explains. “I was on my second rela-tionship, we had a kid on the way and it was just too expensive to justify.” Steve’s story is far from unique, and is representative of the shifting demographic of match-going football fans in England’s top flight.

What was in Steve’s youth a place where “you could go after a hard week at work and shout your mouth off ” has now become an environ-ment where such behaviour can be frowned upon, and going to the match has lost its edge as a result. Arsenal versus Tottenham, for example, now feels like a derby where the brag-ging rights are fought over

by accountants from the Home Counties rather than working class Londoners like Steve and his mates.

In the midst of all this, what has happened to Ar-senal’s traditional support? “I think it’s been completely crushed,” answers Steve. “I could probably split my group of mates into roughly thirds – one third still go, another third will watch it in the pubs and the remainder are people like myself who have just stopped going or go to non-league.”

The recently announced £30 cap on away tickets is also unlikely to bring Steve back. “I think they’ve lost me,” he confirms. “They’ve given up on us, to be honest, they see us as Neanderthals. Football has changed so much, and those of us that used to stand on the North Bank have just given up with it by the looks of it. For many it’s too little too late.”

Steve still tries to go to the odd game at the Emirates, but resents the fact that “it is all geared towards cost and exploiting people – the club shop is bigger than the local Asda. They rely on people’s loyalty, but I don’t feel any loyalty back from them; I feel like they have disowned us, but at Arsenal there’s always someone else to come in and fill the seats. I feel like I’m being mugged every time I go up there.”

To prove his point,

Steve makes the compari-son between the Emirates experience and his new life in non-league. “My season ticket at Tooting & Mitcham costs £160; last season I went to see Arsenal play Crystal Palace and the day cost me £120.”

Such extortionate prices are also having an effect on the next generation. “My son is now growing up sup-porting Tooting & Mitcham, so that’s one they have lost for the future,” he says. “My friends have kids who sup-port Arsenal but will never be able to afford to go, so you’ve got to wonder about the fanbase – what’s going to happen in ten years’ time?”

Steve’s description of his final years watching Arsenal is likely to ring true with fans across the top flight. “For years I felt like I was being taken advantage of and treated like a fool,” he says, “and it’s like any relationship – you can put up with them being stupid once or twice but eventually you reach a stage where you think ‘enough’s enough’ and I reached that stage with Ar-senal; it was like a divorce.”

The fact that his hard-earned cash was going into the pockets of pampered players did little to convince Steve to continue attending. “When you’re paying £60 a ticket and it is going on Olivier Giroud’s hair gel or for Theo Walcott to sit in the

stands injured you just feel you’re being mugged.”

Despite admitting that he’ll “always be Arsenal”, Steve seems content with his new role at Tooting & Mitcham. “I’m involved on the commercial side, I help out with writing and selling programmes – you actually feel like you’re making a difference when you go up there,” he explains.

Traditional loyalties are also set aside, as fans from Steve’s generation realise they actually have more in common than they may have liked to admit on the terrac-es back in the day. “There are people from all the London clubs that come to Tooting, but particularly Arsenal and Chelsea. Our fanbases have changed so much over the years – they’re like complete-ly different clubs now.”

Fans who still follow top flight football – and certainly those who run it – may write off Steve’s views as prehistoric, but his story is one that is replicated across the country. As the demo-graphic of football fans in the UK continues to change, there is a lack of reflection on what might happen if the bubble eventually bursts; the day-trippers and corporate crowds that grow in number every season will find anoth-er hobby, and clubs may end up rueing the fact they didn’t do more to keep fans like Steve on side.

Liverpool fans protesting during their February fixture with Sunderland; thousands of fans later staged a 77th-minute walkout

Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, which Steve has now left behind

who saves what?Sunderland - £136Stoke - £131Watford - £131Crystal Palace - £129Southampton - £105Leicester - £102Swansea - £85Bournemouth - £76Norwich - £68(@sportingintelligence)

to this £30 cap so en-thusiastically. I can see on the one hand why it is ‘a victory’, and it is a

positive thing, but on the other hand it seems to me like they are a bit too easily pleased.”

Arsenal - £367Man Utd - £310Liverpool - £303Man City - £302Chelsea - £299Tottenham - £283Everton - £202Newcastle - £191West Ham - £177Aston Villa - £176West Brom - £152

“I feel like they have disowned us, but at Arsenal there’s always someone else to come in and fill the seats. I feel like I’m being mugged every time I go up there.”

Steve Harrold in his youth at Highbury (left) and with his son at non-league Tooting and Mitcham FC (right), who play in the Isthmian League Division One South

“Everybody out!” - Waddle backs PL boycott

Former England international Chris Waddle has called

on fans to stand united against the “ludicrous” cost of watching Premier League football and boy-cott matches until clubs change their pricing strategies.

The winger – who played 62 times for Eng-land and is now an influ-ential pundit for Radio 5Live and BT Sport – has insisted that fans should be rewarded for their loy-alty through lower prices in the top flight.

“It should be £15-20 a ticket, no more, in every ground. They just don’t need the money from the fans like they used to,” he said. “It just seems to be a production line of ‘we need more money, we need to hit targets, sell more merchandise’– eventually you’ll get to a level where you can’t go any further and it will explode.

“I’ve been in the game for decades, played pro-fessionally for 20 years, and I can tell you now it’s all about greed,” he went

on. “Football is a fans game, but whereas a few years ago clubs were very dependent on the fans for their income they are not now, so clubs have to find a way to be fairer to their supporters.”

Signs of protest emerged in the Premier League this season as Liverpool fans staged a 77th-minute walkout in their match against Sunderland in February, but Waddle insists that more widespread collec-tive action is required for change to occur.

“They have stood up to the club and got prices frozen for now, so fair play to them,” Waddle said. “But how long will it be until they try and up the prices again – espe-cially if Liverpool are up there fighting for the title next season, as then people will pay it.

“The problem is you need all the fans united. How many times do you read about boycotts and protests and then it is a small minority that actu-ally do it. The clubs know that the fans will stroll up

to the ground on a Satur-day and watch the match; it is part of their life.

“I started my career at Newcastle and I’ve always said you could put 11 schoolboys out there on a Saturday afternoon and get 35,000 in – they’re that fanatical, and so are many other clubs,” he said. “The problem is, the clubs know that too, and until the fans stop moan-ing and do something nothing will ever change.

“I do phone-ins now, and people ring up and say ‘it’s a disgrace, I’ve paid 49 quid today’ – well don’t pay it! Every-body out, down tools! Wouldn’t it be great if everybody said ‘no, we’re not going this week’ and continued it until clubs changed their views – something would have to be done. Gradually they would try and up it again but fans have to be strong enough to say ‘no, we’re loyal fans, we want a fair price.’”

Waddle is a rare example of an English footballer who has succeeded abroad having

spent three seasons at Marseille, and feels that fans here could follow the example set by their European counterparts on ticket prices.

“People moan about the French, but when they down tools they do it properly and it makes a difference,” he continued. “We can learn from that. You can’t keep harping on about how unfair it is without doing anything about it.”

As someone who is also an outspoken critic of the way young players are developed in English football, Waddle is scath-ing about how the vast sums of money are spent by Premier League clubs.

“What do they do with it all?” he questions. “They’re each getting in excess of £100m a year from Sky, but where does that go? They’ll turn round and say ‘well he’s on £100,000 a week’, but if you’re a punter that’s not your problem.

“The money wasted in English football is ridic-ulous – if they could use some of it to make tickets cheaper and improve grassroots facilities then at least you could say it was being put to good use, but they don’t.

“How any club can justify charging 60, 70, 80 quid for a seat is beyond me, they are absolutely ludicrous sums of money. They don’t need it, and it will just go into the youth system so they can take on a kid at five years old and prevent him playing with his mates at the weekend.

“If they’re going to charge stupid money, at least show us where it goes,” he continued. “How about putting £5 from every £30 away ticket into grassroots football next season? They should want every-one to have the chance to enjoy the sport, but facilities are only getting worse despite the fact we have the most money in world football.

“Until people stop putting

bums on seats it will continue. Boycott it, put your money into grass roots, local boys clubs – there are countless things we could change in English football where you could save so much money instead of

putting it into the profes-sional game where it is essentially thrown down the toilet.”

A keen advocate of the non-league game having both started and ended his career at that level, Waddle feels that there could be a sea change in where fans choose to watch matches in the coming years if costs at the top level remain so high.

“People say to me that the quality isn’t as good, but there’s not many teams in the Premier League that set me alight. Look at Leicester win-ning the league. It’s a fan-tastic achievement and they thoroughly deserved it, but I wouldn’t pay £45

to go and watch this Leicester team. Will

their fans be happy paying that if

they drop back down to mid-ta-ble next season?”

“I think people will

start turning

to non-league because it’s actually value for money. Hopefully that would force the big clubs to look at their pricing and reconsider it – it might change their mentality if they’re losing fans to non-league football, which I think would be fantastic.”

Waddle is not the only former player to have spoken out about ticket prices; Alan Shearer and Robbie Savage have also called for action on the issue. Despite this, for-mer players continue to have minimal influence on how the game is run.

“The FA and the Premier League don’t want to listen to people like me,” Waddle said. “If there’s a problem, they don’t want to hear

about it – they make

the rules and that’s it, and if you don’t like it then hard luck. But you’re not telling me our current system works.

“At the end of the day, fans just get the hard deal and they always have done. I’d love fans to boycott it and for clubs to have to rethink, as the way it’s going I think the bubble will definitely burst.”

“If they go up to the Premier League it will get even more ex-pensive, but I have a feeling that the general public here would think ‘you know what, I’ve been looking forward to getting pro-moted, but why should I pay £55 when a lot of the games will be on TV anyway?’”

sheffield wednesday

Waddle in his early days at Newcastle United (pic: EMPICS)

The flying winger played 62 times for England, scoring six goals for his country in the process

Waddle prior to a commentary stint in 2015; he now broadcasts his opinions on the English game across television and radio

St. George’s Park (the national football centre at Burton)

waddle on...

“I went recently for a charity game, and the set-up is unbeliev-able. That must have cost an arm and a leg, but how many people will get the chance to use it?”

grassroots football

“I’m a big fan of grassroots but facilities need to be improved. I don’t want every pitch to be like Wembley with fancy changing rooms and ice baths, all I want is decent facilities for everyone that wants to play the game.”

Leeds United and Huddersfield Town are sepa-

rated by just 15 miles and have occupied the same division for six of the last nine seasons, but their approaches to ticket prices couldn’t be more contrasting.

Whilst Leeds con-tinue to milk their re-markably loyal fanbase through controversial initiatives such as the ‘pie tax’, Huddersfield have slashed their season ticket pric-es across the board. Terriers supporters will be paying just £179 – over £200 less than the cheapest equivalent at Elland Road – to watch

their team next season, and Whites fans can only look on enviously as their status as the re-gion’s dominant force continues to gradually fade.

“Traditionally there’s a massive catchment area across Yorkshire for Leeds,” says Adam Willerton, a board member of the Leeds United Supporters Trust. “I’m from Doncaster, the Trust chairman is from Rotherham; people from all over the region support Leeds, but that catchment area is getting small-er. Huddersfield and Bradford are getting

cheaper – if you can take you and your kid to see football for £200 a season instead of £650 it’s a no-brainer.”

Of course, the tribal nature of football means it is not easy to simply go and watch another club, espe-cially when it comes to passing down the tradition of supporting your team to the next generation. However, with so much football now televised, the choice of which club to support is now almost limitless. The result is a growing need for clubs to engage with their lo-cal community, which currently Huddersfield

are doing far more successfully than their seemingly complacent neighbours.

“There is a definite look at legacy here,” confirms Hudders-field’s Communica-tions Director, David Threlfall-Sykes. “Junior season tickets are really competitive – at £23 they work out at just £1 a game.” The difference in attitude between the two clubs regarding drawing in youngsters is striking, and it is clearly a topic that key figures at the John Smith’s Stadium are passionate about.

“We run the ‘Terrier Seven’ scheme, as we

did some research and discovered that on average kids choose who they are going to support when they are seven,” David says. “We go into local schools and when children reach that age they get a free ticket to a Huddersfield game, and if their parents chip in a small amount they will get a replica shirt presented to them by a player. The aim of that is for them to think ‘I really enjoyed that and want to go again’ and eventually it becomes a habit; we want local kids to grow up as Huddersfield Town fans.”

20-year old Elliott Wheat-Bowen is such an example, and the price cuts mean his family can now join him at every game. “I would have pur-chased the season ticket regardless as an under-23, but I would find it hard to justify the adult prices in my area,” Elliott says. “My dad will be buying one next season because of the price drop, as will my younger brother.” This seems exactly the sort of result the club were after, and backs up David’s hope that “this deal will open it up to a whole new set of families to come in and watch.”

Creative initiatives such as the ‘Terri-er Seven’ scheme wouldn’t go amiss at Elland Road. “The pricing out of young-

sters is a massive issue,” says Adam.

“Leeds’ hardcore are extremely old – when we were good it was the ‘70s and that’s where the bulk of our fanbase comes from; we haven’t been good for a long time.”

The high average age of the crowd is a problem that is far from unique to Leeds, but Adam sees no effort on behalf of the club to counter this. “If there’s nothing to interest kids they won’t come, and it’s not an enjoyable experience at Leeds – there’s con-stant animosity, it’s a horrible atmosphere, the facilities are crap and it’s too expensive. Something has got to be done.”

Unfortunately for United fans, this seems unlikely under the current regime. Massimo Cellino took over the club in the

summer of 2014 with a track record of sacking managers for fun in his native Italy; so far he has gone through seven in his two years at Leeds as well as picking fights with Sky Sports, the Football League and his own fans, most notably through the much-ma-ligned ‘pie tax’.

Introduced in December 2015, the controversial initiative means ticket holders in Elland Road’s South Stand are forced to pay an extra £5 for their tickets, which entitles them to a ‘free’ pie and a pint. As Adam explains, however, “you have to pay that regardless of whether you want the pie or not.” The ‘deal’ takes prices to an eye-water-ing £47 for second-tier football, and the

motives behind it seem particularly juvenile.

“One theory is that most of the dissent towards the owner was coming from that stand, and he’s been quoted as saying that’s why he did it. He is on record saying that.” It’s little wonder that Adam himself no longer attends Elland Road in protest at the ownership of the club as well as the sky-high ticket prices.

As Leeds fans protest against their owner-ship, there is no such animosity at Hudders-field. “I think it makes a real difference having a Chairman who is local and a fan of the club,” Elliott explains, and he is far from alone in that view. “You know that he has the club’s best interests at heart because he has grown up as a fan like every one of us and he was on the terraces

30 years ago,” adds Dominic White, whose North Stand Loyal group have played an integral role in improv-ing the atmosphere at home games. “Dean Hoyle genuinely wants the club to progress without getting us in financial danger,” he continues. “I wouldn’t want any other owner and I can’t imagine a better scenario.”

This attachment to the club and commu-nity was the inspira-tion behind Hoyle’s decision to implement price cuts, an ambition that became realistic thanks to the rise in funding that Cham-pionship clubs will receive next season due to the enhanced TV deal. “As soon as we heard about it, Dean decided we should use some of it to make tickets cheaper,” David says. “As things stand, we’ve got around £1 million going into the football side and the other half into the season card deal.”

Even those who know they won’t be able to attend every game have signed up, from varying distanc-es. “I live in Sheffield so most years it doesn’t make sense to get a season ticket, but at this price point I can justify it; I feel better having the season ticket as it feels like I’m really supporting the club,” says Steve Hancock, whilst Guy

Bradley is returning after a three year hia-tus. “I work away from home for 2 weeks at a time,” he explains, “but with the lower price I may as well get one as it would only be £17.90 per match if I only make it to 10 games.”

The club and its fans are enthusiastic about the potential impact of the deal both on and off the field, particu-larly as boss David Wagner has revitalised their playing style since taking over in Novem-ber. “Since Wagner came in everyone has been a bit more excited,” says Dominic. “The ticket prices are coupled with that and have kicked it on to an even higher level – it’s fortunate how it has all come together at the right time.”

“We feel we have supplemented the football side and now it’s our job as a club to supplement the ability of people to come and watch us,” adds Com-munications Director David. “We’re hoping these season ticket prices will open the possibility of coming to football at an af-fordable level to people who wouldn’t have

been able to come in previous years – we are a community club and we rely on the support of the community to be successful.”

As ever, the proof of whether such initia-tives are successful will be seen further down the line, but the initial signs are good for the Terriers; they sold the first 11,000 within four days of them going on sale and extended the deal to 15,000 fans. As for Leeds, attend-ances at Elland Road are down 5,000 on last season and the club seem stuck in a rut; the team are treading water whilst prices rise. “Football is becoming more and more like a product, so you’re now sold the ‘matchday experience’,” bemoans Adam. “At Leeds, pric-es have gone up but the matchday experience has stayed the same. It can’t go on forever.” Whether United can swallow their pride and take a leaf out of their neighbours’ book remains to be seen; if they don’t, even their traditional status as the most popular club in West Yorkshire could be under long-term threat.

“it’s not an enjoyable experience at Leeds – there’s constant animos-ity, it’s a horrible atmos-phere, the facilities are crap and it’s too expen-sive. Something has got to be done.”

“We feel we have supple-mented the football side and now it’s our job as a club to supplement the ability of people to come and watch us.”

These young Huddersfield fans could be paying just £1 a game next season due to the price cuts

TV companies are getting more powerful by the year - is there a case for renaming them...

For all the justi-fied furore over the cost of ticket

prices, match-going fans know that the price of entry is not the only factor that has to be accounted for – there’s travel, food and drink and perhaps even accom-modation as well. So what happens when Sky or BT decide to move the game with next to no notice? Supporters up and down the land have been handed this fate, and there is mount-ing unrest at the perception that fans who attend matches are being treated as secondary to those who watch from their sofas.

As a club with one of the bigger fanbases in the Championship combined with the fact they have been flying high for the majority of the sea-son, Middlesbrough have been regularly

televised this cam-paign, which makes life difficult for fans.

“I’ve been to every match since 1999,” says Rob Nichols, ed-itor of Boro’s Fly Me to the Moon fanzine, “and in the last couple of seasons – particu-larly this one – it’s become very difficult to live your life as you can’t commit to doing anything, and you effectively limit yourself to having one hobby. The matches can be anywhere be-tween Thursday and Monday, so you’ve essentially got to write off those days.”

The issue came to a head when Boro’s game at Charlton in March was moved to a Sunday with just 17 days’ notice. “I decid-ed to contact a local MP, Tom Blenkinsop, and he raised it in Parliament,” Rob says. “Hopefully we’ll get a debate on it. There’s no rules set in place

about the notice they have to give when moving games or the compensation that fans can get, and that’s something which has to change.”

It’s not just away fans who become inconvenienced, and Rob fears for the next generation of fans if games continue to move away from their traditional Saturday afternoon slot. “Boro make the family zone into an event – it starts at 12 and includes educa-tion and games as well as watching the

match,” Rob ex-plains. “This would be under threat if the games were shifted to Friday or Monday nights; matches being moved may prevent kids coming to live football.”

Significantly, Rob also believes that the very concept of season tickets are un-der threat due to the ever-changing times that games take place. “I’ve had numerous people come up to me in Middlesbrough and say ‘there’s no point us getting a sea-son ticket as we can’t

make all the different days.’ I think that will become a national is-sue, and perhaps that will make the clubs stand up a bit more to TV.”

As if to prove Rob’s point, James Broad-house gave up his season ticket at his beloved West Brom-wich Albion – which he had held for 20 years since the age of eight – due to the changing kick-off times. “If you know it’s going to be Sat-urday afternoon you can deal with that, but you end up having to look at what you’re doing every weekend and you can’t plan an-ything in advance – it drives you completely mad,” he says.

James and his friends hire a bus to go to away games, and – as is custom – make the most of the day despite what happens on the pitch. “I love the away

atmosphere and I love going to the match with my mates,” he begins, “but those days are getting fewer and farther between because you can’t justify the money or the crazy timings.”

The Baggies’ match at Arsenal, for exam-ple, has been moved to a Thursday night and their away match at Tottenham that weekend moved to the following Mon-day. “People may well have to take two days holiday to go to either of those,” James states, “and I even know of people who have changed jobs to try and accommodate the fixtures.

“It’s a frustrating

time to be a football fan,” he continues. “There’s so much money in football but so little is given back to fans.” He is also sceptical about the £30 cap for away fans that has been intro-duced by the Premier League. “We’ve actu-ally had some good reciprocal deals this season – Newcastle was £20, for example. My fear is that now every ticket will just be £30 – and it won’t do much to improve our away attendances, especially when the games get moved around so much; who wants to pay £30 to go to Southampton away on a Monday night?”

Occasionally, fans

do fight back. Shef-field United support-ers put together the #BladesBigSkyBill as a response to their match at Southend – just the 380-mile round trip – being shifted from Easter Monday at 3pm to a Wednesday night at 7.45. Blades fan Ian Rands organised the bill, which covered travel and accommo-dation costs and came to a total of £7,271.50.

“There is real danger that fans will increasingly become emotionally and financially disen-franchised from the game,” read his state-ment, a sentiment that is echoed across the wider footballing public. What can realistically be done is less certain, however, and fans look set to continue receiving a raw deal from the television companies going into next season and beyond.

“if you know it’s going to be a saturday afternoon you can deal with that, but you’ve got to look at what you’re doing every weekend - it drives you completely mad.”

Rob Nichols (left) with former Boro boss Tony Mowbray