‘Pay what you like – sit where you want’

It’s an expensive ‘do’ going to a football match these days.

Our tickets for the match against Leeds United (category A) on February 27th (left) have cost us £24.00 each – that’s £72 for the three of us + petrol + lunch. Had we wanted to sit in the Direct Golf stand (upper tier) they would have been £27 each.  This is for a League 1 match – the old third division – goodness knows how much tickets for Premiership games must cost. A quite search on a ticket-touting site was offering Wolves V Chelsea tickets at £112 each!!  How do ordinary families afford to go every week?

So it was interesting to read about Mansfield Town’s once-in-a-lifetime offer to fans this Saturday (6th February). The club owners declared that fans could simply turn up, pay what they wanted on the turnstile and sit wherever they liked.  The result was a record crowd for the season – 7,261 (of whom 74 were away fans from Gateshead). A gate of over 7000 isn’t bad at all for the Blue Square League. Radio Nottingham interviewed fans on the way in, asking them what they intended to pay. Most said a fiver, some said a penny and other ‘a couple of quid.’  Some of those interviewed did say it was the first time they’d been to a match so the ruse worked in getting people’s interest. Sadly for Mansfield they lost 0-2 in what the Nottingham Evening Post called a ‘dire’ match.  Nice idea though – I wonder if it would catch on in Harrods!