Who is this Moaning Plonker?

There’s been a fair bit about the growing contempt at top-level ticket prices this week. On Monday, Southampton fans were asked to stump up £41 to get into an evening game at Villa and in a few weeks, anyone wishing to watch Watford take on a team of over-awed kids at Fulham will have to pay £30 for the privilege. Big money certainly but that’s what you get at the top end of the pyramid. That right there is the best our blessed sport has to offer. If you want to watch football without the inflated pricing, all you have to do is embrace the grass roots of the sport and take your interest out of the Football League.

I queued up in the drizzle outside the Memorial Stadium, having reluctantly prepared to part with the £20 it took to get into the ground. I had balked at this cost when researching the game the day before, but guilted into attending by the host of Watford-related names and the fact I can see the ground’s South Stand from my toilet (literally, thanks to the controversial decision by my landlord to reject the notion of “blinds”) I had relented to pay the ferryman this toll to take me into my midweek haven.

There’s no idealistic point to be made, no outraged diatribe against modern football other than this: you really shouldn’t have to pay £20 to watch something call the Skrill Premier League, no matter the relative calibre of the teams.

....That clearance made me think about how weird partiality is. Standing in the corner behind the goal it was quite clear to me that the Barnet defender, Sam Togwell, put the ball over the bar with his head. The three thousand or so Rovers fans around me, however, disagreed, exploding as one in appeal for a penalty and red card. The referee, unsighted, was prepared to appease them, before noticing his linesman flagging for a corner, which after consolation, was awarded.

As possibly the lone neutral in the end it was completely evident that the correct decision had been made, but to the home support, desperate to see their team – on top and attacking relentlessly after going a goal ahead early on – pick off the league leaders, there was absolutely no question that they had been cheated. And they made that point. Again and again and again. They spewed no end of vitriol at the linesman: some poor bloke who had spent a Tuesday schlepping down the M4 to stand in the cold, watering night, only to be shouted at for getting a decision completely right.