Priced out - Watching Rovers at the Mem without a season tkt

BRISTOL ROVERS BLOG: G is for Gas - Priced out

Posted: January 28, 2016

By Martin Bull


GIVEN our rise up the table and the positivity now surrounding the on-field performance of the club, this article is certainly a gamble of the likes not seen since £250,000 was thrown away on Mickey 'Plymouth Argyle Legend' Evans in August 2000, a transfer window panic buy after Jamie Cureton had got the move he so manoeuvred, cough, I mean politely requested.  Eight months later he quietly slipped out the side exit for £30,000, like a thief in the night, and a dozen games afterwards we were relegated.

I wrote a good chunk of this article earlier in the season, but I left it to mellow and mature with age like a wheel of the finest Cheddar.

Having returned to it I can say, hand on heart, that I still believe the sentiment behind it is right. The economics may have changed but the facts have not. Gasheads may be happier at the moment, and may be more willing to go the extra mile to find the money to attend games, but the underlying issue has not been solved. Watching Rovers at the Mem without a season ticket has been simply too expensive this season.

There has not been even ONE special ticket offer for League games so far this season; in fact it has been quite the opposite. Our loyalty when sticking with the club last season was rewarded with six expensive 'Category A' matches and the student discount being silently dumped without an explanation. This will easily be the least home games I have been able to afford since returning from geographical exile in 2010.

Even our shocking home form (a solitary league win from the first seven matches; and merely four points in total) wasn't enough to encourage the club to offer the plebs a deal. Despite regular defeats, a Tuesday match, and a Sunday lunchtime match live on Sky, the Board did not offer anything, not even a 'Quid a Kid' day. Would it be uncharitable to suggest that most of the regular attendees of around 6,500 home fans up to Christmas were Season Ticket holders, who were 'stuck' with their decision, and who are apparently counted, even if not even in the ground?

Ordinary people are being priced out of football, and don't kid yourself that it is only happening at the Arsenal's and Chelsea's of this world. It also happens in the lower leagues. In fact, on the occasions that I attend Championship or Premier League games with my Norwich City supporting best friend, watching that level of football, in modern stadiums with excellent sight lines, is rarely much more expensive than watching Rovers at the run-down Mem, and the quality of the game and the facilities is of a vastly higher level. Last season I parted with £23 to be alongside him at Wolves for their opening game of the season, and a few weeks ago a frankly outlandish £15 was all that was required to get into the away end at the Britannia Stadium for their Premier League clash.

Asking an adult to pay a 'Category A' £20 to stand at the Mem on either an end terrace with a terrible view (but a roof and a great atmosphere), or an open terrace with an ok view and less atmosphere, is rubbish. No game at League Two level should be a special category, unless it is a downwards category for a freezing cold evening in January as the credit card statement hits the post Christmas mat. If there ever happens to be a genuine local derby at this execrable level then surely the extra ticket sales, and other money spinning add-ons associated with a more popular match, should cover any extra Police bill or whatever lame excuse the football club come up with this time? It's not as though we don't usually have extra capacity to fill.

And what kind of twisted logic puts UP prices when a venue isn't even being filled, or tells its loyal supporters they must pay for extra costs associated with a larger crowd, and / or a larger away following - who incidentally aren't getting in for free but who will be adding tens of thousands of pounds into the club pot.

Premier League bosses defend some of their prices by pointing to a 96% occupancy rate, and with a shrug of the shoulders calculate they must be doing something right. So what humbling logic could we use, especially earlier in the season? That we had a 60% occupancy rate, so the most obvious decision will be to make it less affordable for more people to come?

I suppose this line of reasoning is halfway out the window now though, as we are finally doing well again at home, have had a trio of matches against well supported opposition, and a lot of the casuals have presumably come back since Christmas. The last three home games would be labelled 'cash cows' by economists; maximum profit for minimal effort.  But sadly these games won't help the underlying problem; in fact you could argue they make it worse by providing easy pickings and a distraction from the improvements that need to be made. On the pitch success, fair ticket prices, and decent facilities seem to be the three ways to increase crowds in the long run, and only the first is definitely happening.

With 9,836 for Leyton Orient, 9,131 for the Hatters, and 10,190 when the Pilgrims contributed an away sell-out, the occupancy rate is now more like 80 per cent, and with only nine home games left (all distinctly winnable ones as well) the chance of pressurising the club to run some offers is presumably too late; the stable door is off its hinges by now and the filly is already six furlongs away.

A mind bending six League games this season have been included in the laughable Category A. That's 25% of home games. I have to pinch myself to remember that this is the Fourth Tier, which includes NO clubs we have a serious beef with and no clubs with a really serious hooligan problem.

There is no Bristol City, no Swindon Town, and no Cardiff City. Instead we have Yeovil Town and Exeter City installed as phoney Category A matches, as if to try to invent some sort of intense rivalry. One is a non-descript local town who we've only played 15 times since 1883 (we've played Liverpool more times), and the other is a middle-class University city 100 miles away with anaemic crowds (an average of 3,783 last season). Neither fixture has any more taste or spice to it than the mildest Cauliflower Korma.

Whilst the flexi-ticket may be a decent enough idea, the bureaucracy surrounding it can be off putting, especially for exiles, and the price is hardly compelling as it works out at £14 a match, plus a £4 surcharge if you dare try to use them for those Category A Classico's.

For a huge city like Bristol, with well over 50,000 students, terminating the student category this season was a frankly pitiable decision. There is admittedly a new 16-21 category, but not only are the prices nowhere near as affordable as the previous student prices (£4 off most tickets, compared to £7 previously), but also not all students are under 21. Indeed in the modern era, more and more students are NOT under 21, and are proud of it, having taken years out, returned as 'mature students', or are doing post-graduate degrees, which is in itself is a massively booming market that Rovers seem to be ignoring precisely at the time they are trying to build the UWE Stadium on UWE land. You could hardly make it up.

If any readers defend all this by contending that some other clubs are worse that us, they have surely missed the point. Our benchmark should not be clubs who are worse than us, but should be clubs who are better than us. And comparing merely on price also isn't completely fair, as some other clubs do not have terracing, and may offer better facilities than ours.

I realise I'll take some flak for what may be dismissed by some as negativity within a positive few months, but a few wins does not make everything hunky dory. Ordinary, average fans are being priced out of watching the team they support and whilst a season in non-league may have humbled the players and the fans, it doesn't seem to have done a lot for the number crunchers intent on squeezing as much money out of us as possible.

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Martin Bull became a Gashead in 1989 and immediately fell in love with Twerton Park, standing near G pillar. His sixth book has just been released. It is entitled 'Print That Season! - One man's weekly meanderings throughout Bristol Rovers' promotion campaign of 2014-15' and is the antidote to obedient season reviews, with none of the hindsight that most writers rely on. It is a signed and numbered limited edition of only 462 books, and is available via www.printthatseason.club

Good points about discounts for some games or quid a kid etc, and about Cat A games (Yeovil maybe yes, Exeter, why?) but a crowd of 10K + for Plymouth Argyle would suggest that you are in a minority. If attendances are going up, why would a business cut its prices? is it more expensive (basic price) than last season in the conference?

Isn't it the police who decide what category the games are not the club?

I also think the club scrapping the half price student match ticket was a shame this season. Alot of students are older than the 19-21 young adult ticket they changed it to.

I think I'd stop watching if L2 football cost more than £20!

The increase in crowds and therefore extra revenue may have been the reason we signed Gaffney and Lawrence? I'm happy to pay the additional £2 (or £4) if it means we progress!

Don't forget that we budget for crowds of 9,000!!!

Make it a bit cheaper and they can really budget for those sorts of crowds

A very single minded article with very little in the way of actual journalism; a few interesting points but in the main lacking in any real substance. Has anybody asked the club how higher attendances increase costs and by how much? Without that information the majority of the article is speculation. It also seems to direct frustration at the modern game squarely at BRFC rather than looking at coordinated options for trying to lower the cost of watching football. Comparisons with Prem clubs are also ridiculous as TV revenue is by far their main source of income and in many cases match day revenue isn't even their secondary source of revenue. For lower league clubs match day revenue is number one which is why many have been frustrated that with larger crowds we haven't put that money to good use. Still the comparison is pointless. It is also my understanding that this year, had it not been for stadium/court costs we wild have broken even for the first time in a number of years; something many of our fans have been demanding for some time. There are many ways to achieve this but to complain about ticket prices seems a contradiction to what people want the club to achieve. Finally, the club offer many free tickets to schools for every home game and believe every school in Bristol and South Glos had the opportunity for free tickets last season. Sadly, the club makes no mention of these achievements so they often go under the radar! Interesting points raised, but a lack of real journalism and someone using the local rag to have a pop at the club with very little substance is what I take from the article.

He's a published author though...why write articles for a newspaper if you don't want to use journalistic skills?