I think I am speaking for a lot of people when I say I just want this season this to be over, three defeats on the spin and our “first team stars” seemingly with their minds on their summer beach holiday. Meanwhile, in reality, the people who admire them are deciding whether to renew their season ticket and put themselves through another season of disappointment and depression.
Having looked through the supporters’ forums and Twitter, I think David Gold and David Sullivan will be in for a surprise when they see the season ticket sales come August.
Whilst the membership sales may go through the roof due to people still aiming to get their footballing fix from time to time. I can’t help but feel renewals will be at an all-time low.
There is even talk of people not renewing out of “protest” to the dour and sometimes mind numbingly boring football on show under Sam Allardyce.
I, for one, won’t be renewing this season, not because of the football on show, but simply because of this horrific price rise between young adult and adult. My season ticket of £320 this season will double to an eye watering £650 next season. That is a heck of a lot of money for a 22-year-old university graduate.
Earlier this season I took part in a BBC survey online which worked out on average how much a supporter spends in a season. The survey only included trips to home games and whilst I have been to three away games I added a further 300 quid onto the survey price. When you consider the cheapest West Ham season ticket is the fourth most expensive in the Premier League it should come as no surprise that the figure came to well over £1,500-a-year.
Now, whilst season tickets may seem like value for money, due to the astronomical prices of a standard match day ticket (the best seat in the house costing you a ridiculous £72 for a big game). That figure itself tells you all you need to know. Football is no longer a cheap day out for the family, I read a piece on this very site the other day titled “West Ham are a football club not a business”, when you look at the average price for a family of four (two adults and two children) to watch the Hammers vs Spurs in a couple of weeks is £218 for just match tickets alone, it is hard to agree with that article.
Football is not just a game for the working class now, it is a business, and there is no doubt about that. It says a lot when those tickets for Manchester United, Spurs, Arsenal and Liverpool had to be put on sale from August with some selling out on General sale days before the game. That has to give Gold and Sullivan a clue that something there isn’t quite right.
Football is becoming a chore for many, and that is the sole reason the atmosphere at Upton Park is suffering, fans are fed up. Many people would much rather stay in the pub with their friends rather than take that walk to the ground to just grumble and groan for 90 minutes in the ground. At times this season you can hear a pin drop inside the ground and that is simply because fans are feeling cheated, as they staring aimlessly at yet another gutless performance. Whilst paying 50 odd quid in travel and expenditure each trip. It just isn’t fair.
There is only one way in which fans would start renewing and quickly, that is to reduce prices rapidly to levels which represent our league position. As well as sacking Sam Allardyce and bringing in someone who will get the Hammers faithful excited again.
It is a great shame that many fans are being priced out of watching their team, and now like many I am becoming just another statistic. Something has to change and fast.
Tweet me @Bowdenwhu
A valid argument, especially when Burnley season tickets are £95 next season…
Plus, I bet kit prices will be sky high… We ain’t a football club no more, but a bank
get rid of sam they can go after asmany players they like the good ones wont come with sam there,the ground will be very short of fans next season ten of us have decided where not going again while sams there
If you weren’t a university scrounger you could pay the same as me who is 21 and paying 725.00 , get a job and pay your money.
Poor excuse , should be 1 price for
all, either adult price or junior price.
Then they could buy betel players or afford to sack BFF’s!
I have a job, and in fact I looked after I wrote my article and my season ticket is still 310 god knows why your paying 725?! I’ve been a season ticket holder for 4 years, in truth football is no longer a cheap enjoyable hobbie.
It’s people like you that what’s wrong with the club, I’ve been a fan and season ticket holder for over 40 years and a lad whose a fan writes a piece which although you may not agree on.. He’s allowed his opinion. I suggest you carry on with your job and let the reporters report while you pretend to be a ‘proper fan’
To watch a game in Brisbane for Australia’s national game of Rugby League. Broncos Buy your Tickets.
Dearest seats between $69-$79 reduced to $55-$63 for pensioners & concession card holders. Junior 4-14 years $34-$39. Family (1Adult + 1 Junior) $90-$103
Cheapest seats $27-$37 reduced to $20-$29 for pensioners & concession card holders. Junior 4-14 years $10-$18. Family (1Adult + 1 Junior) $33-$51, so a man can take his son (or daughter) to watch Australia’s national game for between £18.28 – £28.24, it’s the wages that are paid to the players & staff now in the English game that cause these ticket prices. It’s damned right unfair on the paying spectators. Forty or so years ago the players were paid a fraction of what they are paid now, AND they were damned sight better players. People like Dave MacKay, John Dick. They were also as tough as nails & were loyal to their clubs. Proper clubs/countries don’t ripp off their fans Charlie!!!
Fact is that he is getting a reduced ticket and being subsidised by the full ticket payers. Pensioners and kids should get a reduced price. Not scroungers.
why should pensioners automatically get a discount. just because you are 65 don’t mean you are poor. most of them near me drive new motors and holiday abroad a couple of times a year. most of them have no mortgage etc.
Renewed Season ticket £31 per ticket bargin bucket …. COYI
Renewed Season ticket £31 per match bargin bucket …. COYI
I’m renewing and so are all the people who sit around me. Not sure where this ‘no one is renewing’ rumour spread from. Sounds like scaremongering journalism for a change.
Unfortunately it’s in my blood so I will be renewing. Forget the money i would pay double to watch some proper football with a quality manager, the dross we are being served up the club should be paying us to turn up! If they so decide to sack the 80grand a week tactical genius then don’t get to excited, the David’s have a history of picking poor managers with zero personality or charisma (Bruce, Mcleish,Grant and Allerdyce) wouldn’t surprise me if they are planning a return for Roeder !!!!!
We are a london club…..everything in London costs more. For example a pint of beer is over twice the price to in Newcastle.
If you cant afford it dont buy it, but its supply and demand that determines pricing nothing else. They work out the most economical value to the club which is how it should be, and always has been. Even when it 50p a ticket it worked the same way!
I was under the impression that season ticket prices had been frozen for next year! Or that’s what the sign says on the official website with the picture of Andy Carroll waving his arms about!
Well ya can’t blame the players for switching off can ya. The pressure of this English game is frigging ridiculous. In Australian Rugby League there is no relegation. They just have the 1 National League of 15 clubs & the bottom placed club just gets the wooden spoon, that’s all. He doesn’t get canned FFS. There’s too much money & too much pressure on today’s players. I’ve had enough of it, sort of returning to the Brisbane Broncos in the Aussie NRL & Brazil 2014. F**k all this high pressure crap. I mean look at all the pressure now on Man Utd. Christ how West ham would love to be in 7th spot!!!
Sorry, should’ve said the NRL ladder consists of 16 clubs
Yeah, see ya point David, £72, geez a man could feed himself & his entire large family on that for a week at least. People were paying 5shillings to stand up in the 60s. Christ how times have changed. The prices now are utterly & totally riddiculous for watching what? Sh*te football. Good article mate. Keep them coming. This club bleeding well needs at bit of stick, stuff em!!!
Mean’t to say feed himself & his entire large family in Asia for that amount
I’m not renewing for 3 reasons –
1 This is the worst football ive seen at West Ham since i started coming in 1972
2, Im 64 this year and as a women have to pay the full price until I’m 65 altho im on a state pension. I get a concession with everything else i do in my life. (husband on state pension too but he gets a reduction!!!)
3 I now have to stand all the match as we’re in the Lower bobby Moore and nearly all the stand stands. Two seasons ago we were getting letters that if we stood we’d loose our season tickets!!!Cannt afford to move to another part of the ground
And that’s what ya get for staying in England luv, ya should’ve emigrated like me. I tell ya, of all the things I’ve forgotten about England. I can never forget our Hammers, but good luck with lobbying the club, and hey, how about fans of all the clubs start lobbying the FA? I mean, do people realise that the English Premier League is now the biggest draw card for live sport in over 200+ countries world-wide? I don’t think people realise that when West Ham played Liverpool on 5th April, that maybe around 1 billion people were part of that audience along with people at the Boleyn. I mean Man Utd have around 800 million fans alone, let alone Liverpool, Arsenal & Chelsea. The revenues being made are huge thanks to Fox soccer, the Packers & the Murdochs. That revenue from world-wide coverage can pay the clubs by itself & not the fans. The global TV coverage needs it’s fans otherwise the event would have no atmosphere. You are being used by the media. Everyone is making a fortune while the fans are being fleeced. Do something about it FA because I can tell that everyone is just about on the verge of walking away from the games, and how would your global TV audience like that???
ya? I’m shocked, yet glad, that they let you into another country. Pikey!
I won’t be renewing either. Yes the football is boring but worse than that are the moaning fans. They are everywhere in the ground and they have driven me away.
at the end of the day you have to blame the players salaries for the rise in ticket prices. you don’t have to be pythagoras to work out that seat tickets won’t cover the wage bill. 36,000 at a supposed average of £30 per ticket amounts to 1 million gate receipts with the squad wages for 24 players x average 50 grand = 1.25 million (and we only play at home every other week).
The clubs have to recruit money through the prawn sandwich brigade and match day prices for beer and burgers etc because it’s getting more difficult to make it through souvenirs with players now also demanding their ‘image rights’. Man Utd pay Rooney £1 million a month (on top of 300 grand per week wages) to use his ‘image’. Players, and their agents, are sucking the life blood out of the game. When the money for tv rights rocketed last year there was talk of it being used to reduce ticket prices. it was never going to happen as players decided it should line their pockets and put another super car in their garage fleet.
I agree Peter, we need to tell the players to “get stuffed” and walk away from their games. I can hardly beieve how greedy & selfish they have become. Booby Moore would be turning over in his grave!
Sorry I’ll re-write & rectify that post; I agree Peter, we need to tell the players to “get stuffed” and walk away from their games. I can hardly believe how greedy & selfish they have become. Bobby Moore would be turning over in his grave!
You’ll now notice that the TV devil has struck once again. After Saturdays match with West Brom that runs concurrently with other games at 3pm, we now have our game with Spurs which was also previously scheduled to run at 3pm on 3rd May, being brought forward & out in the open to the prime time of 12.45pm on Saturday 3rd May, so now, once again, there is no hiding for the Hammers, & the whole world will be able to tune in to the only game being shown at that time slot, to maybe join in the laughter, to see if West Ham can mess up once again, and Arsenal’s game, which was also scheduled to play the same as West Ham’s at 3pm on 3rd May has now been scheduled to Sunday 4th May at 1.30pm so that now the whole world can cheer Arsenal on to secure their little 4th spot. I mean we can’t have the little dears missing out on their little Champions League spot can we, yes that’s Arsenal, who used to be owned by the “Bank of England”, getting their way once again. I mean how can they possibly lose? And they say the game isn’t rigged? C’mon
This re-arranging of the TV time slots makes it even more important for West ham to win Saturdays game.i.e. Get in, get a win & get out while you still can West Ham. They are always building pressure cookers. Well it sells media space eh? Stuff the participants
Sam out , ex Swansea manager in