Anger and Resentment

Posted by on Feb 28, 2022 in Blog | 0 comments

There’s a lot of anger and resentment right now about this weekends’ proceedings, and that’s just me, let alone anyone else.

I was disappointed and despondent after the game but I had faith and I could see the bigger picture with injuries and the mitigating circumstances of playing Sc*m, Livarpool and Spurs in short succession and the Gerrard and Fat Frank extenuating circumstances etc. I’ve been accused of blind faith, but frankly, when have I ever been bothered about what people accuse me of? I don’t even reply in most cases. But yesterday, yesterday hit me like a tonne of bricks. I can take a slap in the face with a wet fish, but this, this has completely floored me.

You just don’t do this. Bielsa wasn’t just our manager – to me he was family. No one disrespects family.

There’s no blood ties here, I’m not stupid, but he’s done more for our Leeds United family than anyone could ever have done. You don’t sh*t on your own doorstep.

So here’s my alternative “sorry – not sorry” dismissal notice. It’s bitter. Really bitter. I’m making no apologies if anyone gets offended.

Dear Marce

Thanks for the last 3 and a bit years, but let’s face it, you never did yourself any favours, did you? These last three games gave us the necessaries to force the push on you, but you had plenty of opportunities to push our platform and seal the brand, and basically you failed. You just took the actual game too seriously. All that professionalism, it’s not just about the 90 minutes on the pitch. It’s a business, and you just refused to market the brand to it’s optimum.

Now that you’re off, here’s a few pointers to help you for your next job. You might have a wealth of managerial experience, but you’ve gotta know how to handle the brand.

Dress sense.

That scruffy tracksuit and trainers was just never on trend. If you could have just worn a cap with our sponsors logo on, had a decent haircut so we could push male grooming products or just simply tried a pair of skinny jeans, so the fans could relate to you a bit more, it would have helped. We weren’t expecting you to be a snappy dresser like that Scott Parker at Fulham, but at least you could have tried to be a bit streetwise with a pair of snazzy Gazelles worn without socks.

Whilst we’re on that subject, the blue bucket was a good gimmick and you could have utilised it a bit more to our advantage. But realistically once everyone knew you could buy the bucket off Wish for less than a tenner, it was doomed. Even though Wish could get it made for cheapness in the PRC for 50p and they were flogging it on for a £9.50 profit, there wasn’t enough in it for the club, was there? Realistically, there was never going to be enough room in the superstore for us to flog those,in hope that people would turn up to get one and buy a bit of extra tat, whilst they were there.

We are completely blaming you for having to do that “warehouse fire sale” to get rid of last years stuff. We’ve planned for 5 different kits next season and it’s always cheaper just to get the job lot of all sizes in bulk. The fat b**stard sizes sell out really quick but the Club just aren’t doing enough to  attract  the right sort of fan. We need more S or XS sized fans, the young ones just don’t identify enough with you.

Interviews

Your stubborn refusal to speak English and only go through that interpreter wasn’t winning us any decent social media likes. Your pre match interviews were just too long. Most fans were losing interest in them because you didn’t give us enough interesting soundbytes to make a Tik Tok. All that professionalism and using technical terms. The young ones just wanna hear some goss and news, not a proper update on injury lists. Even the retweets were just  the same old picture of you in a scruffy tracksuit. And whilst we are on about it or why couldn’t you just get a Twitter or Insta account? Not like we were asking you to go edgy with Tinder or even  Grindr was it? A few retweets and snapchats could have got us a much bigger social media presence, just a couple of Tik Toks with a cat would have done, think of the sponsorship. Image is really important.

You did us a great favour winning the Championship though. That Amazon series “Take Me Home” got us loads of kudos and we got to meet that bloke from Gladiator, Russel Crowe. Mind you, if you’d played your cards right, we could have got that bloke from Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds. He’s got a hot wife as well. But we missed that opportunity and he’s gone to Wales of all places. We’re just left with that bloke off Game of Thrones and Jon Bon Jovi. Seriously, are they still relevant? Who streams Bon Jovi songs nowadays? Even the songs they sing about you are old choons. If you’d only got the fans to sing current songs that we all know, like Drake, Dua Lipa or Lizzo even. The White Stripes thing is so old now, and I don’t even know where that Follow Follow thing came from. Think of all those Millenials who feel so left out, we need to value the Gen Zee.

If only you’d been less technical in those post match interviews and stopped accepting all the blame for everything. Even Warnock blamed Tom Lees. You could have just slagged off Tyler Roberts, everyone hates him anyway, that way you could have easily deflected the blame. You know the refs have been against us, just blame that git Friend, or shout at a linesman every now and again. At least Conte runs up and down the touchline, even Wagner did that 30 yard sprint to the goal line, a yellow card or two never goes amiss, it’s about exposure. It’s what the kids want. They need action, experience and excitement, not boring Bueno all the time sat on a Wish bucket.

Even when you did Spygate, why did you just sit there with a Powerpoint? Couple of Tik Toks would have seen it right. Done and dusted in ten. 3 hours of boring Windows, no one uses Microsoft anymore, MacBooks all the way, or at least use a tablet. We could have secured a great deal with Samsung. I never even saw you with an iPhone. do you even own a device? Plus you just needed to quote more stats. Stats that the betting companies are interested in, not actual meaningful stats. We need to know and quote percentage of passes. It’s irrelevant if the passes are just back to Meslier all the time. It still counts as an accurate pass, and will look good. There’s no room for the minutia like the truth. It’s all about percentages. The number of goals is boring, points sounds so much better for number crunching.

Way of Life

Effing Wetherby! You had to go live in a tiny flat in Wetherby when we refused to let you have digs at Thorp Arch. Shopping in Mozzers, of all places. At least you had your coffee at Costa, a proper brand, rather than at a local greasy spoon. You needed to live in some posh apartment block with famous neighbours. Shop at Waitrose, and use their green compostable bags. You can’t be using bags for life, you might as well be on some away day with your 24 cans of Stella and packet of speed. If you lived in the centre of Leeds, there could have been loads of photo ops of you cycling to work on the green super highway, think of the publicity. The only saving grace was Costa, was people would retweet Costa, no one is going to Insta at Mozzers.

Whilst we are on about it, why did you insist of taking photos with common fans. Where were the famous people? You could have milked the Ryan Reynolds thing and got us in the Marvel film. Think of the publicity. No, you just got photos with normal people and their kids.

Players

The team needed more exposure. If you hadn’t have knackered them all out playing Murderball, they’d have had plenty of time to get on social media and we could have had another WAG war, like Coleen and Crouch’s missus. Lord Bamford and the other ones dropping kids could have made centre spread on Hello magazine. Another opportunity missed.

It’s a good job you did so well with Kalv. Him in the England team was great for Twitter. We got SO many retweets. If you weren’t so stubborn, we could have sold him to Amanda Staveley and those Saudis in the summer for £60 million. As it stands, we’ll rake it in anyway in the summer when Kalv and Rapha go to Liverpool and Rodrigo goes to Spurs. I reckon about £150 mill for all three. If only you’d signed more players with just one name. Every proper Premier League team has got at least three players in with just one name. Rapha, Rodrigo, Cher and Madonna. It just rolls off the tongue, would have been a great song set to Rizzo feat Cardi B.

Fans

The crowd do a good job making a bit of noise but it needs to be more relevant and there needs to be more fans on their iPhones like at Old Trafford. I’m fed up of these legacy fans. I’m hoping the plan with these new etickets just bamboozles the old gits and they forget to do them, or the website’s so confusing that they just give up anyway.These old season ticket holders just come to watch football and don’t spend enough in the club shop. Plus they take up all the seats that we want to give to my corporate mates. At least we will make a bit of money on 5 different strips next season. But we’ve conned them into this buy back ticket exchange, so newer more good-looking fans can come and buy the S and XS shirts. We’ll rake in a bit more ticket money as well, as we charge them extra for the same seat. These new fans will only want to come a couple of times a year, so it if they buy a shirt with a players name on it, by the time they come back, he’ll have gone, so they can splash out on another one to keeping them relevant and on point. If we play our cards right and hack these legacy fans off, they’ll all clear off anyway and there’s 22,000 on the waiting list for season tickets, so the market is always going to be there. Bonus that they’re paying an extra £10 on their £80 membership rate.

So, Marce, hope you find the tips useful.

Bygones, Cheers

The Guys


For those of you who don’t know the quote, I’m afraid you might as well just give up now. I’ve put the full quote in from Harry’s facebook page, so it kind of explains it a bit more. In case you don’t know what happened, it doesn’t end well for Harry either.

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Different Wavelength

Posted by on Feb 25, 2022 in Blog | 0 comments

After the timing of the publication of my last blog spookily coincided with the press release from the Club regarding it’s move to “SeatGeek”, I must admit I was getting a bit worried that someone from our beloved Club was spying on me. I’m not sure why they would, seeing as my views seem to be on  a completely different wavelength to the Great and the Good at Leeds United. Unless of course they want to know what I think, so they can do the exact opposite, just to P*ss me off?

I am mightily worried about the surveillance state that we seem to be moving towards, not just from the “Papers Please” brigade in Carrie’s government, but also the Marching On To Ticketless rhetoric which is spilling from  the mouths of our current custodians.

The problem as I see it, is that what the fans want and what the governing authorities, be it Our Club, FIFA, UEFA, the FA, the PL, the EFL etc. want , are two completely different things. Just look at the failed (currently but it’s not going away anytime soon) European Super League. Whilst all the “Big” clubs in Europe thought the ESL  was a brilliant idea, keeping it all in the family. What I mean by “it” is money / TV rights / advertising and sponsorship. Little did they realise that we, the British public, would be so against it.

I do not use the term “British public” lightly either. As it was a massive thing at the time. Even people with no interest in football whatsoever were getting involved in the debate. There was commentary, debate and opinion from Parliament, daytime telly, afternoon telly and even in the local hairdressers, let alone all the usual sports media and social media channels. Some of these people had never even watched a game on the telly, let alone been to a football game. But there they were, all identifying and sympathising with the Blossom Hill rose swigging demonstrators outside the Theatre of Wet Dreams.

It’s pretty amazing that this Elitist ESL could spark off such a massive furore, when realistically the Rise of The European Super Losers League would only impact harshly on actually a very small number of people. The suffering souls would be the matchgoing fans who would have fork out MORE money, time, effort, annual leave, holiday time with their families,  watching their team churn out the same rubbish, all over Europe. The actual benefit, would be to those people who want to watch and bet on football all the time, which according to the True Gods of Football, is everybody. And of course the money men who rule our game would be loving it, because they would be raking in the spondoolies.

The principle of it though was the fact that it was the Middle Class Entitled Elite telling us what to watch and enjoy. That was the crux of it. It was a classic example of the Rich telling the Poor what they should do for the greater good. Surely all these European Giants of Football knew what was best for the fans? Surely the football fans would only fear to tread in the footsteps of the custodians of the best clubs in the world?

The only way to sum it up is that they are on a completely different wavelength.

Like many things going on at the moment, there is a huge disconnect between us and our masters. I could go all political but I’ll leave that to the professionals. I’ll concentrate on football.

For those of you who aren’t lucky enough to have a season ticket, I’ll let you know what is going on. We have all been sent an email telling us how to renew our precious piece of plastic. The Club have taken on a new ticketing stakeholder – SeatGeek. This company is currently being used by other PL clubs like Citeh, Livarpool and Spurs, and some US sports clubs, to supply their entry systems. We have to log on to the new ticketing site, but you can’t use your old password (pa$$word), you get a link sent to your email to reset it and then you get redirected to this new site which will enable you to buy your “ticket”.

Let’s take you back to the old days.

Now in Ancient Times, you could of course just pay on the gate to get in (like at Villa away in 2018). Or if you were fit and daring enough, you could just climb over the wall at Lowfields. You didn’t really need to buy a ticket before the game – just turn up at 2.45pm on a Saturday (Yes! A Saturday!), and you could pay the man at the turnstile. Then we got these lovely little books with paper tear off slips that you used to stand there with, after having had a few jars, struggling to read what number slip you needed to tear off before you got to the turnstile. Every year you got a different coloured wallet. They were ace. You got a numbered tear off ticket for each game, which mysteriously never followed 1, 2, 3. It was always a random number, to keep us on our toes I suspect. Then there were vouchers for extra games, like Cup games (remember them?) after the numbered ones and I think in the 2000s ones you got vouchers for 10% discount on tat from the Club shop.

Here are some pictures for posterity

Then they decided that they would go to “cards” in the early 2000s. For our “benefit” of course, no more tearing off a paper ticket, just a piece of credit card sized plastic, that would get you in if you flashed it at the turnstile. That didn’t go down well initially, but we got there eventually.

We wondered why there was the move to plastic. “Progress” said some. Others, slightly more cynical, said it was more the fact that they wouldn’t have to man each turnstile, therefore save a bit of money. Hmmm – now there’s an idea! Hold that thought – it might crop up again.

Those of us who travelled away in the 80s had to get these new fangled Red Away cards (see picture, modelled by Knaresborough Secretary Dave (Lego hair) Rowson.

I think these were brought in after the riotous assembly at the end of the season at Birmingham in 1985. This may have been the last time we were allowed to pay at an away turnstile, until Villa in 2018, of course. After we got promoted, for “Our safety” we were all told that we had to get “Leeds United Away Cards” in order to get an away ticket. These were free to everyone who had a season ticket, it was just the hassle of getting a passport sized photo every season really. This cost money,of course, if you didn’t have a season ticket, just a tenner, but it was still money. It did cause a bit of a kerfuffle at the League Cup Final (against Villa in 1996) as some of the West Stand season ticket holders, who never travelled away, didn’t realise you needed an away card to get an ticket for the cup final, so they got a bit upset. Oops.

These were – wait for it – photo ID cards essentially. Those who were involved in discussions around away tickets not so long ago suggested that these be brought in, as an extra layer of security to ensure away fans were who they purported to be. These people obviously never remembered that we used to have them (because they weren’t going then???) and have forgotten that the exorbitant cost and extra admin hassle, made photocards a financial and logistical nightmare, and they were swiftly dismissed. Plus, no one ever looked at them anyway, especially not at 2.55pm when everyone turned up to the turnstiles en masse because we had been kept back by the Rozzers.

These morphed into the guise of “Premier Cards” in the early 2000s. Considering we then got relegated and relegated again not long after, the demise of Premier Cards was a given and we just changed to having to show our season tickets. If they ever bothered asking for it, that is.

I am reminded that the only other memorable fixture that was cash on the gate was at Odsal in 1986. Where the Rozzers insisted that the “all ticket” rules were scrapped. This was on the basis that West Yorkshire Police reassured Bradford City (and Leeds United) that the “cash on the turnstile” option was a far better way of controlling the fans in the ground. September 20th for those who cannot remember. We went 2 nil down. There was a brief incident with a chip pan and the rest is history. Here is the link for those of you who weren’t there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ym4QJTVegw

Away tickets used to be, just ask Eric and he would sort. People used to turn up at his flat and he would dish them out. Then B*tes chucked his toys out of the pram and ruined it all. After his hissy fit, you had to fax your away ticket request form in. This is Ancient History, if you really want the lowdown, somewhere in the blog archives I have spelt it out with a picture of the old forms that we used to have to fill in. Read all about it there.

Of course as pre requesite, you had to show your photocard at away games to get in. All for “safety”, you understand. The ticket had to belong to the person trying to get in with it. They wanted to know who was getting in, as they didn’t want any of the old hooligan mob from the 80s and 90s getting their sticky paws on away tickets. Much of the old hard core fans were undesirables, and in the spirit of the Premier League, they wanted families and a new kind of “fan” going. They wanted to move football away from the old traditional working class roots and open it up to the more upwardly mobile, new breed of “sports fan”. The sort of football fan who wanted to go for the experience and excitement, rather than just to follow the team .

SkyTVisf**kings**t. Ruining football for matchgoing fans since 1992.

So we turn to todays’ conundrum. Ticketless entry.

I don’t want it.

Someone in the pub said to me on Sunday “What you’d rather we go back to the tear off stubs?” I said ” Yes, they were fantastic”. I don’t want to rely on technology all the time. Technology is too unreliable. Some things cannot be improved with technology. Some things just don’t need improving. There’s the old adage again, if it isn’t broke – don’t fix it.

Take the breaking news regarding the Post Office Scandal. Hundreds of postmasters and mistresses falsely accused of fraud and theft. Why? Because of a faulty system which was meant to “improve” the Post Office efficiency. Now this may be one extreme example of system failure, but it is not like it still isn’t happening. Look at the “Track and Trace” system that the Government tried to implement, and the NHS app, and how much it cost – £37 billion well spent. I don’t think.

It’s hardly a shining example of brilliant technological advancement, is it? It didn’t work properly and most people who downloaded it, ended up uninstalling it because it either didn’t work or worked too well, pinging everyone that happened to stroll past you. When the PL made it part of the Covid rules, how many people just got a paper copy instead as the signal at ER was too unreliable?

Whilst I am at it, how many people have got the Sky VIP app to work on their phone? I can’t get it to work on mine, so as a Sky VIP Platinum customer, I can’t get any of the benefits. Sky – believe in butter.

On my latest yellow sticker trip to Marks and Spencer ( 3pm on a Sunday is a good time to visit I find), I was reminded about the flaws of doing everything on a phone. As usual, I picked the worse checkout to put my bargains on. At the front of the queue was a lady holding what seemed to be a huge bar of Galaxy (300g one) demanding that the cashier fetch the manager because she could not pay with her phone. The poor cashier was getting very embarrassed, but maintained a dignified tone of apology, as this customer was refusing to believe that it was the phone that was at fault, not the till.

What could possible go wrong with ticketless entry at ER?

We could ask the Citeh fans, who at the start of the season, having had this foisted on them without any consultation whatsoever, suffered long queues and a host of problems at the Etihad. The signal at Citeh is better than it is at ER, so you couldn’t even blame the poor reception. Could there be a situation where there are massive queues at the turnstiles because the ticket entry system isn’t working properly? A bit of congestion in a supermarket might be a bit of an inconvenience, but 30,000 people outside a football ground? Might be a bit more than a tiny bit of a hassle.

But why dwell on these negatives? What are the benefits?

According to the Leeds United website, the feedback from fans is that this is what they want.

Hmmm.

Anyone care to think back to the last thing that Leeds United said the fans wanted?

Was it perhaps the unmitigated disaster that was the new Club crest?

So, have the Club listened to the same group of fans again, then? No one I spoke to is in favour of etickets. In fact most are vehemently against them. As they are against the removal of the Pavilion as a pre match drinking place and cashless in ER. Who are these people that the Club are talking to?

You would have thought by now that it has dawned on the Club that the people that they are engaging with might not be most representative of the common or garden matchgoing fan. The ones they are engaging with may be on a completely different wavelength to the season ticket holders and members (when they can get a ticket) who attend games. These may have been the same fans who agreed that it would be a great idea to limit the exit points from the NW corner and the Kop for the first game of the season. Because that turned out so well didn’t it? Everyone being funnelled towards the gates at Lowfields, only to find that there was only one gate open. It was like the scene from 300 when the Persian Army were descending on Leonidas. It was only lacking a cliff to fall over.

My question is why do we need to change?

What is wrong with having season ticket cards and paper tickets? There is no green argument, paper is fully recyclable. One plastic card is hardly going to make any difference to the environment given the incredible volume of plastic pollution that is commonly known as the lateral flow tests, which we were forced to do every time we went anywhere for two years. These horrible plastic strips and the associated plastic paraphanalia, as well as the single use masks, gloves and PPE that the Government spent millions on ( and wasted as they had to send the rejects back as they weren’t fit for purpose ) have generated more environmental pollution in two years than all the farm animals in the world have ever done.

Just let us keep our season ticket cards and let us have paper tickets if we want to. Let us choose.

Let the Smartphone Elite have the option to live their lives addicted to their devices, if that’s what they want. But the Digitally Excluded must be allowed to come and watch Leeds United too.

Or is it, in a similar vein to the introduction of plastic season ticket cards, more that the saving is linked to having to have less ticket office staff and less staff at the turnstiles?

But then the question is, when your phone / device doesn’t work, who do you go to? Do you end up ringing some helpline 1000 miles away, waiting in a queue, whilst being reassured that “your call is very important to us”, because you digital ticket isn’t registering? If the eticket comes centrally from SeatGeek, can the ticket office staff actually do anything if it doesn’t work? Will there be any matchday ticket office staff at all if all the tickets are electronic? Hmmm – there’s a thought. Where have I heard this before?

Matchgoing fans matter. Our views matter. The old gits that sit in the Kop and the NW corner should have as much voice as those in the South Stand. In fact, if those in the South Stand think that it is right to chuck coins and bottles etc. on the pitch, then maybe The Club shouldn’t be listening to them at all, because that is not what football is all about. Same as it isn’t about glorifying the excessive antics of a growing number of Leeds fans who just want to goad home fans and get drunk and drugged up at away games.

At the Livarpool game on Weds night, as a mark of respect and solidarity to our fellow football fans, the LUSC exec met with The Spirit of Shankly group and laid a wreath at the Memorial Plaque for the 97. This is what football is about.

Apparently social media was all about us losing badly and the usual doom and gloom mongers saying that The Club needed to have invested in the January transfer window and that there is no future in the Club. But there’s more to football than squandering £100 million on the next Jean Paul Augustin. Speak to a normal matchgoing fan and they would be content with not having a 1950s crumbling relic of a West Stand and somewhere to drink and meet up with their mates before the game. They’d be happy with cheaper and better food and drink and better facilities. We’d be happy if our players just didn’t get injured all the time and our games didn’t get moved at the drop of hat by the True Gods of Football.

We would be happy if we could just go to a football game and enjoy it, and come back home.

Our greatest respect to the families and friends of the 97.

Always Leeds Always Loyal

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Put Us First

Posted by on Feb 4, 2022 in Blog | 0 comments

It sounds a bit greedy, it sounds a bit needy but PLEASE put us first.

I’ve done many pieces over the years around the subject of how marginalised I personally feel by the rise of “modern football”. They’ve been under the banner of “Fans Don’t Matter” and in the main, they’ve been a lighthearted look into  how abandoned I feel by the money men and TV companies that are the “True Gods of Football”. I suppose there’s been the odd one when I’ve blown my fuse and had a rant, but it’s been deserved.

I personally feel that long standing supporters like myself aren’t valued by, well, just about everyone really. I’ve pledged my undying allegiance to Leeds United, and I’ve spent a long long time unconditionally following my beloved team all over the country and the world. I’m not alone in this, there’s thousands more like me who win, lose or draw support Leeds United. We put our club first, it’s about time Leeds United put us first.

I will never tire of saying it either. It’s not selfish, it’s the truth. Those of us who tirelessly supported Leeds, home and away, when we got relegated, and relegated again, and still steadfastly turned up to cheer them on at those horrible crappy grounds (and not just to tick off one of the 92 either), all deserve to get away tickets, this season, next season and for however long we stick with it. We know who these people are, probably only 1000 maybe, who went to the majority of the aways, so it’s probably less than half of the normal away allocation in this league.

The Club know who they are, they could tell us, but they won’t. They should be proud of these supporters, they should be proud of our loyalty and we should be celebrated and acknowledged.  Any other club who are proud of their fans would. At least this season they have given us the “Super Away Attendees” , so at least there has been some recognition of loyalty over the last 10 years. Selfishly, I believe this recognition of our loyalty  should be maintained should be continued, in perpetuity. We aren’t going to live forever, if these last 2 years have taught us anything, it’s that we should value these things, before they are lost. Please put us first.

Why am I digging this up again?

Not just access to away tickets, this time. This time it’s properly about match going fans, primarily the safety of match going fans.

Ah! Now you’ve clocked it.

Everybody knows what happened at Chelsea. We have all seen the scenes on social media about the calamity in the shoddy Shed End at Stamford Bridge. Those of us unlucky to get caught up in it, experienced the mayhem first hand. Surprisingly some had no idea it had even happened until they heard about it afterwards. Many of us complained, some sent in videos for supporting evidence. The result? The usual cover up and as usual the blame was on us – the fans. For those of you who haven’t seen the official response, see snapshot below.

For once, our experience wasn’t in isolation.

Unfortunately, another near miss at the turnstiles occurred, this time at our own club. For those of you who haven’t seen the shocking scenes, here’s a link to The Chronicle

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/watch-moment-newcastle-united-fans-22858546

Put fans first.

The above two incidences are two extremes of how little match going fans are engaged with. There are many less extreme examples of how fans don’t matter at ER. The loss in pre match facilities for families has been previously highlighted in this blog. The move to give the Pavilion over to the Corporate Animals has meant that short of cramming into Billys or The Peacock, there is no place to meet family and friends for a pre match drink or some scran.

The introduction of cashless systems has forced many into not buying anything in the ground ever again. It was done in the name of convenience, but has it made much difference in the queues? It’s difficult to say at the moment because it’s winter, but when it gets warmer, will the service be better and more efficient, or will they still run out of beer, like they did at the start of the season? There hasn’t been much difference in the quality of the food or alcohol by all accounts – but I don’t buy anything anymore – so it’s just hearsay.

Electronic payment, well electronic systems are my bugbear full stop.

As we saw with the (now redundant – hopefully forever – papers please) passport, there were all sorts of issues because the signal at ER is so poor. Even though the PL rules said that you needed to show proper electronic ID, people were forced to take screen shots of their pass or (Heaven Forbid!) print it out on a piece of paper.

They are even stadia round the country who are pushing paperless e tickets. Given the problems with the turnstiles already, it’s not looking good is it? There’s nothing wrong with paper tickets and season ticket cards. Would they be any more difficult than e tickets? Probably not. Are they anymore environmentally challenging? Probably not. At least they wouldn’t be dependent on getting a signal on your phone and having enough battery on your phone. Yet, they tell us e ticketing and cashless is they way forward, and having the choice isn’t. Put us first.

Realistically, it’s not about what fans want, it’s what PL and clubs want. It’s probably to do with making all stadia “One size fits all”, so all the clubs are all the same. Who wants that? We value our individuality. Each club is unique. Who wants to be another identikit club, with an identikit ground and identikit fans? Ah! Therein lies the answer – it’s not about the fans, it’s about the commercial enterprise that is “Modern Football”.

I can see behind the scenes there are deals with e ticketing firms, internet security, infrastructure companies who make turnstiles, electronic supplies, etc. etc. etc. all partners with the PL, FIFA and UEFA, all with vested interests to make each club, in each country, all use the same companies and facilities. All in the name of progress and convenience, but in truth, it’s all about money and contracts. All of these companies will all have deals selling on your data as well, to make more money out of us. The digitally excluded will be just that. Excluded. If you can’t afford the phone / device , that’s your luck out. Just like trying to order tickets – if you don’t have decent broadband reception and a decent device, don’t even bother.

If the turnstiles were all manned, like they used to be, would there have been the problems experienced at Chelski? Would there have been issues at the West Stand with the visiting Geordies? Who can say? But I doubt it. It’s supposed to save money on staffing I’m guessing – but fans should come first and no money saving measures should compromise fans’ safety – surely?

This season we’ve actually managed to visit Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea etc. and seen the impact on the grounds when all the corporate hospitality all disappear at half time. The stadia are soul less and needed the managers running up and down the touchlines to stir up the noise and support from the home fans. I’ve heard that they deliberately sell more corporate tickets, at a premium price, to those who can afford it in order to keep the prices down for the normal fans in the cheap seats. Well, after speaking to a few season ticket holders from these London clubs, there isn’t much sign of that helping them out with their match day prices. If and when ER gets its’ make over, what is going to happen to us? Are we going to sacrifice swathes of seats for the corporate animals, just so we can keep our season ticket to less than £600 a year? Is ER going to end up cheap but bereft of atmosphere? Are there going to be anymore proper seats for normal fans, or is it going to be full of corporate entertainment? 

There’s mention year after year of the ticket prices of the German clubs compared to ours. It gets brought up every season about how the Chairmen in the Bundesliga are proud that they don’t charge their fans anywhere near the prices that the PL charge. Because they value the fans. Tonight Boro are playing Sc*m in the Cup. I believe Sc*m are charging the Boro fans £46 quid! Scandalous. Mind you they charged us £42 and that was yonks ago.

The PL boasts that it is the best league in the world, yet the Bundesliga treats fans better than the PL does, not just in ticket prices but the standard of food and facilities. You’ll not see the Germans paying nearly a tenner for a nuclear chicken balti pie and flat lager.  

No doubt though, in future years the PL will also try to bring in an identikit price for season tickets and match day tickets, to go with the identikit stadia and identikit fans in their bid to standardise everything. However, at least away tickets have been capped, so there is one tiny glimmer of hope.

Put fans first.

To conclude, this week Derby have been given another stay of execution. Some might not sympathise much with them after the Fat Frank shenanigans, but as I said before when I wrote about Bury and Bolton, this isn’t the fault of the fans. Once again, the problems at Derby County are down to the greed of the money men. Like so many clubs, ours included under B*tes, the fans are always the ones who suffer the most. The fans are the last to know (if in fact they ever find out) about what is happening behind the scenes in the boardroom.

The Chairmen, the owners, their accountants and their lawyers, in cahoots with greedy agents and oligarchs, chicken farmers, small nation states and businessmen with big mouths but shallow pockets and all manner of shady figures lurking in the shadows, they control everything. If it goes wrong, they move to their next vanity project.

The fans? We are left to suffer with the fall out. They’ll all be there though, piteously wringing their hands in public,  pretending they didn’t see it coming, whilst in private they are blaming their accountants for not managing to fiddle the figures better, and their lawyers for not leveraging up the loopholes properly.

It’s a romantic ideal that they should put the fans first.

But we have to dream about something right? Other than having a fully fit first team.

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