1000% increase in football ticket prices in 20 years

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Despite the fact that it’s a multi-billion pound industry, football is alienating young fans due the continuing rise in ticket prices, which have gone up by a staggering 1000% over the past 20 years. If you wanted to watch Manchester United play at home in 1989, the cheapest ticket would have cost you £3.50. Allowing for inflation, that should cost £6.20 today, but in fact will set you back £28.

It is even worse for Liverpool supporters, they used to pay £4 for a ticket at Anfield, and their cheapest is now £45, a massive hike of 1,025%. Arsenal’s prices have risen by 920%, and their tickets have risen from £5 to a wallet bashing £51, making a home match possible only for those with cash to splash around, and excluding the ordinary footie fan.

The chairman of the Football Supporters Federation, Malcolm Clarke, has said that while some teams in the Premiership still offer their fans a good deal, the top clubs, particularly those in London, charge outrageous prices. These are way beyond the means of younger fans who now feel alienated and have to go to the pub to watch their team play, which robs them of the match day atmosphere that exists in a football ground.

Traditionally, football was one of the most accessible of all sports, but the price of tickets in today’s economic climate where jobs are under threat and there is less disposable income, fans have found themselves being priced out of the game. Some clubs, according to the Guardian Online, are proposing to raise ticket prices even higher. A rise of 6.5% is on the cards at Arsenal, but Blackburn have tickets for £10 and Stoke are freezing prices.

When stadiums were made all seated after the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, prices rose as there were less supporters able to fit in the grounds, but nowadays, the price you pay at the gate is to pay the astronomical wages of the top flight players.

Scottish football clubs score one for dementia

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Scottish football clubs score one for dementia A top Scottish university has announced that some of the biggest football clubs in the country are joining them in a project which is aimed at helping those suffering from dementia. Hearts, Hibernian, Motherwell and Celtic have all teamed up with the Caledonian University in Glasgow in its latest stage of the long running research project it has been doing on the condition.

The clubs will be offering both those suffering from dementia, and their carers, the opportunity to visit the grounds and have a chat about the beautiful game in a serious of informal and relaxed coffee mornings. For those who like football but don’t follow a particular team, there is a chance to visit Hampden, the home of the Scottish national team.

This initiative has come about after those doing the research at the university discovered that using football to trigger the minds of those suffering from dementia resulted in startling and positive results. Experts had discovered previously that showing items of football memorabilia to men with dementia had stimulated their memories in quite a remarkable manner.

Charlie Bennett, from Motherwell FC,  has said that  Motherwell have always made an effort to engage with their community at all different levels, and strive to bring benefits to others wherever they could. He added that some of their former players suffered from Alzheimer’s, so they had first hand knowledge of how the condition affected both the sufferers and their families.

The team hopes that by letting sufferers and their carers access the facilities at their ground, Fir Park, they are creating an environment to stimulate their minds. The trophies and memorabilia that are on display in the lounges could have a profound effect and jog memories, thus bringing relief to their carers.

Npower and Robbie Savage looking to break record

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Robbie Savage is going to attempt to set the new World Record for wearing the most football league shirts at once as part of a new Club 72 initiative for Npower.  Although Savage officially retired last year, he is teaming up with the npower Club 72 group this year in an attempt to take home the record for wearing the most npower football league at once.

Savage has played professional football for the last 17 years, so in reality there are not too many colors that he has not actually worn on the field, but with Crawley Town and AFC Wimbledon joining the Premiere League this season you can bet that at least two of the shirts are going to look new to him.

Outside of simply tossing on the colours of Leicester City and Derby County, there are a few shirts that Savage and his fans most likely would rather forget.  Savage himself is getting a bit nervous as he stated that the attempt seemed easy, but the more he looks at pictures at other people who have tried for the world record the harder it looks.

“Throughout my playing career I was fortunate enough to weigh exactly the same in my final season at Derby as when I first started out with Crewe Alexandra – I certainly don’t think there is any room to be carrying any extra pounds for this challenge.

“The t-shirts’ collective weight will obviously put my shoulders and back under a lot of pressure and heat stroke is also something else to consider.

“Naturally I’m hugely proud of my playing career and this is a great way to end it. If I break the record, I expect that makes me the only player in the world to wear every single npower Football League team strip.”

The record attempt is to celebrate the launch of npower’s Club 72 initiative which will be an interactive platform for football supporters to chart their own performance throughout the season.

Launching to coincide with the start of the 2011/12 season, Club 72 will offer fans the chance to document their own performance in terms of attending football league games at npowerclub72.com. The site will allow fans to record the Football League stadiums they’ve been to and show how far they’ll go to follow the beautiful game. For every stadium visited, you’ll be awarded a virtual badge as well as bonus points for being a “lucky charm” (seeing three victories in a row) and reaching certain milestones such as “all Championship grounds visited”.

Football this August just doesn’t feel normal

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Football this August just doesn’t feel normal Although we now consider it as part of the norm, football in August still doesn’t sit well as it is so synonymous with winter. It has been around for a while now but it still feels as if the start of the new season sounds the death knell for our summer, and the dark night will soon be upon us. It’s also a sad fact that football this August is like no other, as the usually high octane excitement of the first day of the season has been marred by games being cancelled.

This isn’t due to the weather or anything so innocent, this is due to the acts of mindless violence that have taken place across the UK over the past week; this is due to the riots. The decision to let other games go ahead has been said by many to be madness, as crowds of drink fuelled football fans streaming through parts of run down cities already decimated by the riots is a recipe for disaster.

Those police officers who have worked tirelessly for days to try and restore order on our streets will invariably now be deployed to try and keep order amongst a different kind of threat. This is an explosive cocktail of extra, yet easily avoidable, tensions that the country as a whole could do without. Those in power should have got their priorities right and delayed the start of the season, the thugs wouldn’t have won, the country would have.

Premier League and Football League media talks go into extra time

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Premier League and Football League media talks go into extra time Talks that were going on between the Premier League, the Football League and various media organisations regarding match coverage are finally back on after a standoff  which has lasted a week, leaving very little tile to get a deal hammered out before the new premier league season starts. The two sides effectively spat their dummies out last Wednesday and broke of all contact with each other.

This was after talks regarding an agreement broke down acrimoniously when the two footballing bodies walked away from the table. This included details about where the news media outlets were allowed to syndicate their material, the speed in which they could publish photos and to what extent readers could engage with the online content during a live match.

The media coalition including most of the national newspapers as well as worldwide agencies such as The Press Association, Getty Images and Reuters had cut back on their coverage opening weekend of the new football league season as well the Carling Cup first round matches. This was after they were locked out of the grounds after they refused to sign a temporary extension to their existing deal.

According to two separate sources with inside knowledge of the discussions, negotiations have now recommenced It is also thought that, despite their being an acrimonious dispute, common ground still exists between the two factions, and this increases the chances of a deal being agreed before the Premier League starts on Saturday.

The coalition, who are being represented by the Newspaper Publishers Association, have put forward demands that surrounding such things as a new deal picture and news agencies, a change in live match reporting and also the use of the social media networks, and these are thought to be not exactly poles apart from what the sport’s governing bodies have deemed acceptable.

They both agree that the existing deal is outdated, not surprising since it dates back to the 2003/4 season, two years before twitter even existed. A source, who is close to the footballing bodies, angrily dismissed the claims that they were old fashioned and trying to hold the game back from taking its place in the rapidly rising world of digital media coverage.