May’s a nasty month for any Chelsea fan. Coming second in the League? Losing a final? Maybe. But just as worse is the wallet-wrenching tug coming from Eddie Barnett and the less-than-patient chaps at Chelsea’s Ticket Office.
It’s Season Ticket renewal time.
In the good old days of thin crowds and relegation threatened seasons, season tickets were never an issue at Chelsea because you could always get a ticket, be it standing or sitting. For this reason we had the lowest season ticket take up in the Football League One and the Premier League. The grand total? Just over 2,000 fans.
It wasn’t until the mid-nineties stadium re-building and Gullit’s ‘sexshhhy futbull’ that the ability to walk in off the street came to an abrupt end. This coincided, not by accident, with Ken Bates deciding that this was the perfect time to claw back his £1 that he paid in 1983 for the Club and make some profit. All £18 million of it.
Media interest in Chelsea ticket prices reached fever pitch with ‘outraged from Pinner’ and ‘pissed off from Kingston’ widely quoted amongst the national and London press. They had a point. Ticket prices sped from £7 to £25 in the space of a few years. That’s a 350% rise.
Which brings us to today. Now I’m not one to publicly applaud the Club but given that the Matthew Harding Lower price is just £635 you’ve got to admit that’s good value. Basically it’s £33 a game. That’s a fair price when you consider that Arsenal are charging £1,700 for a standard season ticket with Cup Games included. That’s bloody expensive, even more so if they get knocked out of competitions early.
It’s strange then, after years of criticism about Chelsea’s ticket prices, that the media are silent in their reporting of what is an impressive statistic: no season ticket price rises for 5 years.
The month of May will always hurt though. All £635 of it. Just glad it’s not Mrs Chelsea’s birthday this month. And a word to the wise – never get married or give birth in May. You’d never be able to afford Chelsea again.
It’s Season Ticket renewal time.
In the good old days of thin crowds and relegation threatened seasons, season tickets were never an issue at Chelsea because you could always get a ticket, be it standing or sitting. For this reason we had the lowest season ticket take up in the Football League One and the Premier League. The grand total? Just over 2,000 fans.
It wasn’t until the mid-nineties stadium re-building and Gullit’s ‘sexshhhy futbull’ that the ability to walk in off the street came to an abrupt end. This coincided, not by accident, with Ken Bates deciding that this was the perfect time to claw back his £1 that he paid in 1983 for the Club and make some profit. All £18 million of it.
Media interest in Chelsea ticket prices reached fever pitch with ‘outraged from Pinner’ and ‘pissed off from Kingston’ widely quoted amongst the national and London press. They had a point. Ticket prices sped from £7 to £25 in the space of a few years. That’s a 350% rise.
Which brings us to today. Now I’m not one to publicly applaud the Club but given that the Matthew Harding Lower price is just £635 you’ve got to admit that’s good value. Basically it’s £33 a game. That’s a fair price when you consider that Arsenal are charging £1,700 for a standard season ticket with Cup Games included. That’s bloody expensive, even more so if they get knocked out of competitions early.
It’s strange then, after years of criticism about Chelsea’s ticket prices, that the media are silent in their reporting of what is an impressive statistic: no season ticket price rises for 5 years.
The month of May will always hurt though. All £635 of it. Just glad it’s not Mrs Chelsea’s birthday this month. And a word to the wise – never get married or give birth in May. You’d never be able to afford Chelsea again.
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