stevegrant

Supply and demand, London premium, use any cliché you like, they largely all apply here. Despite how **** they've been this season, West Ham have averaged 34,490 for their league games, with a capacity of 35,647, which suggests that enough people are happy to pay the going rate. I think we charged West Ham £37 when they came down here for a ****ty Sunday lunchtime game that was televised. £5 more for a game in London when compared with that isn't a big deal IMO. Sure, I'd love every game to be £10 a ticket, with free travel thrown in for good measure, but that's never going to happen in a month of Sundays. Lumping in the travel costs is entirely appropriate when determining affordability at football, as it often accounts for the majority of the cost. Take the Sunderland FA Cup game, apparently they're only charging £15 for the tickets, which is great, but a cursory glance at East Coast's website gives me a return train from London for nearly £80 (and that's much cheaper than someone wanting to get the train from Southampton), so it's around £100 for a game that's live on TV at an inconvenient time. Contrast that with West Ham, and the trip from Southampton plus ticket is £52 plus tube ticket, nearly half the overall cost. Which trip makes the most financial sense? A lot of the time, travel cost is proportionate to the pro-activeness (not sure that's even a word, but let's run with it) of the individual. Most train operating companies offer cheap advance fares which go on sale around 12 weeks before the date of travel. Assuming you're still in Bristol, you can get a return to Paddington from Temple Meads for £27 on a Saturday in 11 weeks' time. The TV games for the weekend of the West Ham game were announced on 10th December, ten and a half weeks before the game, so there would almost certainly have been cheap fares available.

Yeah, example (that hopefully works ) [soundcloud] [/soundcloud]

Available on the day.

Beat you to it

Saturday lunchtime kickoff again. ****s sake.

Surprisingly easy to implement, you can now use the [soundcloud][/soundcloud] BBCode

Yep.

The deal is valid on all SWT routes (with a handful of exceptions but they're all down in the West Country), so just get the return ticket to Putney via "Any Permitted Route" (which will allow you to go via Waterloo as well as Clapham Junction) and you'll be fine.

Just £20 for the team entry fee.

The more the merrier, on both counts

Yes you do Assume you're aware that the consensus seems to be staying in hotels this year rather than the uni accommodation?

If people are that desperate to go, they'll find a way. Always have done, always will do. For that particular weekend, South West Trains are running their winter sale promotion, so a return ticket to Waterloo is only £10. That would usually be around £30 (with a network railcard) or £25 with a Group Saver. Offset that against the ticket price and West Ham's a cheaper day out this season compared to last season.

Venue details: Flanders Playing Fields, Napier Road, London, E6 2SG. Map 11:00 kick-off, arrive by 10:30 Nearest tube station is East Ham (District and Hammersmith & City lines), around 15 minutes walk, and that station is also one stop from Upton Park for the afternoon game.

Don't go then

Better late than never, I guess.

Suspect they were tickets held back for scouts, sponsors, etc that haven't been taken up.

Worth bearing in mind that Saints now charge away fans £40 for the Category A games.

There are still some available through the Saints ticket office. Around 80 tickets in block 10 were made available this morning, no idea where they were returned from.

No, that's The Betting Room, who didn't win the tender for in-stadium betting rights this season. Sporting Bet are slightly more reputable.

Nor had the PL felt the benefit of the insane amount of cash available even to the team finishing bottom of the league through the broadcasting rights contracts. The parachute payments - which have always been significantly lower than the amount received for actually being in the PL - we received were £6.7m per year for two years. Pompey receive £10m this year, the FOURTH year since they dropped out of the top flight.

Yeah, good luck with that

No. Prospective presidents of Barcelona and Real Madrid require their own wealth in order to stand for election, and I believe have to have been a socio (i.e. member) for a number of years.

Of course, nobody could have foreseen something like this happening when we signed him, not like he's got a history of training ground problems or anything...

At least Phil Jones hit the target last night... assuming, of course, that he was aiming for that fan's face, of course