I had another blog planned for today, but that will now be a lunch time read.
Last night Arsenal announced some new terms and conditions on away fans:
Coming out of Covid, the club decided to go to war against the away fans and scrapped the Away Scheme. Long term readers of the blog will know I was a member.
There had been talk for some years prior to Covid that certain fan groups had begun attacking away fans with lots of credits. They were simply jealous that fans like myself who had done the hard yards for over a decade (and some of my mates even more) and went to almost every away game as a reward.
Instead of working their way up the credits from 0, they continually pressurised the club to make changes, labelling all away scheme members at touts. They got their way. But the club scrapping the away scheme got them no nearer to the likes of Spurs away.
After coming for the away scheme members, the focus shifted to home fans and we saw the recent introduction of a home ticket ballot for those who are not season ticket holders, and a drastic reduction in tickets allocated to silvers.
Those tickets were taken from Silver members and passed onto a Red member ballot (which silvers can enter). Again, the club do this at the behest of certain fan groups who felt they deserved as much as a right to go to games as a silver who had spent a decade or more as a red.
With the ballot in tatters, and fans who went to 15+ games a season now 0 for 8, the club have continued an attack on its heartbeat and have now gone back in for away fans.
A year or so ago, the club announced they would be holding some away tickets back for collection. They said these were “targetted memberships” who they suspected of touting. In the last couple of weeks, they have changed this targetted collection to random collection.
And now we have the latest terms and conditions.
If a fan fails to pick up an away ticket, they lose the credit – fair enough. But then if they fail to pick it up twice, they lose 10 credits. And 3rd strike they potentially get moved down to zero.
It takes a decade to go up to 40+ tickets. And even that was not enough for Bournemouth away (side note: the club were happy to splash pictures of 10 year old kids in the away end, knowing full well they were not in the ground on their own memberships).
All of that hard work, horrible trips up north on a cold rainy Tuesday night, can be flushed down the drain if you go and get Covid, have a bereavement, get called away to work or any number of reasons why you might miss a couple of games in quick succession.
For me, there are two attackers here. The first are the club and the second, sadly, are fellow fans.
As above, it is well known that some fan groups disliked the away scheme and they did everything in their power to petition the club to scrap it. This is where this all began.
More recently you have had a loud minority who have been pushing for further sanctions.
It is the group of fans who think they have a right to go to Tottenham away, to Chelsea away, and so on, just because they have had a season ticket for 2 or 3 years.
They have no interest in doing those hard yards. Burnley away. Newcastle on a Sunday with no trains back. Everton on a Tuesday night. No. All the want is Tottenham, Chelsea or West Ham.
The irony is, even with these changes, they will be no nearer getting a ticket for a big game away. They will still be on zero credits because they do not want to go to a less glamorous matches.
They have basically created a situation where they gain nothing, but hundreds of fans lose out.
And most are the new breed of fans. Probably paid for a Club Level ticket to queue jump the season ticket waiting list. Turn up in a retro shirt bought for 3 times its value of Classic Football Shirts. Love AFTV. For them going to football is just an instagram moment. Something to boast to the boys at work on a Monday morning about.
Where were the fans demanding changes in ticketing when we were not playing very well? Where were all of these fans in 2017 when we face Koln in the Europa League in-front of 43,500, with at least 10,000 of that being German. They were nowhere to be seen.
These rats have only come out from under their rocks more recently, now that we are good again. They now want to go to Manchester United, to Tottenham. But ask them if they wanted to go to Manchester City in 2016? You could not have even paid them.
Then you have the club.
I actually feel sorry for Mikel Arteta.
Since joining as manager, Arteta worked hard to bring players closer to the fans, and both home and away is louder than it has been for years. Those decision makers on ticketing have killed that momentum in one evening.
Without going too far down the conspiracy rabbit hole, this feels like a planned attack on someone like me – a fella in his 30s who has been doing home and away for 15 years.
For many clubs, Arsenal included, the away fan base is the heartbeat of the club.
There is something special about being an away fan. You do all these miles to all these places, feel like it is us against an entire town or city. You meet the same people week after week. Faces become “alright mate”, alright mate becomes friends. And before you know it there are 7 of you sharing a room in Swansea.
It feels like the club is trying to get rid of the current generation of fans who go to away games.
You see, it is the current generation of away fans (of all clubs including and beyond Arsenal) that forced changes with ticket prices.
Back 10 years ago, we were getting charged £65 to go to places like Chelsea and West Ham. Fans from all clubs got together for the Twenty’s Plenty campaign. This forced clubs to bring in the current £30 price cap (side note: Arsenal used to give a further £4 discount. That was stopped this year….).
It is the likes of Black Scarf Movement who campaigned for years for the re-introduction of Safe Standing. Many clubs, excluding Arsenal, have now successfully introduced it.
And when the Super League reared its ugly head, it was the communities of away fans up and down the country that mobilised themselves and other fans followed.
I remember during Covid, standing on the Bear’s roundabout protesting. It was like being at away game. 90% of those faces were known from away days.
It was the away fans that stopped the Super League, and I believe since that day the club have labelled us as troublemakers and been working out how they can reduce our influence.
They were uncomfortable with the power that away fans held following the Super League protests, and these changes are simply an attempt to break our spirit. Destroy the bonds built over a decade or more. It is Sun Tzu style war games.
You kill the head of the army (the away fans) and the rest of fan base will fall in line.
They hope to get rid of the Keenos’ of this world from away grounds, and replace them with a fan base that they can control. Fans that maybe sit in club level or in boxes. Fans that will not be bothered about protesting the next Super League. Fans that actually support us playing Real Madrid, Barcelona and PSG every weekend….
Now I do get that touting is an issue. But it has been an issue since before I started going football in the mid 90s. Every club suffers from touting up and down the leagues.
The club are dressing this latest attack on away fans as trying to stop touting and reduce the “closed shop” of away tickets. But too many fans who have spent thousands of fans watching their club up and down the country are going to get caught in the crossfire.
Like with silvers, one of the major issues for away fans is the allocation has been cut.
Box holders now reportedly get tickets for any away game they want, whilst “players and staff” also get tickets for the away end.
It is all cute and everything seeing 6 members of David Raya’s family in their Arsenal shirts, but that is 6 tickets that could have gone to actual fans…
I would not be surprised if next season, we see a further reduction in away tickets go on sale to the “common fan” with more going to Club Level. And how long until we see an away fan ballot?
For those with 0 credits that will support a ballot, read on.
We have on average 2,500 tickets per away game. We play 19 league games. By the time you take away the tickets set aside for corporates, sponsors, players and staff, around 2,000 go on sale to fans. That is 38,000 over the course of a season. Less than how many season ticket holders there are.
So by pushing for a ballot as your next step, you are less likely than now to be able to get your hand on a ticket….
In around 2012, with us without a trophy in 7-years, the club reopened the away scheme, inviting new members for the first time in a decade. They did this because they were beginning to struggle to sell out tickets.
It will not take too much of a downturn for the new hangers on to depart. Arsenal will stop being a “cool place to be seen” again.
They do not even want to do Newcastle away now when we are good. Try getting them to go when we are down in 6th with 3 wins from the opening 7 games.
And at that point, the club will be back cap in hand to those long term fans like me and many of you reading. They will be cap in hand begging for us to return. Probably even reopen the away scheme.
Keenos
Just a normal fella from North London who has done thousands of miles, spending thousands of pounds, following the club he loves.
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 
As a travel club member who’s done all the hard yards, I think people just want the chance to build up their credits without having to do multiple European away nights per season, which isn’t affordable for most.
I see the problem as those with all the credits that sell on more tickets than games they go to themselves, just to keep their credits up.
No ballot needed, but making sure people are who they say they are should help people build up credits, although not ideal
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A well-rounded discussion, thanks for sharing.
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