Hope you are nice and warm reading this! I certainly am not missing my old 5am commute from Loughton into London. That Central Line would be freezing until it hit Leytonstone and went underground.

Realisation is hitting for season tickets holders as to the cost of the Porto game which has been given A category by the club.

Season ticket holders have been somewhat “protected” from the different categories the club charges over the years.

Whilst the cost of our season ticket was made up of the individual Cat A, B & C ticket costs many, like me, would have just divided their ticket cost by 26 (the amount of games we used to get).

For me, that resulted in my season ticket being around £37 a game. I did not care if we were playing Burnley or Tottenham, I was paying £37 a game (even though the club were charging about £24 for Burnley and then £64 for Tottenham to fans on general sale). When I sold to a mate, they would pay my “season ticket average” regardless of the category.

At the beginning of this, the club cut the games in the season ticket to 22 – just the 3 guaranteed cup games. They then reduced the cost of the season ticket pro-rata as we were now paying for 22 games rather than 26. Individual ticket prices then went up, so the cost of the pro-rata’d reduced season ticket also saw the saw percentage increase.

At the time, this was seen as a positive.

For a long time, the Black Scarf Movement had been campaigning for a “season ticket lite”, where fans could chose to just pay for the 19 league games and then purchase cup games on a game-by-game basis.

Fans were being asked to pay upfront for 26 games, despite their being no guarantee of 26 games. If we got knocked out of the FA Cup or Europe early, or had a run of away ties, we would not reach the 26 and would geta refund at the end of the season.

The change to 22 ensured that fans were only paying upfront for the guaranteed games, and seemed to be a happy medium between the previous policy and the BSM “no cup games included” proposal.

Alongside the change, the club also introduced a “Cup Scheme” similar to the old Away Scheme.

If you opted into the cup scheme, the club would automatically buy you your seat on your behalf prior to the sale of cup games, thus ensuring that you did not miss out on the purchasing period. I failed to sign up for the cup scheme and then forgot to Liverpool tickets went on sale, resulting in me missing the game.

They reopened the cup scheme prior to the Liverpool game and I opted in to ensure that I would not miss another game.

The Cup Scheme again is brilliant. It ensures you still get your season ticket seat without having to worry or stress about remembering to purchase it. It also meant you only paid for the games we played, and you were not paying in advance for games we might not play.

If you did not sign up for the Cup Scheme, you still had priority over Silver’s to buy your seat in the same way season ticket holders have had priority for the League Cup for decades.

But then we come to Porto.

In the old system, the club were limited as to how many Cat A games they could include due to the season ticket. It would usually be split 7 Cat A, 12 Cat B and 7 Cat C. The first knockout stage of the Champions League was almost always a Cat B game.

But with the club now only having 22 games at a fixed price, they have more flexibility as to what to categorise those 4 other cup games, and for Port have they have picked Cat A. The result is ticket prices ranging from £67.78 to an eye watering £131.74.

It is just greed.

Now season ticket holders previously had to pay for cup tickets once the 26 games are used up. This would often be at the Champions League quarter final stage if we got 2 out of 4 home ties in the FA Cup (the schedule goes: FA Cup (3), FA Cup (4), CL (KO), FA Cup (5)).

Those 4 games alongside the 3 for the group stages would take us to our 26 tickets.

By the time we hit the QF of the Champions League, we were usually facing a Barcelona, Juventus, Manchester United, etc, so fans had no issue paying the premium Cat A cost.

Liverpool in the FA Cup was given Cat B. I was surprised by this as in the league it is a Cat A. And if we we were drawn against them later i nthe competition, it would certainly have been Cat A.

The decision to make Porto Cat A only came after the Liverpool defeat. Had we qualified for the next round of the FA Cup, I am sure Porto would have been Cat B.

What the club are now doing is trying to claw back some of the lost revenue from early cup exits by making Porto Cat A. It is just greed.

On top of this, season ticket holders also need to pay a transaction cost further increasing the ticket price, this despite our tickets being bought automatically, and uploaded to our digital pass. There is no additional cost to the club or its ticketing partners (Away Scheme members used to be exempt from the transaction fee).

Those who have opted in are unable to cancel their ticket. They are forced to buy it, but can then sell on the Ticket Exchange – where the club takes their percentage ass well as charges yet another transaction fee.

I feel for Mikel Arteta and others who have worked hard bridging the gap between the club, players and fans. Last season was brilliant (helped by our good form), but tensions are rising this season.

The good work is being undone by Chief Execs and Directors who only can about “maximising income”. They are disconnected from the fanbase and are going out of their way to create a hostile relationship with regular match going fans.

I am a fan of just having only the guaranteed tickets included in the season ticket price, and think the Cup Scheme is perfect for fans who want to go every game and are concerned they might miss out on their narrow purchase window.

But having a knockout Champions League game against Porto as a Cat A feels like an own goal.

Keenos