Tag Archives: She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

£60 to watch West Ham? That’s an East London Robbery

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Before I start, let me just say Arsenal are a disgrace. £64 as the cheapest ticket games against big teams such as Liverpool, Manchester United, and Bayern Munich. And at the top end it is over £100. The fact that we charge crazy amounts of money for Category A games is disgusting. Football ticket prices in general is disgusting. No club’s fans can try to pretend to have the high ground when it comes to ticket prices. “But you charge X” as a justification to why your own clubs tickets are so high is no justification.

With that out the way, a little rant about West Ham United.

Yesterday, prices for West Ham v Chelsea were announced. Chelsea fans will be getting charged £60. This is shocking.

Last year it was bad enough, West Ham charged teams that categorised as ‘A’ £55. This year they have raised this by 10%. What justification? GREED.

Away fans of the big clubs – Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool – have been punished for years for being successful, for having a big away following. Fans of these clubs are charged a premium as other clubs attempt to cash in on their away following, knowing that they will sell out whether you charge them £30 or £60.

I have gone more in depth to this last year in a blog about away ticket prices, where a fan following Arsenal up and down the country would be charged 36% more than a fan of Leicester. We get screwed.

West Ham charging Chelsea £60 is an indication of what Arsenal fans will have to pay for the same fixture. It is shocking.

What is most shocking is the situation West Ham are currently in. This will be the last season at the Boleyn Ground. They are clearly trying to cash in!

From next season, they will be playing at the Olympic Stadium, paying a paltry £2m to £2.5m a year in rent. This for a stadium that not only cost £537 million to build, but an additional £272 million to make it fit for purpose. West Ham have contributed around £15 million to this.

So not only are we, the London tax payer (as it is us who paid for the Olympics through an additional tax) already paying for the worlds most expensive council house, we are now being ripped off for football tickets.

On top of this, Gold & Sullivan, West Ham’s owners, have being on a positive PR mission since winning the bid for the stadium.

They have been promoting themselves as London’s family club. That they will not use the new stadium to increase revenue, but to offer more, cheaper tickets, making football more accessible for those poverty stricken East Londoneers living in their slums. Brilliant news. On paper.

So this nice little family club, who have won the lottery getting a near billion pound stadium for next to nothing, have increased their prices the year before, ensuring that they bleed fans for every penny before their move.

I would not be too surprised if next season, in their shiny new stadium, they have a big announcement that they are to reduce ticket prices by 10%. This will be greated by a massive fan fare in the West Ham loving Fleet Street Press, who will show West Ham as a brilliant example of a club reducing prices, giving a fairer deal to fans. But ultimately, what they will be making, is the season before they added 10%.

It is like a retailer doubling the price of a TV, to then only offer it at 50% off at a later date. It is a false sale. Highly illegal.

Whilst I am thinking of the Olympic Stadium. It is going to be the worst away game of next season. Pay a premium, to watch a game in a soulless stadium, a million miles from the pitch, with no boozer near the stadium for a pint. Although  I am sure the Scouser’s are looking forward to checking out what Westfield’s has to offer…

£60 to go to West Ham, surrounded by Neanderthal knuckle draggers who are still bitter about the docks closing whilst voting UKIP. Of course, I will pay, that was what I do. I moan. I pay. I turn up. I support my team. And then I moan again. I am a mug.

So West Ham, thanks for being a family club. Thanks for charging us common football fans through the nose to watch a simple game.

It is about time the Premier League banned the price fixing of football, stopped clubs have Cat A – E (in some cases) and supported a fairer deal for fans. We are not too far away from a £100 away ticket.

Keenos

 

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The Disgusting Abuse of Olivier Giroud

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Us Arsenal fans, we always need someone to have a go at don’t we. Someone to dig out. Someone to boo. Someone to take the blame for everything.

In recent times, that person has been Emmanuel Eboue, Gervinho & Yaya Sanogo. Now the boo boys have a new target. And it is disgraceful.

Olivier Giroud had a poor game for France last night. He missed want some called a sitter after a smart turn (it was not an easy chance), and was booed off by French fans. And then the abuse began.

His name begun trending on Twitter after numerous tweets starting in France, and it was not too long until Arsenal fans jumped on the bandwagon.

https://twitter.com/Aaron_jackson21/status/640992489688727552

https://twitter.com/LouuKW/status/641002610879819776

 

The attacking of Giroud by Arsenal fans is disgusting. Yes, he might not be everyone’s cup of tea, he might not be the world class player we all dream of, but he is an Arsenal players. And should be supported.

What do we want to happen? Boo and abuse Giroud, so he loses confidence and plays even worse, so we boo and abuse him even more, and he gets even worse, and so on and so on. Are some of our fans really so stupid that they think continually getting on Giroud’s back is the right thing to do?

Since being at Arsenal, he has scored 42 goals in 101 games. It might not be up there with the likes of Aguero and Suarez, but it is amongst the best of the rest in the league. He has not too far off what you would probably class as the leagues top strikers…

League goals Games Goals Goals per game
van Persie 86 48 0.55
Kane 49 24 0.48
Benteke 92 43 0.46
Rooney 93 41 0.44
Giroud 101 41 0.41
Lukaku 108 44 0.41

 

So he is a tad behind the likes of van Persie, Benteke & Rooney, but many would class these as excellent, even world class, performers. They are players who cost £30m+. So Giroud isn’t perfect, but he is the best we have.

Yes, some will say “but he plays in a better side so gets more chances”, which to an extent, as true – but the others are boosted by penalties, and van Persie and Rooney get plenty of chances in a match.

And compare then look at who he keeps out of the French side. Karim Benzema.

Benzema has scored 44 goals in 95 games. That is playing in an easier league, for a better team, than Giroud. So if Giroud is ‘shit’ what is Benzema? And he also kept out Manchester United’s new £60 million wonderkid Martial out of the side.

Giroud, like Yaya Sanogo before him, is getting the abuse for the manager not acting in the transfer market.

https://twitter.com/craigvpower/status/641163311728472064

Wenger did not buy another striker, whether that be someone who is better than Giroud (in my opinion there are not too many available) or someone to compliment / compete with him. It is not Giroud’s fault.

People got on Sanogo’s back due to him being 2nd choice striker. That was Wenger’s choice, not Sanogo’s. It is the same case as Giroud. Do not blame him for being the only decent striker at Arsenal, blame Wenger.

And that is the crux of the matter. Giroud is a decent striker. And he is an Arsenal striker. We should be getting behind him, backing him, cheering his name, not getting on his back for missing a half chance whilst playing on international duty.

Even if you do not like Giroud, or rate, him, whilst he is an Arsenal player, let’s back him. Calling him a lamppost is just silly. Getting on his back will not help him.

I do wonder sometimes, some of our fans want to erode the confidence of players, want to get on their back, want to see them fail, for their own motives, their own agenda. They would rather Giroud not score so that they can say “You’re shit Giroud, Wenger’s a c**t” then him getting a goal like against Palace, or going on the run he went last season.

No matter if you like Giroud or not, you should want him to score goals. Giroud scoring goals increases the chances of success of Arsenal. If you get on his back, want him to fail, then you want Arsenal to fail.

Back Giroud. Back Arsenal.

Keenos

Transfer Window Dismay for Gunners: Caution will cost us

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There can be no justification why Arsene Wenger didn’t add to his squad this season with a world class outfield player. The timely arrival of Petr Cech definitely appeased concerns about the goalkeeping position at the Emirates but with money in the bank, why didn’t Wenger sign a defensive midfielder or striker?

There’s no denying that the Gunners have the financial clout to sign an elite footballer, even director Lord Harris said in an interview that the club could sign any footballer in the world apart from Lionel Messi or Ronaldo.

This only frustrates fans even more especially with the less than convincing start to the season we’ve had. Although we know Wenger will never buy for the sake of buying, surely the warning signs were there after a dismal display against West Ham on the opening day, and a lackluster performance against Liverpool. What makes things even worse is the figures released recently regarding the new television deals that have been brokered with Sky and BT. Clubs will now receive £81 million each if they are in the Premier League (PL).arsenal-15-16-home-kit

With broadcasters expanding their reach and the Premier League leveraging new digital platforms, the money now going to clubs is staggering. The accessibility that fans now have to watch PL content around the world has also meant that the television deals have skyrocketed. Leading web development company Gaming Realms predicted in 2012 that “mobile Internet would have a huge presence on the tech landscape,” and this has actually transcended across many different verticals including football. Companies like Sky and BT used insights like this to help reinforce their digital arms and help them increase their customer base.  Click to view Gaming Realms handiwork, and see how important it is now to optimise websites to make them mobile-friendly.

So what is the club doing with all this money that they are generating? You also have to factor into the equation that Arsenal season tickets are the most expensive in the PL. Which led former midfielder Paul Merson to question the Frenchman’s transfer dealings.

The disturbing things is, if it gets to January and the Gunners are a significant way behind the leading teams, they will then have to pay through the nose for a player they could have got cheaper this summer. Is there any logic in that, really?

Paul Harper