The time to look at the pricing of football in the SPL and Scottish football in general is long overdue. The Quality of product on show in stadiums up and down the country just doesn’t merit the inflated prices at turnstiles these days. As a result of this more and more people are turning their back on the nation’s favourite game. I truly feel that the price of entrance is a prevalent issue in this matter. Your average punter is much less likely to “just go along” when paying premium prices such as £28 to get into the main stand at Pittodrie every other Saturday. Price is a huge contributing factor when it comes to the drop in attendances we have seen over the past 5 years.
The SPL average attendance has dropped from 15,486 to 13,991 in that time period, with Aberdeen FC’s average crowd having dropped from 11,993 in season 2007/2008 to an average of 9,295 so far in season 2011/2012. Your average adult SPL match ticket will set you back about £24 now add on to that the cost of travel, a few pints, a programme and a pie and you’re looking at a very expensive day out. If you even consider taking the kids don’t expect to see any change out a £100. Your average “working class” punter just can’t afford this every week and as such they are effectively taking the game away from its target audience. We need to look at revamping the pricing structure to try and win back these lost fans and floating voters.
The case for this was given strong backing on Wednesday night at Fir Park when 8,065 punters turned up for the rearranged fixture between Motherwell & Hibs. Tickets were priced at £10 for adults and £5 for kids and this helped Motherwell add about 2500 on to their average crowd. Now an extra 2500 is quite a notable increase and no doubt an improved Motherwell team is a better selling point but the pricing certainly played its part as well. The extra revenue from the food kiosks, merchandise and programmes must have been noticeable as well. To back this up further take their previous fixture on Saturday at Home to Hearts which attracted a crowd of 5,489. Now Hearts are a better followed team than Hibs with an average home gate of 13544 opposed to an average gate of 9,902 at Easter Road. The pricing for this match was £22 for adults and £12 for kids. This again shows that the aggressive pricing must have played a key role in attracting those 2500 extra fans through the turnstiles. Hopefully the fact that it was an entertaining and high scoring match might well entice some of them back on a more regular basis.
Another point that comes up when discussing ticket pricing is German football. The Bundesliga is the best “supported” league in Europe, with an average gate of 44,345 this season so far. Add to this the next fact that the average ticket price is £19. The Bundesliga pride themselves on low ticket prices and the fact they attract so many fans week in week out. In fact the fans boycotted games in 2010 when some clubs tried to raise prices. The Budesliga 2 is another example of a league with sensible ticket prices attracting good crowds. It has received record crowds so far this season with an average crowd of 17,125 this includes the fact that 50% of games have sold out. The average ticket price this season in Budesliga 2 is £11.
All these figures aren’t a coincidence and there is certainly a case to be made for the fact that lower prices will attract more fans. The debate will rage on from there regarding whether this will reduce the quality on show further and whether clubs can afford to drop prices but I feel it’s a move we must make to ensure the future of our game. If it were up to me I would set pricing at £15 for adults, £10 for concessions (Pensioners & Students) and £ 5 for the kids. This would attract bigger crowds and the increased revenue from food kiosks, merchandise and programmes would more than make up for the shortfall in the money taken in for tickets.
Web.jpg "Osborne puts in another solid challenge")
However we must look at this result objectively and appreciate how far we’ve come in the year since that embarrassing 9 – 0 thumping in the corresponding fixture last season. Yes, Celtic did have a lot of pressure and 65% of the overall possession, but in the most part the Aberdeen defence coped admirably well with everything that was thrown at them. In the 2nd half we stepped it up and dominated the match in periods, and truly bossed Celtic before deservedly getting that delightful equaliser.
Celtic remained in control of the game but Aberdeen weren’t lying down or about to roll over as they had done in recent games against the Glasgow side. Combative midfield pairing Issac Osborne and Kari Arnason were constantly in the faces of the Celtic players and were doing a good job of not giving them the space to play. This in particular seemed to annoy Beram Kayal who wasn’t enjoying such close attention. In fact I’m pretty sure the Israeli is receiving private tuition from his manager on how to irritate your average Scottish football fan. He mumped and moaned his way through the entire game and it won’t be long until the midfielder is held in the same regard as Neil Lennon was among opposing SPL fans.
The Don’s came into the game towards the end of the first half and they carried this momentum on into the second half, where they controlled the game for a sizeable chunk leading up to the equaliser on the 59 minute mark. The very promising youngster Ryan Jack broke forward once again, with his right wing partner in crime Fraser Fyvie making a good run outside. This made space for Jack to cut inside Celtic’s make shift left back Joe Ledley. Fortunately Ryan got the break of the ball from his tackle but then showed great composure to go on and cut inside Victor Wanyama. He slipped away from the Kenyan into the Celtic box, continuing to move inwards before making space to get a shot away on his left foot. It found Forster’s bottom corner, leaving the keeper with no chance. It was a beautiful goal, full of confidence and proved the Red Army are right to have high hopes for the Aberdeen born and raised youngster.
The real controversy happened in the aftermath of the Aberdeen goal when Ryan Jack received the first booking of the pair that eventually got him sent off. He was booked for celebrating his goal, which was extremely harsh considering he never took his top off or jumped over any barriers. He simply ran towards the jubilant red masses in the nearby away section and was joined by a large portion of his overjoyed team mates. In a time when we’re all trying to make the game more exciting, should we really be taking the fun out goal scoring? The beautiful game seems to be in danger of losing a grip of reality and must fight back now against the forces that are making the game a mundane and staid environment.
Sadly for the Reds they didn’t quite kick on from the goal when in complete control of the game, and rather withdrew into their own half and invited Celtic back into the contest. The Glasgow side were quickly back on top and it only took them 13 minutes to regain the lead, all be it fortuitously. It all came from the award of an extremely soft free kick just inside the Aberdeen half on the right side, when Hooper basically threw his hands in the air as Youl Mawene gave chase. There was no contact and no infringement at all so only Mr O’Reilly knows what he awarded said free kick for. The unwarranted free kick wasn’t dealt with effectively as it was delivered into the Aberdeen box, and it eventually broke to Charlie Mulgrew off defender Mawene’s shin. The former Aberdeen defender promptly smashed the ball into the roof of the net much to the despair of the Dons.
Soon after this Jack received his marching orders for a deserved second booking after a rash challenge on the out of sorts Gary Hooper. It was hard to argue with the second booking, but the first was an absolute joke and this rule must be looked at by the powers that be. The referee’s performance as a whole was very poor and let Celtic away with a lot. Indeed he only awarded 4 fouls against them in the full 90 minutes, whilst giving 17 against Aberdeen in the same period. There were a few penalty appeals from Aberdeen, the best one in my opinion being a handball against Mulgrew where he definitely made an arm movement towards the ball to block a Milsom shot.
So the match ended in another defeat for Aberdeen at the hands of Celtic, but we have to look past that and appreciate the improvement that’s been made in a year. We competed for the full 90 minutes and we never looked overawed at any point which has happened in recent times, particularly in the two semi-finals last season. On another day it could have been all so different as both goals were avoidable, and it says a lot for our new found confidence when we’re all so disappointed with a 2-1 defeat at Celtic Park. I still feel we need to look at our attacking options and could do with injecting a bit of pace in the January transfer window to bolster that part of our team. It’s been a positive few weeks for the Dons and I only hope we can continue to push on and maintain this level of performance, and at the very least give Rangers the same level of test on Saturday at Pittodrie.
During the first half there was a huge shout for a penalty from the Pittodrie faithful, when Rob Milsom drove into the penalty area and went down under a clumsy challenge by Flood. I’m not sure if it was actually a penalty, but I’m still utterly baffled by Referee Willie Collum’s decision to award a free kick against Milsom. I’ve seen it again since Saturday and I still can’t see anything wrong, he fell on to the ball but I still can’t see him handle it or spot any other infringement. When he blew I was sure he was giving the penalty, but alas not and only Mr Collum knows what the hell he was actually thinking at that moment in time.
We didn’t have to wait long for the third goal, and this time it was the result of a good old-fashioned “stramash” featuring some dubious defending and awful goalkeeping! Needless to say it wasn’t a good day for United, particularly the back four of Flood, Dixon, Gunning and the Honey Monster, who continually looked like absolute strangers. Gary Kenneth also proved once again that 4-6-0 hasn’t been Craig Levein’s biggest mistake as Scotland Boss. This time it was Andy Considine who eventually got on the end of the free kick from the impressive MIlsom, after the ball had pinballed about the area. He managed to trundle a shot goal wards, and the shell-shocked Pernis fumbled it into the back of his own net to give the reds a 3 – 0 lead.
Whilst United came into the game slightly late on and managed to grab a consolation goal through the lively but ultimately lonely Dalla Valle, it was overall a very comfortable win for Aberdeen which let them record a first home win against Dundee United in the league for almost four years. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite enough to get us up the table into 6th position, after St Mirren grabbed a late equaliser at Ibrox. It has to be said though, if we keep up this sort of form it won’t be long until we’re gracing the top end of the SPL table.
