Doing the 92 is Daniel Storey’s odyssey to every English football league club in a single season. The best way to follow his journey is by subscribing here.
OLD TRAFFORD — Steve Crompton knew that there was value in waiting. We had met up at 11am near Manchester United’s Trinity Statue that pays homage to the three greats of the club’s working-class past.
Over the next hour, fellow members of FC58 – a fan coalition – arrived along with other supporters who knew how much this meant. Some were itching to get going. Crompton wanted to wait for the Everton contingent.
Stop Exploiting Loyalty is an initiative designed by the Football Supporters’ Association (FSA) to campaign against the increased price-gouging of regular match-going supporters in the Premier League.
On Sunday, as around the country over the last few weeks, Manchester United and Everton supporters held banners together. At Anfield, a banner was held across the divide between Liverpool and Manchester City supporters. The message is clear: enough is enough.
Back at Old Trafford, where a large swell of people now formed, this was an appropriate week to take a stand.
Midweek had brought news that Manchester United were raising the cost of match tickets for members to £66 and removed all concessionary prices. Those tickets had previously started at £40 for adults and £25 for children. Supporters fear that this is merely a prelude to significant price hikes for season ticket holders in 2025-26.
As such, Sunday’s protest split into two distinct groups. In front of the statue, facing the stadium and with flags and green flares, one group chanted angry anti-Glazer and anti-Jim Ratcliffe songs until they settled into a routine: “£66, you’re taking the p*ss”. One homemade banner, sheets of paper taped together, made a forceful point: “Local lad Sir Jim charges £66 for OAPs and juniors. Stop exploiting loyalty”.
The irony punches you in the face. Ten yards in front of the group, around 50 people queued up to pay £5 and take a photo with a plastic copy of the Premier League trophy. Close by, someone else had a similar queue and had all three trophies from the 1999 Treble-winning season in plastic.
I counted 18 merchandise sellers in a crowded scene and most of them were flogging half-and-half scarves to punters, many of whom told me that they were making their first trip to this ground.
A short distance away from the anti-Glazer chants is the protest that I have come to see. There is no righteous anger and no chanting. There is no attempt to focus their attention on one individual or even one club.
Instead there are red shirts of Manchester United and blue shirts of Everton, standing together behind a banner, asking the sport that they love to stop taking them for a ride.
Unity is the secret to this campaign. For all the tradition of English football fan culture, we have routinely proven ourselves lacking in putting tribalism to one side for the greater good.
The example of German football, where supporters are consistently effective at joint campaigning on the subject of television scheduling, ticket pricing and sportswashing, hangs heavy in the air and it is something that must improve here for us to have any chance of success.
“This is an FSA-led protest and it’s against football in general: the pricing out of working-class supporters,” Crompton tells me.
“Without us, these clubs wouldn’t exist anymore. Everton joining us today, plus the protests at the Liverpool vs Manchester City game, is the result of us all working together. The game cannot keep biting the hand that feeds it.
“This has to be the start. We were contacted by the Manchester City guys and we have their banner today. That unity is where strength will come from. If fans from all Premier League clubs come together then we are a massive voice.”
Nobody is trying to sanitise rivalry here. Nobody here is a lesser supporter of their own club for standing with those from another before kick-off. We are all football fans as well as fans of individual clubs and there has to be more that unites than divides us when it comes to pushing for fairness.
If you see empty seats in a Premier League stadium, rather than crowing about “s**t fans” to score non-existent banter points, perhaps ask yourself why that might be. Think about who isn’t sitting in that seat and who might want to.
That is what gives Sunday’s protest at Old Trafford extra impetus.
Everton have recently announced season ticket prices for their new stadium next season that are entirely reasonable. No child will pay more than £199 for the season for a regular seat. The club discussed pricing with fan groups and they listened.
Dave Kelly and others are not here because they’re angry at Everton; quite the opposite. They’re here because they would urge other clubs to be more like Everton when it comes to ticket pricing and because they understand that the rise in prices and abandonment of concessions has becoming a creeping wave. And if something affects some football supporters, it is a concern to all football supporters.
“Today is about Liverpool and Manchester, two cities that aren’t always exactly friendly to one another in a matchday setting,” Kelly tells me.
“Until kick-off, I don’t care what shirt you’re wearing or what badge is on your chest. This is about solidarity, about Scousers and Mancunians being treated fairly.
“It’s about football being affordable, not just for this generation but for those who come next and will be the lifeblood of the game.”
Man Utd 4-0 Everton (Sunday 1 December)
- Game no.: 42/92
- Miles: 192
- Cumulative miles: 6,967
- Total goals seen: 119
- The one thing I’ll remember in May: Manchester United and Everton fans stood together before the game. At the highest level, this happens far less often than is healthy
Kelly knows only too well that this can work. He was instrumental in leading the “Twenty’s Plenty” campaign that worked tirelessly to fight for price caps on away tickets in the Premier League. People told those campaigners that it wouldn’t work.
He remembers former Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore laughing at them when they went to London to meet the Premier League. A price cap now exists. You never realise how strong you are until you rely upon that strength.
Stop Exploiting Loyalty is a response to the greatest threat to English football culture: loyalists being abandoned for a quick cash grab. The general rise in ticket pricing well above inflation was inevitable as facilities and the product improved, but the greed has now rushed far beyond the pale. It is hard to imagine a more perfect embodiment of the Premier League’s capitalist wet dream than the removal of concessions for children at matches.
A reminder, though it should not be necessary: clubs don’t need to do this. At the last shareholders’ meeting in November, it was announced that the Premier League’s global and domestic commercial and broadcast revenue would rise by 17 per cent for the cycle between 2025 and 2028. That revenue would total an expected £12.25 billion.
As the league’s biggest clubs increase their broadcasting revenue, the percentage of their revenue that comes from ticket sales decrease. But they take and they take and they take, because it never strikes any of these people that any other way exists. Billionaires gonna billionaire.
Rather than seeing match-going supporters as individuals, then, best to think of them as units. A season-ticket holding unit will come to every home game and will have a matchday routine perhaps including some or all of: pub or restaurant away from the ground; wearing specific items of club clothing, colours faded through love and wear; beeline to seat shortly before kick-off; comparatively sensitive to changes in policy and pricing.
Someone who comes to Old Trafford once a season – and especially a first-time visitor – will typically have a different routine: inelastic demand to pricing structures (the “red letter day” principle); likely to spend more time (and thus more money) around the environs of the stadium; likely to visit the club shop; likely to eat and drink inside the stadium.
These are the units that clubs typically want now. If that’s unfair, they have a funny way of showing it.
That would all be depressing enough, but what really angers regular match-goers is the pretence, the p*ss in their pockets that their clubs keep telling them is rainwater. You see it a lot: the gratitude for loyalty in words – 12th man, thank you, you made the difference, we’re all in it together – followed by abandonment through actions.
Add to that the newest dagger to the heart: emotional blackmail. That is where the exploitation really occurs. Football supporters are loyal to the point of fault. They will not go elsewhere unless you really destroy their spirit. They will take it because their club is part of their heritage and their family. And the people in charge of clubs know that.
“What else can we do?” ask elite clubs with a straight face. “You want the team to perform better and have better players and that means investment so we all have to do our bit.” Then they point at Profitability and Sustainability Rules, say some guff about the governing bodies leaving them no choice and, somehow, plenty of supporters swallow this stuff whole.
Let’s be clear: elite football clubs do not have a revenue problem; they have a spending problem. Wages increase, agents fees increase, clubs routinely make bad decisions. And what happens, every time, is that those costs are partly pushed onto supporters even when commercial revenues are rising year on year and life outside the Premier League’s gross bubble gets harder.
The more honest explanation would be simple: supply and demand. We are raising the price for your seat because we believe that we can sell it. And even if we only sell two in every three seats that are left vacant by those who can no longer afford it, we believe that those two people will atone for the empty space by spending more money inside the ground than the original two people did anyway.
Which probably makes some economic sense in the short-term, even if it’s emphatically bleak. But beyond that short-term, who knows.
The loyalty of long-time match-goers may be a curse when it comes to their exploitation, but it’s a blessing to a club when things go wrong. Through the sackings, owners leaving, relegations, administrations, it is those supporters who will stick with you most. Replace them entirely with those who are only coming irregularly and see how your atmosphere shifts.
Nobody is campaigning for anything outrageous here. Certainly nobody is saying that clubs attracting new fans to games is a bad thing – that is why the model of season tickets and match tickets exists. But gouging those season ticket holders, squeezing them dry, just because you can? That’s gross and it’s misguided.
As Sunday’s protest at Old Trafford begins to wind down, and supporters of both teams head to their seats to allow their righteous tribalism to rush back in, I get a photograph of Crompton, Kelly and Chris Haymes – also from FC58 – embracing each other in a hug. They have done fine work today, steps taken to unite rival supporters for the greater good.
Stop Exploiting Loyalty must only be the start; on that point all three, and those around them, agree. People will say that the clubs are too powerful, that they will never listen; perhaps they’re right.
But if you don’t try to stop this relentless avarice then your voice loses credence further down the line and doing something will always be better than doing nothing. The fight continues. It’ll probably never stop.
Daniel Storey has set himself the goal of visiting all 92 grounds across the Premier League and EFL this season. You can follow his progress via our interactive map and find every article (so far) here
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