On Saturday we return to the bread and butter of the SPL with a home game against Kilmarnock and the official team line up will be keenly anticipated to see which of the players from Tuesday nights impressive display will make the starting xi which will surely be bolstered by the other squad members.
Whilst it is not the excitement and glamour of the Champions League, there is a growing feeling about Celtic that the squad is starting to hit top gear again as witnessed against St Mirren last week. The likes of Miku and Watt will surely come into contention for a starting slot and it demonstrates our strength in quality that you can interchange your front two or three and do it with the confidence that the team performance won’t greatly diminish. Both players will be looking for that elusive first goal at Celtic Park.
My son will be in attendance for the first time this season and I have switched my usual seat for one in the allocated family section in lower 116 next to the away fans. By my recollection this is the first Saturday league match that has been incentivised to encourage families to take their children along for the fantastic price of £5. I’m hoping we don’t need to play musical chairs like we did last time in order to find a child friendly seat in the child section (see blog from last season)http://viewsfromthejungle7.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/hoopy-chips-and-musical-chairs-boys.html , however I am willing to give it another go.
I had fully intended to purchase the child season ticket this year for the advertised price of £50; however upon the death of Rangers the price shot up to £139 and with him at the age when he will only be attending 3 or 4 games a season it wasn’t making economic sense. Celtic of course honoured the existing £50 renewals but it will be interesting to see the renewal policy and pricing of these ST’s next season as it would be a substantial uplift for many families. An uplift many couldn’t afford in all honesty.
I understand the need to balance encouraging the future generation of Celtic Supporters with accruing the right level of stadium revenue but any short term gain in revenue could lead to some younger fans and families being lost in the long term. It’s with this in mind that I have viewed from my position in the North Stand the upper and lower sections of the areas beside the away support in the rangers end and with the obvious exception of the European games these areas have been sparsely populated. Celtic have received very little revenue from this area of the ground where traditionally non-season ticket holders buying match day tickets are housed.
There is the potential to use this on the majority of match days to both fill the seats and therefore increase match day revenue and a benefit to be accrued from filling the area with parent and child ticket admissions more regularly. The cost of a child ticket for Celtic Park on match days is £18 so a mum / dad taking say a 4 and 6 year old child would pay £36 in addition to his / her own ticket whereas this weekend it’s only going to be an extra £10 on top of his / her ticket. You can see the obvious attraction to attending a match when this offer is available and it really needs to be extended to many more matches a season as possible as the increased numbers and money they are actually spending on Celtic products when they are there must surely outweigh what they are turning over just now for that area.
As a dad who took his son to his first match last season can testify, there hasn’t been a Celtic view or new strip that hasn’t been purchased since his first game and the club now has one lifetime consumer of all things Celtic on the back of a £5 ticket. Now that’s a marketing dream for any business.
But let’s not forget our charitable roots and there was a tweet sent this week from @ThatPaulArmour to Celtic’s twitter account which pricked my conscious and I thought was a great suggestion. Paul was suggesting that in the final home game before Christmas the club should make this area available to those in the community who are economically disadvantaged. I thought it was a great idea and also a great opportunity for the club to reach out to those that can’t afford to attend the matches due to unemployment or other disadvantages especially at that time of year. A nominal ticket price again in the region of £5 admission would be reasonable and would surely be well subscribed. As a season ticket holder for many years I couldn’t imagine how I would feel if all of a sudden I was financially cut off from watching my team through circumstances so I hope the club can look at this and make it happen.
There may be an argument to be had that if our season ticket holders are paying top prices at the start of the season it is unfair to start reducing prices in other areas but sensible, legitimate demographic targets like kids and unemployed people being given the chance to come and see their team in an area that is lying empty cannot be argued with.
Ghost fans, Zombies & Plain Lies – the Sevco Trademark
Whilst on the subject of tickets; pricing and attendances it was interesting to read the following post on kerrydale street http://kerrydalestreet.co.uk/single/?p=11820054&t=8731534.
The communication shared with us showed the official attendances for the two matches v East Stirling and v Elgin and cast light on the validity of the attendance figures claimed by Sevco and swallowed gratefully by the Main Stream Media who were happy to project the claim that Sevco had broken the world record for a fourth tier football match. Even when it was pointed out that the actual record was held by a Brazilian club, they still made the claim and continue to do so on many media outlets. But who cares about that – the truth is even more bizarre.
The truth is now out in the open that the figures were inflated by some 7,000 ghost supporters and what an embarrassing, tawdry way to try and project your club in order to seek investment. When you are in desperate states you will consider desperate measures and although the accounts (if they were ever published!) would show match day revenue nowhere near the crowd reported it serves its purpose to perpetrate a PR lie to promote a successful facade. So were these 7,000 given free admission or did they just never exist going through the turnstyle? Don’t expect this proof to be presented to you in any media outlets as it just doesn’t sit with their agendas and their mission to put Sevco back into the big time. God bless the internet bampots.
Sevco zombies and the cheerleaders in the media have been lauding the support the sevconians have given to their team and the part they are playing in rebuilding their club at their time of need so I thought I would look at a comparison at how much the average Season ticket holder at Ibrox and Celtic Park have shelled out to this point in the season – who is really supporting their club financially?
SEVCO
|
CELTIC
| |
Season Ticket
|
£265.00
|
£575.00
|
CL Qualifier
|
£0.00
|
£20.00
|
CL 3 match package
|
£0.00
|
£87.00
|
League Cup Matches
|
£40.00
|
£12.00
|
Ramsden Cup
(yer havin a laugh)
|
£12.00
|
£0.00
|
Total
|
£317.00
|
£694.00
|
As you can see if you are a season ticket holder at Sevco arena and taken in all the home cup games you will by now have expended on average £317.00 backing your team. If you are a Celtic Season ticket holder who has taken up all the home game tickets you will have expended £694.00 which means you have paid more than double what a Sevco fan has had to spend supporting their team.
The crux of the Main Stream Medias trumpeting is that the Sevco fans are giving their club substantial and unprecedented financial backing when in actual fact they are paying substantially less than the Celtic fans and substantially less than they paid last year as they watched their club die.
So at their time of need when they need to build the club and back them with their financial support they are again miles behind Celtic fans or 55% behind to be exact, yet they shout from the roof tops whilst we just continue backing the club as we always have. The good thing about having saved money following their team this year is that there won’t be a problem with putting that saving towards shares in the club to secure their future – that’s right surely? But they shouldn’t worry if they miss this share issue as I am sure there will be another one along in a years’ time.
