Competing in a league with the likes of Newcastle, who have 25M parachute money and the revenue that comes from home gates averaging not far short of 50,000, and owned by the 46th richest man in the land. Don't we need to rake in the odd extra fiver here or there? STH's have been rewarded for their loyalty for both this next season and the one after.
I hope there is one but the article mentions all stands including the south stand (back to no sponsor of that stand?) being the same price, so if we were going to use a way to charge our own fans less I reckon the article would have mentioned plans about it.
I expect you are more in the know on these things than most of us on here but BFC are the ones to blame if people are going away with these thoughts as they've just released a statement about the ticket pricing structure and made no mention of anything like that. They can't expect that everyone will be able to receive hints from people who may know of something that they've made no reference to.
As a season ticket holder it doesn't affect me directly, but... In my opinion, categorising games is one of the biggest scams in football and should not be allowed. Picking any team in to a category would imply that they are seen as an attraction based on the level of entertainment that that game will provide the fans. Or is that what clubs want us to think? My guessing is that Villa, Newcastle, Leeds and Wednesday will be in the top category. I may be wrong but that's my gut feeling. So in theory, these should be the most entertaining games... How many times have we seen us play Wednesday and the game be absolutely awful? Villa and Newcastle, in fairness will be nailed on favourites for promotion and in many people's eyes expecting to give us a thrashing. Is everyone still entertained? Just a thought but won't these teams also bring the largest away followings even at the higher prices? That's a coincidence isn't it? Now turn the tables around and consider how as a Barnsley fan we will be looked at by other teams... Villa away on aTuesday night. Does anyone reckon that we are going to be seen as category A* when we visit? I very much doubt it. After all we are little old Barnsley. But isn't that patronising? The same way that we would patronise Burton or Brentford if we made them category D. Every team in the championship and all other divisions are there on merit and start as equal. Either because they achieved promotion as a reward or were relegated for not being good enough for the league above. Who has the right to say that the game against Villa should be looked upon with a higher value than that of Burton or Brentford or any other Tom, Dick or Harry? But then again, are we missing the point here? Is it about entertainment value, or is it a sad fact about football these days that money and the fat cats at Sky TV rule? I come to watch Barnsley. I'm not bothered whether they are playing Arsenal or Aldershot. At the top of this thread I said that it didn't affect me directly... But it will affect me bringing my mates along to games. Mates who might enjoy it and want to come again. But they won't pay daft prices.