A few weeks ago Steve Lamb, a season-ticket holder at Old Trafford for 32 years, received a ‘renewal communication’ from Manchester United. In the emotionless language of the apparatchik, it sounded a little like the prelude to an invitation to a sojourn in Siberia. And in a way, it was.
Steve is from Stockport. He went to his first United game with his dad in 1971 when he was seven years old. Going to Old Trafford, travelling home and away, became a way of life. He was an obsessive. He still is. He and his two sons have had their season tickets for 32 years.
They are good seats, too. Behind the dugout in the Sir Bobby Charlton Stand. Because they have had the season tickets for more than 25 years, there are plaques with Steve’s name and the names of his sons on their seats in recognition of their loyalty and commitment to the club.
That appreciation of loyalty appears to have changed. And it has changed abruptly. The lust for money can do that to a club.
It is not just at United that this is happening. It is across the Premier League, where traditional fans are being pushed away for tourists or ‘corporates’, who will pay more. This is what social engineering, football-style, looks like.
‘We have identified a small number of general admission tickets directly adjacent to the home and away dugouts that will be converted to hospitality seats this summer,’ United’s renewal communication to Steve read.
Manchester United fan Steve Lamb was told he will be losing the seats he has had for 32 years
Lamb’s season ticket seats were right behind the dugout in the Sir Bobby Charlton Stand
Across the Premier League fans are being pushed away for tourists or ‘corporates’, who will pay more for tickets
‘This reflects the high value of this unique location and will help to raise hospitality revenue to keep general admission season ticket prices lower.
‘Your current seat is included within this block, and we will therefore need to find you an alternative seat for next season.’
So there it is. Thank you and goodnight. Thirty-two years and then bang. Get the hell out of those seats because you don’t give us enough money. Get the hell out because we can fleece a blue-chip company or a tourist from the States or China or Dubai for a lot more than you give us.
And never mind those plaques on your seats, those symbols of your loyalty, those symbols of what Manchester United once meant. We can get people in those seats who will empty their wallets at the club store and walk away laden with merchandise in a way that you never will.
What is happening to United? What is happening to a club that once valued its supporters, once prided itself on the affordability of its tickets?
It is lurching from misstep to misstep, crass, cruel and incompetent in turns. The omens for what lies ahead, on and off the pitch, are not good.
Steve has written to the club several times to point out the injustice of what is happening to him and what appear to be around 500 other season-ticket holders in the same ‘unique location’ behind the dug-outs.
United, presumably, have seen what Manchester City have done at the Etihad, where seats in a similar position have been turned into an exclusive section for Tunnel Club members, who pay an extortionate amount for their hospitality packages.
Lamb was encouraged after hearing Sir Jim Ratcliffe talk about protecting ‘faithful supporters’
Manchester United once valued their fans and prided themselves on affordability of tickets
They are treated so well in there that they often emerge for the second half, in good spirits, long after the match has kicked off again.
In another email, Steve referenced how encouraged he had been when he had heard Sir Jim Ratcliffe, United’s increasingly unpopular and rapacious minority owner, interviewed by Gary Neville on The Overlap last month.
‘My guidance to the management team,’ Ratcliffe said, when he was pressed by Neville about price hikes, ‘is that we have to look after the faithful supporters.
‘The faithful supporter is the guy who has the season ticket. The faithful supporter is the guy who goes to the top six games but he also goes to see the other games as well. He doesn’t just pick the top three games.’
Well, either the ‘management team’ didn’t get the memo or Sir Jim was being rather economical with the truth.
‘We have to look after the faithful supporters,’ he said. Just not these supporters, supporters like Steve and his sons and the 500 supporters around them, apparently.
Just not these supporters with the seats in a prime location that we could sell for more cash. Pull the other one, Sir Jim, it’s got pound coins on it.
But, fear not. All is not lost. In another exchange with the club, Steve appeared to be offered the prospect that he might be relocated to the ‘atmosphere section’ at Old Trafford. You may have heard this term before, but I hadn’t. The atmosphere section? Really? It’s the kind of phrase that injects dread straight into your veins.
Either Ratcliffe’s management team didn’t get the memo, or the co-owner was being rather economical with the truth
It’s not just United who are doing this – Man City’s home clash with Aston Villa had thousands of empty seats in a critical league game
The atmosphere section at Old Trafford is situated in the Stretford End, it seems. It is designed for supporters who have grown increasingly dismayed at sitting surrounded by day-trippers and corporates who have no feel for the club.
Football is a curiosity to them, not a passion. They will not remember the time when English football grounds were one giant atmosphere section.
That is the irony of this mess. Part of the reason tourists and corporates come to English grounds is to experience the atmosphere for which English football is famous. And yet the Premier League’s social engineering is killing the atmosphere. They are busy destroying their own selling point.
Again, it is not just Sir Jim and United who are doing this. There were thousands of empty seats at the Etihad when City played Aston Villa in a critical league game last week. The cheapest adult seats were £71.
As they say in the language of one of City’s target markets, go figure. There were thousands more empty seats at the City end for their FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest at Wembley on Sunday. And this is the most successful club in the country, a club whose fans are being bled dry. No wonder the supporters of more and more clubs are in open rebellion.
After I’d been to Liverpool’s title-clinching victory over Tottenham on Sunday, I walked back to my car through streets awash with celebrating fans. When I got to the Lower Breck Road, I saw a man festooning his terraced house with a giant Liverpool flag and red-and-white bunting. Others, all over the city, had already done the same.
These are the supporters, people like them, people like Steve and his sons, who the top flight of English football are intent on driving away so they can gouge even more money from the game on top of the billions they make already.
They are killing so much of what makes football special. Shame on them.
Slot is a rare kind of man
Arne Slot is a rare kind of man after thanking predecessor Jurgen Klopp after winning the title
The Reds celebrated becoming the undisputed most successful club in English football history
It takes a rare kind of man, and manager, to do what Arne Slot did on Sunday at Anfield.
Slot took the microphone when it was offered to him on the pitch after the proudest moment of his professional career in leading Liverpool to their 20th league title, and the first thing he did was thank his predecessor, Jurgen Klopp, for the squad and the culture he had bequeathed him.
Slot’s achievement this season in managing the transition away from Klopp, whose ethos had run through the club, marks him out not just as a brilliant manager but as a supremely emotionally intelligent man.
Football is full of giant egos and rampant megalomania. The absence of those traits in Slot bodes well for Liverpool’s title defence next season.
