As on this site a while back everyone was debating the 3%, I’ve just found a letter I had written to the club but never sent, It goes along with the sentiments of the Black Scarf but without criticism of the manager. Once again it brings in to focus the disconnect some of the fans have felt over recent years and maybe I should of sent it but to be honest I wasn’t expecting it to be read and once I had written it I had come down of the ceiling.
“Dear Mr Gazides,
For the first time in many years I have no official association with Arsenal Football Club. Please let me tell you my story.
Since I was a small child I have followed Arsenal loyally, I am now forty six, I have sat on the north bank terracing because there was so few numbers at certain games. I paid for my entry into Highbury as a boy through a paper round and money I got from odd jobs. I was crushed and nearly killed when Kevin keegan returned to England and we played Southampton first home game of the season . I ‘ve been lost in Glasgow looking for Charlie Nicholas’s pub on a pre- season tour. I ‘ve had a pigeon crap on my head in front of thousands of Arsenal supporters at Villa park at the mercantile credit final win against Utd. I felt the unbelievable elation at winning the league after years and years in 89, a skin tingling feeling that I really felt part of and something the money men and money fans will never feel and of course the mind numbing depression of coming so close and then having our European dream snatched away in Paris and then getting on the wrong train when coming out of the stadium and ending up being slapped on the back by a train load of Barcelona supporters.
So you can see I have paid my dues , anyway back to why i’m writing to you. This year you have made your case that after trying to keep prices down you are having to increase prices by a small percentage and this I have no problem with. The difficulty I am having is the massive increase my family are facing and the professionalism of your customer service team. When my sons came into my life I decided to give up my season ticket and just buy my tickets ad-hoc, this wasnt a problem because this was 1994 and entry to games was not ltd. I did make sure that I collected a junior gunner form the east stand and as soon as my boys were born sent it off so they were immediately affiliated . I myself joined the members scheme when it was conceived and this automatically turned into silver membership when the scheme was split into two.
This year someone has decided to include the tv online package into the membership (a service have previously had and quite frankly was not very good ) and increase the membership massively. On top of this my oldest son has turned sixteen and now goes into cannon club and apparently this is considered a new membership and under a very strange rule ( to increase revenue ) has no opportunity to secure lite membership and has to pay full price. He will have to do this again when he naturally progresses to silver membership and this will be the same for my youngest son. I find it amazing that after all these years they can considered new members.These are not the words, my sons and other supporters I have told about this, are using to describe your actions. I find myself having to pay over one hundred pounds to renew our memberships which include a service I do not require and although we all live in the same household are charged multiple times for it. All this before I do the one thing I want to do, buy a ticket to watch my beloved Arsenal.
I have met you briefly before when my family was invited to a game after my youngest son received a knife in his junior gunners pack. I hope that my letter conveys that I although I love the Arsenal I cannot let this cloud my judgement and be taken advantage of in this way. An old and wise Arsenal fan once told me that clubs wanted all suited stadiums and not all seater such was there drive for money over real fans ,it is hard to disagree with this cynical approach if it continues to treat fans this way. when I rang up to renew the memberships and was told my son was a new member I asked to speak to a supervisor only to be told by a clown named Sean ” this is what is going to happen i’m gonna talk and your gonna listen”. I deal with customers everyday and I have never heard such appalling customer service this is totally unprofessional and is not conducive to the traditions and image of the club.
Going forward I will get continue to watch the reserves (the ones that are not behind closed doors) and a friend has joined me Fulhams membership so I can see Arsenal at least twice a year. I understand that myself and my sons are pretty insignificant when you have thousands of people on your waiting lists , however if you continue to scam and disengage the hard core fans you will eventually lose money, but before that the atmosphere, a resource you can not buy or replace with your plastic fans .
In conclusion players will come and go, things will change, but the real fans are the core of your business and so as I said at the top of this correspondence
FORGET CESC AND NASRI YOU’VE LOST THE SEABROOKS”
This post was given to me by Seebs ( @arse_or_brain ) In the hope that we can all get back to being friends and show some respect to each other.
Positively Arsenal 
Hard to believe that such an idiot would be on the other end of the phone. Ridiculous.
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A depressing but accurate review of the incessant efforts of the club to get its hand in my pocket, and my determined efforts to keep their grasping fingers off my shekels.
To be fair, in my opinion, the “squeeze the fans til they squeak” has been going on 20+ years since someone worked out there was big £ to be made in football.
As for the future Just look how few youngsters are in the stadium ?
No one in the current hierarchy give a fuck about 5 years time – as long as the tills are busy now – they’ll be gone
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sorry to hear that a_or_b….in principle you are right of course but the game took this trajectory ages ago. and i cant really blame the club ..they need to milk it out as much as possible..it is a business. the behaviour of the people in customer services though totally unacceptable…well written …only i would have added a p.s to ivan “you suck at poker”
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The squeezing of Arsenal fans by the club goes on and on,anyone who thinks it’s fine & dandy is a fucking idiot.
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Aob, your patience with the club is admirable. The allegiance football fans show to their clubs is incredible really.
Hunter, without dwelling on it too much, filthy players can always claim leg breaks to be unintentional. As it’s seen as a natural risk in the game (like elbows) and clear intentions are hard to prove the governing body will let it go. Biting and head butts are actions that are unnatural to the game and with a clear intent to harm and should be removed from the game swiftly. Before you have a go, I agree with what aob wrote earlier, the popular image of football as a brute sport needs to change and the mentality of the refs with it. Less leg breaks and elbows, no biting and headbutts.
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Aob you returning to reserves and youth football is understandable really and more than from a financial viewpoint. Was going to write this as a reply to savs blog on how World Cup can help integration but never did. I think the notion is highly possible and true but what’s more important to me with World Cup is the money it brings that’s filtered down to grass root football. Now that’s football when it’s inherently good. It’s hard not to stop and watch when you are out on your bike and see some kids having a game.
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* before you have a go* .lol….no ijust find it a weak excuse that aggressive vilent acts can be disguised under tackling and occupational hazzard…. if you cant play properly then go home dont pull kick and use elbow cause someone in there might bite you and then what will you do? cry to the cameras? …. 🙂
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Three game ban for Sakho ?
Bloke is an idiot
France sluggish tonight – they don’t want to take their foot off the accelerator at this stage
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and if they can use cameras to later punish zidanne for headbuts and/or suarez for biting then they can certainly do same for those cunts that go with their studs and nearly amputate eduardo…
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they pick and choose hunter and have admitted as much
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As we are in a reflective mood any comments on the fractured facial bones caused by Giroud this week on Von Bergen H ?
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“i did not see it”
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About time too
Giroud on
France poor all night
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I’m biased but France far better since OG on
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a_or_b ….zizu yeah…has materazi swearing and abusing his family his kids blah blha…and zizu gives him the headbutt. the only media in the world who start their articles with “he will be remembered for that headbutt” are the english media.
take maradona now…smae thing..the only media in the world that will insist to remind everyone that diego will be remembered as a cheat are again the english media…do you see a pattern there? i see that as an intentional nasty spiteful bitter behaviour that essentially succeeds in forming the opinion of the masses on various geniuses and tag them for life and their personalities and character for isolated random incidents….
why dont they also say ” sholes will be remembered for being a ginger twat and his red mist tackles”…”terry will be remembered for being a racist thug ” ..rooney will be remembered for being a diver cheat ” …….. can someone explain that please?
and remember i generally support italy in world cups but i wont deny what materazzi did was worse than what zizu did…end of the day zizu is zizu he can do whatever he wants when some thug insults his family ..final or no final…he did what a man should do ..unlike evra and/or chielini….we can chose to remember him for his goals and talent or if we are bitter wankers we will remind people of his headbutt…same goes for diego, same goes for suarez.
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Giroud’s foul was a yellow at most. Unfortunate as hell for the Swiss player, but an unfortunate accident nonetheless.
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Hunter, two wrong doesn’t make one right. Or in your case less wrong. I agree punishments are disproportionate in football. And I would like to see studs up, double foot lunge and late tackles dealt with more severely. But I can also understand why the governing body want to deal with the Suarez case swiftly and firmly.
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aorb thanks for that. That is a really sad but pretty common tale. The prices are ridiculous for football matches in England. As is the food and drink, the merchandice and the satelite TV subscriptions one would need to watch any meaningful amount of club football.
It will ultimately be the death of football as we know it, unless something, or someone puts a stop to the insane rise in admittance price, TV rights, transfer fees and wages. They are all interlinked of course.
But something will have to give, shirley?
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Sav
I would just like to thank you for the most hilarious posts I have read on this blog. Really really rib ticklingly comical! Thanks again.
So, I PUT WORDS IN YOUR MOUTH… IN YOUR MOUTH!
That is a neat trick I have there.
To be honest, I think there was a bit of misunderstanding, as the comments about Sepp and Avalanche were responses to another post that I thought you had agreed with. My bad, sorry. But still, your REACTIONS… YOUR REACTIONS!!!
Fantastically way over the top! Brilliant!
Additional thanks too for assuming I read the Daily Mail too. That one was very funny (like I said, a few clicks on the web and you would be find a lot of corroberated evidence about FIFA corruption. I honestly do not understand your shock. Most, if not all multi billion dollar corporations are crooked in some way, shape or form.
But the racist thing? Why do you keep mentioning that? Not your best effort, sorry to nit pick. And then you had to really spoil it all by saying something silly like how I wouldnt say such horrible terrible things to your face because you are such a hard man. Really Sav? Is that how you operate?
For someone who purports to believe in the Almighty (Tom Cruise is it?), you dont appear very Christian, or forgiving.
You take this shit far too seriously. Its a fucking football blog.
Nighty night!
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hunter sir,
i agree a 100% with you.
if suarez got a 8 match ban for an exotic but not so DANGEROUS foul last season, I’d expect a 20 match ban or so for all the shawcrosses, taylors of this world. Their tackles are not just dangerous but murderous.
i just don’t get it sometimes.
I’m not arguing against the ban handed over to suarez but difference in magnitude of the bans handed over to the criminals. [frankly if it was up-to me every time suarez decides to have someone for a mid match meal, i’d hand him a 3 match ban or something and ask him to cough up a huge amount of cash and help the poor. Them shawcrosses and taylors i’d ask for them to be put in jails.]
Media is crazy, but are we too? 😐
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Arse23, you are tangling on the bigger problem here. Biting and head butting (and rascist remarks) etc are actions that don’t belong to the game and by themselves criminal acts. If the football governing body can’t deal with these matters seriously there will be calls for the matters to be dealt with by the legal system. You have to look at it beyond the elite football here. There are hundreds of millions of exercisers of football around the world with as many protective parents watching over them. Soon enough the civil courts would be over flooded by football cases that will extend to injuries that sometimes are natural risks that come will the game. Again, it doesn’t take away dangerous tackles can be dealt with more severely.
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Things hotting up nicely in Brazil – FIFA caught between the rock and a hard place, on one side the anti cannibalism league, on the other or Latin American conspiracy theorists.
I liked DC’s comment last night “if the teeth don’t fit you must acquit ! ”
My guess is a ban, followed by Uruguay going home in protest.
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aorb
My experience has almost been the inverse but I arrived at a similar conclusion. Growing up in the’90s meant i could not afford to go to games very often back then, though i saw a few good ‘uns, and later i found myself a student for a while, so watching live football at AFC was out of the question. And now when i can finally afford to go I didn’t have the time and I didn’t want to pay these over the top prices that were pricing out teenagers and young people from watching the game. So I have never have bought a season ticket. I go with a set budget for football every season, and the only time i’ve gone over was this past season when i thought it might be AW’s last season. The trip to NW London was worth it in the end.
However this is not a problem unique to AFC, it has happened since the bogus Taylor report was used to re-engineer things. But it is true that clubs like Palace have done some interesting things, might go there next season, though with Poooolis in charge I might have to think again. AFC could always do more, no doubt about it.
We all agree that supporters groups should be putting pressure on these issues, not telling one of if not the best manager in the world how to manage his team, and it is probably the main reason why we all came to PA, somewhere to discuss these matters without representatives of certain interests spitting bile at the club, or each other!
The desire to promote and reprtesent Usmanov and not put the energy into representing the fans is a bit of a giveaway regarding some of those self-publicists, no need for any further comment on them here.
I’ve given this matter of pricing some thought, and I think the only solution is for safe standing to be reintroduced following pressure from football fans all over. The gap between rich and poor in London is only going to increase in the short term and possibly the long term, a consequence of having such a regressive neo-Dickensian movement in power.
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I think the only solution is for safe standing to be reintroduced following pressure from football fans all over
amen to that…combined with official and authorised fans club with membership who will get cheaper tickets as they will be the ones who are there day or night rain or sunshine with one purpose : intense vocal support / terrorise the opposition.
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Arsenal – you’ve lost the Seabrooks sounds like a movie, but what a shame its such a sad one. Thanks for this sensible and serious post, and if I were in charge of the club it would be something I would be thinking long and hard about. Given the astonishing prices of the club level tickets and the boxes (and no, I have never been in any of those) I can’t see why it is necessary to charge so much for the rather more ordinary seats. It puts family visits out of the equation for me and that is rather sad. It also does seem greedy and uncaring and I think it is wrong for The Arsenal to seem that way.
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I hope the option of standing comes back although I doubt that the clubs who do take it on will make much of a concession on price. Why should they ?
The only serious concessions that fans get out of clubs is when parts of the ground are deserted. Then that can’t do enough to lure the disappeared back on side.
Oh and “bogus Taylor report” ?
He may have been “bogus’ although I am not clear why you say that, but I would tip my hat to the estimable LJ Taylor. Football grounds are safer, more comfortable, and while I occasionally wipe a sentimental tear away for the good old days of terrace violence its long gone, and good riddance.
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I agree with Fins’ suggestion of a section with safe standing. I think it would allow a higher number to attend and the tickets could be cheaper than seat tickets with the club still making more money than before. Everyone would win on that one.
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As Hunter pointed out, it helps solve the atmosphere issue. Home advantage comes not in intimidating the opposition, but rather in intimidating the referee.
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foreverheady
June 26, 2014 at 11:59 am
true but the other option is to sell to usmanov and not worry about ticket revenue….. to be fair though…the product/servise the company arsenal offers to its customers is super quality. the stadium, the football spectacle, the facilities…… fans got to pay for that unfo…maybe they should not have increased since they got better deals in sponsoring, but who are we kidding.?..maximum profit is the name of the game…
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Seems the Ghana team will be missing a couple of players this afternoon !
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Anicoll
Interesting that on a subject of Club greed and AFC ticket pricing, the Ghanain players are demanding to be paid and their government sends $3m to Brazil to coverthe wages! It’s a mad, mad, mad world.
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HA! once the players realised that there is no romance in football no more they go for the jagular encouraged by agents…the pie is big and the ones doing the running and getting kicked and the travelling and the training and the sacrifices will get paid or else…..
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and how classy of garragher fowler etc turning on their player/scorer ..without whom theyd be lower than 10th in the league…..betraying your player just to show allegiance to the media sick press and perceptions….and what about the children…hu ha wa … i see chileini is very concerned and traumatised taking pictures with models……show
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A really illuminating read. You should definitely send it to the club.
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New post is up people http://wp.me/p37nXa-10c
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Anicoll, as Arsenal fans we know better then most the advantages of having a modern stadium. And the benefits of all these new or refurbished stadiums, the work gone into them and all that implies is there for all to see.
There’s no need to comment on the appalling treatment of the Hillsborough families, the Sheffield constabulary etc. because you probably know more about it then me! (IBSF).
The images of the police escort for the Ghanian players’ Wonga are insane! Well timed for AorB’s article.
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