It’s become a regular occurrence: a friend or a friend-of-a-friend is visiting London, wants to go to a football game and messages asking for help getting tickets. My standard response is: no chance. The most recent of these was from New Zealand-based Spectator contributor David Cohen, whose son will be in London in the autumn. I’d love to be able to help him but know I almost certainly can’t. The sad reality is that I’m struggling to get tickets myself these days, let alone able to assist others.
The clubs themselves are too greedy to do anything other than continue to wring as much out of the fans as they can
When I first started going to football, to West Ham games in the late eighties, it used to be easy getting in. You just turned up. Matches which were particularly sensitive security-wise were given ‘all ticket’ status, meaning you had to purchase in advance.
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