STEVE COTTON COLUMN: Bristol City fans deserve better. WHAT does £39 get you these days? Maybe an armchair – the Pello – from Ikea, for example, or two large New Yorker pizzas and a side of chicken wings from Domino's. If you wanted to venture out, it would get you 18 pints of Thatchers Traditional at the Mardyke on Hotwell Road; a single National Express ticket from Bristol to Heathrow airport, leaving tomorrow morning; or even a one-way flight to Dublin with Ryanair next Wednesday. Your £39 would also get you 39 of anything from Poundland – or even an adult ticket for Bristol City's first game back in the Championship at Sheffield Wednesday next Saturday. That's right, thirty-nine pounds. To watch a game of second-tier football. Before you have even put petrol in your car, paid for parking or bought yourself a cup of tea and a snack. And £39 is not a headline-grabbing, top-bracket price for the few – as is often done to illustrate rising ticket prices at Arsenal or Chelsea – it is the lowest-priced adult ticket for the away end. It is what the majority of City supporters are being asked to fork out. For some reason, Wednesday – whose chairman Dejphon Chansiri said ticket prices have risen across the board at Hillsborough in order to finance a promotion push – not only feel it is acceptable to set prices so high but to expect away supporters to shoulder a fair part of the burden of chasing those ambitions, as well as charging a newly-promoted side close to full whack. Because City's visit is categorised as a 'B' game in Wednesday's pricing structure, which ranges from the £42-49 'A' matches to the £20 'G' games, of which, presumably, there are not too many. When Reading visit Hillsborough, 11 days after City, Royals supporters will be expected to pay £25 for a standard adult ticket in the away end. The board of the Bristol City Supporters Club & Trust, while not calling for a boycott of the game please log in to view this image , have decided to take a principled stand by staying away from Hillsborough next weekend. "For some of us, it is a matter of principle," they said in a strongly-worded statement. "It is going to hurt to do this, but the board of the Supporters Club & Trust have collectively decided not to attend this game. "Nobody's calling for a boycott, we just think it is a step too far. We think many City fans will vote likewise and choose not to go. Maybe in that way Sheffield Wednesday will get the message that this is unreasonable." The furore of the ticket pricing has cast an unnecessary shadow over City's return to the Championship. After an all-conquering League One campaign in 2014-15, this should be a time for excitement and optimism – and, in general, it is. But the fact some supporters feel compelled to stay away from the club's first game in the Championship since they lost 4-1 at Charlton in May 2013 – either priced out or staying away on principle – has become a disappointing sideshow. Last season, after years of Premier League clubs treating supporters as if they are customers, it felt as if things may have started to change in the top flight. In some cases, clubs – flush from a multitude of domestic and global television deals – started subsiding away tickets, while a number of proactive supporters' groups started to get their message across. Many Liverpool supporters, for example, made their point at being charged £50 to watch their team at Hull in April – when Stoke fans had been charged £16 earlier in the same season – by boycotting the fixture completely, or buying £10 children's tickets and then not attending, denying Hull the additional revenue. And, while the Football Supporters' Federation has appealed to the Premier League to cap all away tickets at £20, there not only remains plenty of work to be done at the top level, but Championship prices are clearly creeping up too. A popular slogan on supporters' groups' banners last season was 'Football without fans is nothing' – a Jock Stein quotation – and it is true. Taking a stand against attending a fixture – particularly your club's first fixture back in the Championship – cannot be an easy one, but the message needs to get across somehow. Away supporters are a crucial part of the game – they add to the atmosphere and they bring in revenue. But their loyalty and dedication to their team should never be exploited. 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you' is perhaps a principle clubs should bear in mind. Would Sheffield Wednesday be happy if their supporters were asked to stump up £39 for a seat in the away section at Ashton Gate in April, for example? The game these days may be propped up by sponsorship deals, corporate hospitality, television money and investors. But it will always belong to the supporters. It's just a shame so many of them are being taken advantage of and feel they cannot afford to attend, or feel strongly enough to stay away on grounds of moral and principle http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/STEVE-...fans-deserve/story-27509691-detail/story.html
