Twenty's Plenty

Last updated : 02 October 2015 By Tony Scholes

The FSF have been running this campaign for some time and over the weekend you will see banners at grounds from supporters of several clubs showing their support for the campaign at their own games.

We should be first up. Our game is the first to be played this weekend and it's also on television. Unfortunately I've heard nothing of Burnley or Rotherham supporters getting involved and no suggestion that supporters of the two clubs will be meeting up to show combined support as is happening at numerous grounds up and down the country.

As it happens we don't have to pay too much tomorrow. Rotherham's adult price for Burnley supporters is £23, not that far over the figure wanted by the FSF. But we Clarets know all too well that it is not the case at every ground we visit.

This is the lowest price we've had to pay so far this season but already we have been asked to fork out £37 for a televised game at Leeds and £32.50 for a midweek game at Ipswich. Just to make it worse, these two clubs, who are always up there with the most expensive, were charging Burnley fan £42 and £35 respectively on the day.

We've more bad ones to come. Blackburn are charging us £34, an amount made even worse by the £7 additional charge for the compulsory bus trip, and goodness knows what Sheffield Wednesday might charge us; Preston fans will be paying £33 there tomorrow although Hull fans will pay £3 less than that in two weeks time. Wednesday have four higher category prices than the one in place for the Preston game.

One ground where we don't pay the away ticket price is our own. Away fans at the Turf this season are being asked to pay either £24 or, for the higher category games, £28. That, at least, for many games is considerably cheaper than was the case two seasons ago.

Last season was at times beneficial for us. As one of the smaller clubs in the Premier League we benefited greatly because so many clubs had us as a low category game, but we were still stung at some of the big clubs, the two Manchester clubs and Chelsea in particular.

How has this campaign gone over the years? It started in January 2013 because of high prices for away tickets with many away fans in the Premier League following clubs that were often top category forcing them to pay £50 and even £60 for tickets. The FSF want away tickets capped at £20.

It's had some effect. Premier League clubs introduced the Away Supporters Initiative. This, last season, got us reductions in ticket prices at Swansea, QPR, Manchester City and Everton. And in the Football League there are more and more clubs entering into reciprocal deals for away fans, the first of this coming between Barnsley and Derby a couple of years ago.

It will be a shame if there is nothing visible done at Rotherham tomorrow night, but I'm sure many of our supporters will be backing this campaign.

Clarets Mad certainly is. Football needs away supporters, they are a vital ingredient, but the numbers are reducing year on year because of the spiralling costs.

Remember - Twenty's Plenty.