I was taken to the game today by my boss and sat in The Boardroom.
Obviously all City’s hierarchy were in there, but there were plenty of celebrity City fans and of course Haalands Dad with hangers on.
I even bumped into two ex colleagues of mine, both City fans.
You see, fans get tickets and seats in all manner of ways and this is the second time in recent years I’ve been in corporate seats at Anfield.
What was noticeable about the City section today, was how quiet it was, chants just never got going, not to the extent where you could clearly hear them, loud and proud.
Away fans at The Etihad can make a great noise, but today, the City fans couldn’t be heard and, I was sat exactly half way along the main stand in the second tier, not the other end of the ground.
So, has it got to the point where the away allocation is being swallowed up by too many friends and family of players and staff, or by fans who pay through the nose from 3rd party suppliers?
Away allocations should be entirely for the hard core fan only.
I’ve dropped down the pecking order for games like this now, as my loyalty points, all be it pushing 25k, means I can’t get a ticket in my own right, nor through our supporters club where we’re lucky to get 3 or 4 tickets for away games now, and we have 300 or so members.
Clearly it’s now affecting the noise we can make at games such as this.
I assume we don’t see as many tourist at the likes of Forest and leicester?