City V PSG ticket Prices: 1894 Group statement in full

[RandomJ]

I doubt they will even see the banner. Be too busy tucking into their 5 course meal in their hospitality boxes. If you want to send a message you have to hit them in the pocket. Always been the case and always will be.

 

[RichardDunneOwnGoal]

We need to bear a few things in mind here:

First of all let's remember that one of the reasons we were selected as club suitable for the large scale investment we have had was because of all round good nature and loyalty as supporters during 3 decades of winning nothing. Its not our natural way to be 'toys out of the pram' merchants like at some other clubs and I'm sure this helped our cause. Presently MCFC get no credit whatsoever for breaking up the tedious monoploy that existed before, with you know who making up the top four and its totally to the Sheik's credit that we now have a Premier league with only Arsenal from that monopoly still in the top four (and hopefully due to win nothing so that their toys get thrown out of the pram along with Wenger.) Do I want to see us hack off the Sheik and the City management over this issue - sorry I don't: I think people should pick and choose their games and vote with their feet regarding whether to attend or not and I don't want to see us going down the Liverpool fan's route of shooting ourselves in the foot in the process. I do not want to go back to the wilderness years again and had actually reached my limit by the Stewart Pearce era where we were very likely doomed to do an Aston Villa / Newcastle forever more.

The only issue here for me is whether the people signed up to the CL cup scheme had an expectation that they would need to pay this much to attend the game: everyone else can pick and choose, and let the club work out the pricing model based on attendances - its the smart thing to do. I'm one of the lucky ones who got a £299 season ticket in the South Stand and I still can't believe my luck so I actually agree with the club's overall pricing structure to have a large capacity ground with ticket prices that suit every level of attendance and premium games and tickets when and where it matters: if this means tourists paying top dollar for my old seat on the half way line then to be honest: fair enough.

The scousers did an incredible job of getting the £30 away ticket adopted and they deserve the credit for that - however, they don't realise that in today's climate they are limiting LFC's ability to compete because sadly, money talks and as we know the players are incredibly greedy: the moneyball philosphy that the USA based owners of LFC subscribe to requires them to 'monetize' everything to 'secure' the 'optimal' player and we are lucky (more than we could ever know) that Brendan blew it on the home straight. With LFC's capacity and prices capped for the foreseeable future their moneyball philosophy could be totally broken.

So, to blame the club for being greedy when in fact they are just being pragmatic about their business, and to avoid pointing the blame where it truly lies i.e. at the players is I believe being totally disingenuous.

I am disappointed that I am not yet rich enough to own a football club, but wise enough to know I wouldn't want to even if I was (do you agree Mike Ashley?) - I know that deep down the outrageous cost of watching football is 100% down to the greed of the players and the greed and stupidity of those people running the game. This needs to be said first, before anything else is said.

Am I glad that City broke the mould thanks to the Sheik's money? Yes I am.

Am I prepared to pay the odd consequence for doing so? Yes I am.

Am I settled that this means that I now pick and choose my games whilst seeing loads of tourists watching those games in my stead? Yes I am.

Should the club do more to sort out ticket prices across the board for families etc? Yes and I trust them to work this out.

Is this the wrong battle for us to fight at this time? Champions League Quarter Final for the first time in our history in support of the Sheik's vision for success? Yes, its totally wrong IMHO.

Sorry to tell it as it is. {Note: Full respect due to the people on Champions League Cup Scheme of course - I totally get that issue.}

So in summation: you think a protest at increasing ticket prices would represent "toys out of the pram", and you're perfectly happy to pay through the nose and sit adjacent to football tourists as long standing working call blues are gradually priced out?

Alright Jack, can see you're alright.

Re the Sheikh Mansour point, has it ever occurred to you that he might think everything is going swimmingly with the support? That everything is rosy? For all he knows the people he's employed to take charge of the day to day running of the club, Soriano and Glick for example, are doing a great job and doing right by the fans. I'm sure that'll be the feedback he gets from them.

You could even look at a protest as a direct appeal to him, above their heads, if he is completely unaware of this discontent from the supporters with the men he's employed, then he might bring about the change that we all want. He might be as disappointed with the situation, and his employees treatment of us, as we are. Who knows?

We'll never know if we don't protest.

And frankly, if you think a single protest over ticket prices would lead Sheikh Mansour to up sticks and write off a more than £1 billion investment, then you're beyond dense.

We'll either get what we want, or we won't. It's that straightforward.

 

[mrtwiceaseason]

If 1894 are going to put some banners up why not have a smiths theme ?
That will show them.
What about money changes everything ?

 

[RichardDunneOwnGoal]

Richard any one can organise a protest demonstration it does not have to be the 1894 group If you feel srongley enough abut the issue why not take the lead your self ?

Might well do mate, wouldn't quite be sure where to start but I'd definitely be willing to take charge .

 

[RichardDunneOwnGoal]

Utter bollocks. You only have to read on here how many wouldn't walk out due to it being too early/the prices aren't that bad/i'm alright jack/we have to pay for success/we're not scousers/i might miss a goal to see that a walk out on 60 wasn't going to be fully supported. Banners, and along with it some TV and media coverage is the right way to go as a first step, IMO

I don't agree mate, not everyone agreed on the 60 minute walk out specifically, but that didn't have to be the only protest option. We were still canvassing opinion, discussing options, it didn't have to even be the only potential walk out.

The overwhelming majority backed some kind of protest, and I suspect most would be as disappointed as I am if all that materialised was a couple of banners in the south stand and business as usual.

I don't think you should grant too much credence to the minority of vocal trolls against any protest in those threads either btw.

The 1894 group have nailed their colours to the mast way too early IMO, and I personally think they've bottled it and gone with the least offensive option.

 

[mrtwiceaseason]

Might well do mate, wouldn't quite be sure where to start but I'd definitely be willing to take charge .

Get some coloured foil sheets leave a big gap for the padded seats and spell a clever play on a smiths song out ?

 

[moomba]

That's my issue with it. The prices for the PSG game aren't really any higher than those that non-seasoncard holders pay to watch a premier league game. Where was the compassion and empathy from the majority for the thousands priced out in previous years?

It seems now that season card holders are being asked to pay those same prices for this game, it has all kicked off. I suspect that people with a season ticket had been charged for this game at 1/19 of the price of their season ticket (in other words the same as a regular league game), there wouldn't have been much of a fuss at all.

Personally I believe a protest campaign would garner a good deal more support if it was in relation to match day prices in general, rather than focusing on this one specific match where the prices aren't much higher, if at all, than a regular game against decent premier league opposition that many of our supporters are paying on a weekly basis.

To be fair I've just done a quick search on prices, and straight away theres a thread where lots of people complained about £57 for Liverpool two years ago.

More than a few have been banging on about prices for years now. Season tickets (including the corporatisation of L2, cup tickets and sungle game prices).

It really isnt a new thing, and its not just a case of ST holders kicking off now it affects them.

 

[quiet_riot]

I don't agree mate, not everyone agreed on the 60 minute walk out specifically, but that didn't have to be the only protest option. We were still canvassing opinion, discussing options, it didn't have to even be the only potential walk out.

The overwhelming majority backed some kind of protest, and I suspect most would be as disappointed as I am if all that materialised was a couple of banners in the south stand and business as usual.

I don't think you should grant too much credence to the minority of vocal trolls against any protest in those threads either btw.

The 1894 group have nailed their colours to the mast way too early IMO, and I personally think they've bottled it and gone with the least offensive option.

In my opinion, with just over 2 weeks to go until the WBA game, any protest should have already been decided on, and now we should be spreading the word. I don't think it's particularly helped that there were so many potential options, and still we are lacking any kind of coherent place for options on here, no poll, no real dedicated protest thread, just one full of arguing.

 

[wearethesouthstand]

ok. some background here :

44,729 people viewed the statement on 1894 facebook in 24 hours alone. tons of comments afterwards and mails ito 1894. 156 shares of the article. also article went round the world, evening news, goal.com (55m worldwide followers), mailonline (biggest audience for an online paper), journos like henry winter tweeting about it. various surveys on facebook about it. guess what, the bluemoon clique isn't the only forum out there - there's actually life outside this bubble. we've had chats with the official supporters club, king of the kippax, city watch forum, mcfc forum, spirit of shankly and sought the inside track of what we have to do to move things along.

support for a walk out maybe 10% tops but then that doesn't mean 10% would walk out. the media coverage we are getting for this is huge and we know it has reached the top of the club. by the top we mean ferran soriano, simon pearce. that's where the decisions on ticket prices are made. to get guys like this to change their minds and reverse the trends of constant rises you have to make them take notice. 200 people tops walking out at various blocks of the ground can't be noticed. 20,000 would and if the City fans were gonna do that we would definitely say let's do it.

we may get one chance to do a walk out and it cannot fail. you have to represent a majority not a minority.

but look what's been said. we have said some people will want to walk out. so rather than dismiss them we have said Blues, show some understanding, they want to do it.
we've won the moral argument. media is putting club under pressure. we have had no contact from club. our point of contact is away skiing til Tuesday and there are various levels of hierarchy above that person.

if they did try and put pressure on us, we would go public with that and that would then play into our hands and opinion would then allow us to go further. we are saying don't raise prices any more or people will walk away from this club. that's the message people want us to deliver to the club. if they fall into the trap and ignore the fans, then we know more people will back stronger action.

fans are more likely to not go to the psg game than walk out half an hour early v west brom. what we want is the solution that actually delivers what we want. Pearce and Soriano won't budge if 200 walk out but they will if 20,000 walk out and if/when City fans are seriously ready to do that we can make that happen. what we can't have is threads like this ending up 200 300 pages of bluster an chit chat and then at the end of it nothing happens. we said in statement one SOME FANS WANT A WALK OUT. We put that in 1) to guarantee media attention and 2) to gauge response from fans on it. so we've done your job for you. we have never promised a walk out. we seek opinion first.

Liverpool walk out was culmination of 13 months of anger over various issues, £77 tickets for league games the tipping point

as it is everyone has 2 weeks now to prepare banners etc and protest at the west brom game. still back the team but on 60 minutes let rip during a live TV game. its a golden opportunity to make a point , so use it.

 

[blueparrot]

I don't agree mate, not everyone agreed on the 60 minute walk out specifically, but that didn't have to be the only protest option. We were still canvassing opinion, discussing options, it didn't have to even be the only potential walk out.

The overwhelming majority backed some kind of protest, and I suspect most would be as disappointed as I am if all that materialised was a couple of banners in the south stand and business as usual.

I don't think you should grant too much credence to the minority of vocal trolls against any protest in those threads either btw.

The 1894 group have nailed their colours to the mast way too early IMO, and I personally think they've bottled it and gone with the least offensive option.

That's the difference 1894 considered all sides, you have just dismissed those that don't agree with you as trolls so think there is an overwhelming majority wanting walkouts.
Here's an idea, go back through the threads on this and see how many posters were for each idea, because people posting one view, multiple times give a squewed view. I'd
be interested in the result myself but to be honest can't be bothered doing it.