An Away Move

Just sent my email cancelling auto-renewal and my season ticket. I feel mixed feelings. Resentment, anger, sadness and a pinch of relief. I've supported the club since I was a kid, but only really started attending very regularly from 2012. Back then the club allowed me to have two Gold Fox memberships in my sole name and I could bring whoever I wanted with me when booking two tickets under my name. If not for Covid I would have been able to have two season tickets under my name and do the same. We have moved very far away from that flexibility. I really resent the restrictions on the amount of times we can transfer tickets and the ball aches and intrusion of having to register anyone I want to take with the club. It's essentially the move from paper ticketing into the digitally tracked way. It’s actually a really huge cultural shift away from what fans have been doing for generations. I don't want to be a part of it. It’s not the tech and being ‘too old’ to use it. I actually enjoy using my phone wallet in other areas of life. I just hate it being forced down our throats by The Premier League corporatists and, with so much relish, by the Leicester City boardroom. So, now I'm officially out. It would be quite a thing if everyone did it. I wonder what they’d do.

Last year they used the example of the trouble at Forest as fig leaf to role it out at home games - in corporate jargon.

You’re not wrong, but we’ve already been there. Let’s see how Bournemouth and Fulham do after two seasons of European football when they have bigger squads and a higher wage to turnover ratio and then fail to qualify for Europe a third season and have players on high wages near the ends of their contracts. The latter would **** up a lot of clubs under PSR rules designed to protect the richest clubs.

Why do you use language that sounds so corporate? You really do sound like an arm of LCFC customer service. That’s not a good look for a group representing the fans. Did you help the club draft this monstrosity too, We're committed to ensuring your matchday experience at King Power Stadium remains safe, secure, and convenient, which is why we're continuing our phased transition to Digital Tickets 📱

80% (15.2) is 15 home games. As I said elsewhere - the TV fixtures tend to be really tricky for STH who travel from other cities to attend matches.

Why would you make that conclusion? My seat costs around £70 per game general admission. Being a STH even if I miss a fair few is more economical than being a member and paying by the fixture. That said, I am out for next season on a point of principle.

I have. I live in London and work/trains mean I can’t make midweek games, the majority of rearranged TV games and aberrations like 7pm Sunday night kick offs.

Arsenal’s tickets are genuine NFT technology.

What Arsenal ARE doing, and I expect others to follow, is setting a minimum requirement of games STH have to attend or they lose the right to renew. I’m sure our club might try it down the line. I think the ever creeping corporatism has finally severed my desire to get off my arse and attend matches. I’ll follow from afar now. This last 12 years or so was beautiful while it lasted.

I’ve made the decision to not renew, but I don’t share your pessimism. I was tempted to renew because I really enjoyed our season in The Championship and there’s the tantalising possibility of seeing academy lads, like Alves (my mate’s son) and Nelson finally coming through. I’d love that. I just don’t trust the club to be that strategic. They’ll probably be given loans again because they’re too timid to try it. So for that reason and others - **** em.

Took the decision, along with my brother, to not renew for next season. I’ll miss my seat!

You’re not a saddo. This is what being a fan looks like for many.

How do you stop auto renewal? Do you have to call the ticket office?

Exactly the same for me. Fans have been self regulating where their cards go if they can’t make a game for generations. This corporate move is another nail in the coffin of the community aspect of being a football supporter.

I think it’s accurate to say that the great majority of STH do not want digital ticketing. This was made clear last year. So after a listening exercise our board have decided to roll them with the slippery language of ‘because Premier League standards’. Sums our club up. If we ever drop down to League One again and gate receipts fall perhaps then they’ll be forced to listen to the fans. I might be done with my ST over this. I can adapt to digital but I really resent being forced into it. I don’t want it.

Maybe it isn’t Ruud. Just the EPL has got so strong. McKenna has done wonders at Ipswich and are they are still well managed. Look where they are. No accident the 3 that came up occupy the bottom three.

We hammered QPR in The FA Cup, which is a good omen for life in The Championship.

Managers of today seem to be all about the ‘philosophy’ or ‘the idea’. It’s very vain and in fashion. Meanwhile Real Madrid put their best players in their best positions, in general, and play to everyone’s strengths. We should try it!

Ruud is also on record as being a fan of Daka. I thought we’d see more after the West Ham game. Puzzling we haven’t.

In the Great Escape season we were always in games. No thrashings. There was character and then it clicked. Can’t see it this season.

They’ll see out their careers with us. The wingers are also keeping out our academy lads, which really irritates me from the point of view of a strategic vision re: the future.

Exactly this. We need our fastest players up front and that means doing the unthinkable and dropping Vardy. We need to defend like our lives depend on it and need to deploy fast counter attackers. That means more minutes and a proper run of games for Daka where we don’t ask him to play with his back to goal but rather off the shoulder of the last defender. We have never played to his strengths.

The paradox that we find ourselves in is that Vardy is our best striker. He is also 38 with no real pace in his game. We play to accommodate this and have no real teeth up front. Daka has pace and can finish in the correct system. We saw it in the West Ham game. I’d play him and set the team up to be hard to score against and have pacey players on the counter. We can’t do this effectively with Vardy.

When those players come to the end of their contracts some of our younger players who couldn’t get a look in will also be up for renewal. I am convinced some will choose to leave on Bosman’s. This is why the club is so badly run. Not enough integration now, nor strategic foresight.

Yes. It wasn’t even handball!