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CHELSEA FC: Spy on Thursday

Chelsea’s Spy In The Camp has been bringing inside news, banter and comment for 20 years in the matchday programme, on Chelsea TV and now on the web. Today he celebrates the low-price policy for domestic Cup games.

/noticias.info/ Oh how quickly the wide world condemns Chelsea when the stands aren’t full, as in the early Champions League games. And correctly too!

Yet the opposite doesn’t happen, praise for full houses for League Cup and FA Cup ties.

Admission prices to less attractive games were a major issue during the chairmanship of Ken Bates. He argued both publicly and privately that if prices were reduced and significantly more people did not come, then the club would be out of pocket.

The first time prices were reduced in the post-Ken years, it was a disaster — because too many people came. The tie was against lower league opposition, Notts County, and the top tier of the West Stand was kept closed. Customers had to be turned away. The trial was an embarrassing success.

The highlight of the new policy, which Peter Kenyon has argued is not just to fill the ground but to attract new legions of fans, was the League Cup semi-final against Manchester United in 2005. Prices were kept at their new low-rate, and the battle of the Big Two could be witnessed by a different set of fans from usual.

Most of the diehards were still there. But this was a treat for many.

Football has changed. It is big business now, and too large a number of fans from over a decade ago are priced out. But that’s not the case in these Cup ties, and hopefully these people are taking the opportunity to come to the Bridge.

The season after we won the League Cup under Gianluca Vialli, 1998/99, we played last night’s opposition Aston Villa in the third round of the League Cup. There were 26,790 spectators there. Last night there were 41,516. Andriy Shevchenko is pictured beating Wilfred Bouma in front of them.

That is just under 15,000 more this year. A rise of 66 per cent. Isn’t that worth a headline or two?

The year we won the competition, 1997/98, the third round was against Blackburn (18,671) and the fourth round against Southampton (20,968). We would be pilloried by media and fans for those crowds now.

A low pricing scheme in the world of Chelsea has been a success.

The next problem remains these Champions League Group stage games. At least we’ve had some top seeded teams coming because we’ve been stuck as second seeds. If we hadn’t, we wouldn’t have faced Milan (1999), Lazio (2003), Porto (2004), Liverpool (2005) and Barcelona (2006).

In 2003 we got just 32,957 against Besiktas. In 2004 we got 33,945 against CSKA Moscow. In 2005 we got 29,575 against Anderlecht. And this season we got 32,135 against Werder Bremen.

Changes were made to this year’s Champions League pricings which restored the lower priced season ticket and concessions, but the wider world is still not coming in ‘League Cup’ numbers.

I believe the board will be loath to bring in lower prices for the Champions League. But already they have introduced still more concessions for the Levski Sofia game next month.

And hopefully they will have to face a stark reality next season. The only way we can be top seeds then, and not have a top seeded team coming in the Group stage, is if we win the tournament this year. In that scenario, we might struggle to sell out any of the three home games.

It’s a shame, because Champions League games are brilliant. But now, so are League Cup ties, if just for the atmosphere.

I hope we get a home draw next round. And I hope it’s against Southend or Wycombe. And I hope everybody who complains they can no longer afford or organise getting a ticket comes. I promise you it will be a sell-out and it will be fun. And if it happens to be against Tottenham, you might have to move quicker to get your ticket but, Tottenham allowing, the price will stay low and that could be even more fun.

by Spy In The Camp notas_de_prensa_archivo