I know that we are in a different situation than what I am about to say but whatever.

My girlfriends dad went to watch Macclesfield V Man Utd last night.

When he got home I was looking through the programe and they play Darlington on Saturday and the Admission fee is 16 pounds for anyone over 16 and 10 pounds for anyone under 16 or an OAP.

I screamed," bloody hell, thats expensive for third division football ", when he replied, " well at Macclesfield it is 18 pounds or anyone over 14!!!! ".

This wasnt a price hike, it is what they charge every week!!

Thats only 3rd division, there is something drastically wrong with folk if they wont pay a fiver to watch Runcorn even if it is in the NWCL!!

And one other thing, Matty Mcniel was playing upfront for Macc and was their man of the match. Apparently he is Brian Hortons blue eyes.

Another player we let go for a tin of beans that went on to bigger and better things.

Football prices are shocking and in many cases they are a complete rip-off.
This coming season, my ticket at United works out at £23 a game, last season it worked out at £20.50 per game.
Whilst at the same time, some Conference clubs charged £18 for a seat. (Cambridge are charging more for Conference football than they did in division 3).
I paid £45 for a ticket at Birmingham, £49 at Spurs and £49 at Chelsea. Last season Arsenal charged £32 and in their new stadium it will now be £48.
Compare that to visits to Bayen Munich £6, European cup Final in 1999 was £12, Debrecean £3. Nearly every European team charge on average £10 for their top flight clubs.
Its no wonder that many of the Premiership stadiums are only half full each week, look at City, Villa and Midlesborough for examples.

Personally I consider Runcorns price of £5 to be to high for the level of football. You only have to look at Ashtons £2 admission. Yes, we do need to pay for the future and its a swings and roundabouts situation.
We are also competing with Runcorn Town who charge £2 and dont have the travel to Witton and to be honest, the level of football is not much different.
Under 18's should not be paying anything more than £1 and under 12's should all be free. (How many people got lifted over the gates at Canal Street by their parents?).
Look at Comments on here from "Art", he explains the situation for kids.
Plus once in the ground, your pestered for programmes, half time draws, raffles etc. People only have so much disposable income.

Its easy to get your 100 spectators along and charge them £5. Its a lot harder to get 200 along and charge them £2.50
Thats one of Runcorn FC's failings over the years, tax the regulars rather than attract new fans.

i agree with wat u say,we arent gettin new fans,just relying on regulars to pay,if 5 people pay £2-£3. u mat sell five more programmes,get same revenue as 2 payin £5,but it means more support,better atmosphere.
kids should be free,not just under 4,s,sure there will be some one on gate at witton or where ever not interested that ur kid will lose interest,still want u pay for them.
some may ave to go with kids to watch a game,partner workin etc.
i went st hel match,cost me £14,then programme,raffle.drink,choc etc half time.

come on, whats £5?! Tufty I presume you wont be renewing your utd season ticket if a fiver is a bit to much to watch runcorn, i presume ill see you week in week out at games. Seriously though if you dont mind lining the pockets of Mr Glazier whats your problem with the linnets charging a few extra quid to try and safegaurd the future of the club, what youve got to remember is that the club started with £0 in the coffers, we have to pay rent on a ground, players expensises' league fees, travelling fees and christ knows what else. As yet their is no shirt sponsership we need what revenue we can get. I dont think £5 a lot and please dont say youve got to take petrol prices into the equation because your prepared to travel to manchester every other week.
£2 for the kids is more than reasonable, i'll be taking three one of whoms under 4 but i,ll still pay the £2 fee for the child as the club needs all the help it can get, whilst i agree that prices, to some extent, attract fans, the thing what will attract more fans is sucsess, if we can get of to a flyer then who nows what gates we may get. To sum up, 13 years ago playing in the conference (fighting relegation) adults admission price £5, concessions £2.50, adults were deemed to be any one over the age of 16 not 18 as we are employing so whilst we are playing at a lower level we are actually charging less then what we were 13 years ago! do you think birmingham will be reducing their admission prices as they are now playing at a lower level, i dont think so. Please just get behind the team and once we have a sound footing who knows maybe we can reduce the prices further.

£5 to watch a league nwc 2 match is a rip off . i will pay it but i am only an occassional spectator . Watching the corn is great but WHAT are we getting for the £5 ( actual breakdown would be nice ) i suggest you buy a bucket and put some water in it . the amount of times on saturday a player went down was a joke , and even funnier was that they were just left on the floor . As i say i think £5 is alot to pay for people on low wages etc.... and especialy for the standard of football on show . maybe i expect too much ?

some more valid points from a few different people..
i did a bit of research for next seasons prices (ok,i've got too much time on my hands)and so far found this out:

new mills-adults £3..concessions £1.50
oldham town-adults £4..conc £2
darwen-adults £5..conc £2
holker ob-adults £2..conc ?
ashton athletic £2..conc £1

so in my opinion it should be £4 and £1 but with paying rent and not having the benefit of refreshment profits i suppose its about right..i still think that under 11's should be £1 or free though..

Ste Biggy and Tufty. Absolutely spot on the pair of you.
Macclesfield, who are such entertainers that they may join the Conference at the end of the season according to seasoned observers. I won't be shedding many tears if they do. Mind you, their prices are quite typical of the division.

As for Prem ticket prices I'm almost too afraid to look. I posted a thread on the official site about the prices from divisions 1 to 3 as I still insist on calling them. There are some awful rip off merchants even at those levels.

Tufty, a hypothetical question for you. At which point do you think you will eventually say "Enough is enough" and let someone else be squeezed dry? 12% increase, bet your salary didn't rise that much, mine definitely didn't. Surely even your loyalty has its limit.
The constant inflation busting rises are taking the p!ss one step too far for my liking. One of the ironies, and I'm loathe to give Man. U. credit for anything at all, is that their ticket prices are still amongst the cheapest in the Prem. To quote, if ticket prices since the start of the Prem had kept in line with inflation the average price would now be £12 to £13. Frightening really.
Was it really that many years ago that you paid about £4 to stand at the Stretford End?
In those days (God I'm sounding like a right old git now) nobody really minded the players getting a couple of grand a week. Their playing days wouldn't last forever so good luck to them and just entertain us, while they could. Now you have diving, cheating spivs who in many cases earn in one week what takes you or I 2 to 3 years to earn. Is it just me who views that as an obscenity?
The Prem, the greatest league in the world so they say. How about, a glorified and richer version of the Scottish Prem? 4 champion clubs in 15 seasons, two of whom have been bankrolled by benefactors. Outside of the usual suspects you have too many teams who are just happy to make up the numbers. Before I told Sky what to do with their £30+ pm subscription there were too many games that were so unrelentingly poor that I was switching them off before half time. If they had been played in my back garden I'd have closed the curtains. Starting to go to Runcorn matches is re-invigorating my love of football which I thought had gone for good.

Noticed your mention about Birmingham, you might find the following link interesting
http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,1563,1334980,00.html
A nod in the direction of the United fan trying to take a bit of action at Brum

Also, the following will convince you of what an appalling rip off the Prem is:
http://football.guardian.co.uk/blueprint/story/0,,1577452,00.html

Final link, the first paragraph will give you a laugh, found this while I was looking for the Chelsea - Milan comparison article
http://football.guardian.co.uk/Fiver/0,,1832636,00.html

Apologies for going so far off topic on a Runcorn board but the above stuff just really winds me up.

In view of all the the above I personally think that the ticket price for the Linnets this season couldn't really be bettered. They have to pay Witton their cut and there's no social club to generate cash so where else can they generate sufficient cash from? I'm sure they have tried to be as reasonable as possible but my guess is that they had to be sensible and work on a 'worst case basis'. I've heard a crowd figure of 100 bandied about and there's only going to be 17 home league fixtures.

If, for example, they had decided to charge £3/£1 then it started to fall apart financially later in the season no doubt the same people would be saying, "They should have charged more. They should have known that it'd never survive on those prices"

I'm not going to knock the committee, they're doing their best. We're all entitled to an opinion but I feel that some are just a bit too ready to take a shot at those whose efforts mean there is still a club to support.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't in some instances.

For those who do attend not quite knowing what to expect, just lower your expectations a little as I did. You won't get top quality players on show but as long as those wearing the shirts put in a good shift and do their best that'll do for me. They certainly can't be called mercenaries.

Hope to see quite a few of you at the Rhyl game and during the season. COME ON LINNETS.

seems some people think it to much,some say reasonable,bet when other teams come to witton an their supporters,they,ll ave a shock when they pay double the price of their home games!
were one league higher than west ches,cost 4 times more,for pretty much same standard,so lets all be realistic,just how many ave seen nwc football?this is not uni prem.some poor teams/grounds,so runcorn will be expected to compete in this by fans when they ave unibond players,and prob dearest admission,they wont want to hear excuses.good luck to all.

people will watch who they want,u get wat u pay for,if they happy to watch town,or linnets its their choice,some may watch both throughout season.
good luck to both.

Just to clarify, all Runcorn Town games for the 2006/07 West Cheshire League season are free entrance and not £2.00. The committee felt that they could not really charge admission prices given that it is WCL2.

Lets clear a few things up.
Firstly, Anon obviously knows who I am and people know who you are, so why not put a name to a thread, you get a lot more respect for it?

Last year I missed 4 United games (Including one European away game) and in the process spent about £2,500 that was not including food/drinks. Yes, it is a large chunk of income and it was done in support of Manchester United and the team, not in support of Glazer.
We all spend money on different things, people smoke, people buy designer clothes, people shop at tesco, people drive and people get the bus.
I pay £18 more to watch Man Utd than I would Runcorn, as I consider it to be a different value for money.
Presently I can afford that, who knows what will happen when situations change.
In the same way that i will pay £150 for a pair of jeans, when they sell jeans in asda for £8

The £5 admission to someone like myself is neither here or there, but the club dont need to attract me to the club, I already have an interst.

The club do need to attract NEW fans and prices pay a major factor in this. It was hard enough to get new support to Canal Street, when the club was on everyones doorstep. Now its playing 15 miles away in Witton, has dropped down 5 leagues and has not been playing in Runcorn for 5 years.

Having attended several of the Committee meetings and listening to certain people, there appears to be the belief of "If we build it, they will come". Its not that easy.
Going back 12 years, we had gates of 700. The last ever game at Canal Street attracted 230 people. Last season at prescott, gates were down to 70 people and that included away fans. Away fans will be even less in the NWCL2.

I spent 18 months doing commercial work for the club, during which time the club played in The Conference, In Runcorn, had just had 2 successive Wembley appearances and featured as a main match on Match of the Day against Wigan.
During that time, it was like getting blood out of a stone trying to attract new sponsors and new supporters. Even giving free complimentary tickets to various groups didnt work.

Trying to attract sponsors and new fans now will be even harder. I have spoke to several ex-regulars who now have other interests/kids/family/work and dont have any interest in attending games.
Sponsors get targeted by every sports team and charity in the local area, there is only so much they can give.

Attracting supporters will be results orientated as well, so decent results will see more interest through fans, as will articles in the local press, which to date have been extremely poor.

So back to prices.
As Art has stated, he has 2 kids and he considers the prices to be to much.
Many a young fan toddled along to Canal Street with their parent, was admitted for free and spent most the game playing in the sand/ playing football at the bottom end,rather than watching the match. It was only at a certain age that they took an interest in what was happening on the pitch. Parents took the kids to get them out the house. If it costs more to go the game than to go the local cineman or charlie Chalks ballpool, then parents will take them there.
Personally, I think the under 4's free admission should be extended to under 14's. Games at Canal Street usually had free child tickets given out or small kids being lifted over the gate.
A lot of other clubs realise the importance of kids and the future support, QPR are admitting all under 9's for free.

Anyway, im sure as the games go on, the attendances will show a lot and prices may have to be reconsidered.

Another thing that needs to be considered is fans being pestered for money. I know a few people who stopped wathing Runcorn due to this. They said that once they had paid their £7 admission, they got hit on for programmes, raffle tickets, half time draws, christmas draws, easter draws, player sponsorship and it all mounts up.

Remember, its not people like myself you need to attract, its NEW fans.

But one factor we have is that we are playing in Witton, so if a Runcornian/Widneasean or whoever wants to watch the game they will have to make the effort of getting there.

My point is that people cant just fall into the ground like canal street because its not on the doorstep anymore, if you go to a game its because you want to be there.

In this case I doubt very much an extra 1 or 2 pound will make a difference at all.

The last ever game at Canal Street attracted 555 people, not 230 people as stated. Yes it is still low compared to previous gates over the years, but not 230 low!

Fallon, My mistake, but there were some really low gates about towards the end of that season.

Ste, people who want to go dont mind paying the £5 admission, as i have stated. These people will probably go anyway. The 70 who went week in week out last season, probably would have paid £10
Its new people that need encouraging.
As I said the other night, 2 free tickets in a a pub will probably achieve little, as people have to make the effort to get there.
Peoples interest has to grow and develop, it wont happen over night.

You are right, people have to "want" to go the the games, you cant force them. Constant match reports and updates will surely spark an interest, especially if the lads start doing well and getting the results. keep up the good work.

just read alty site and it says Runcorn Town are not running a res team.
I know leachy let the club and players down but don't pack res team in.
it was sad to see the youth team scrapped but i heard that was down to cheshire fa not giving someone a personnal hearing.
eddie smith is your man

But my point is, if someone is willing to travel to Witton, wether it be a new fan, an old fan, an exiled fan, if they have made the effort of getting there I doubt the 5 pound entry will put them off once there.

I feel that the bigger obstacle is encouraging people to travel to games, once this is done the admission is bye the bye.

Plus I also think the post above has hit the nail square on the head, if we are winning and doing well people will come and watch.

This has always been the way, many Runcorn fans are glory hunters who want to be there when the team is doing well but not in the bad times.

I cant see that anywhere? Can you copy what it says onto here Alan?

on day, somewhere local we can walk to and have a pie and a pint.
Went to Flint last Sat. suggest copy them its just what we need