For those of us out there that buy season tickets, are we all aware of what’s currently going on? This piece (which is a shortened reworded version of an article from kumb.com/article.php?id=44884) sums up the abhorrent way in which our owners are treating season ticket holders. Read it and digest and then when the stadium is half empty, you might comprehend why!
There was still a lot to be resolved when West Ham revealed the season ticket rates at the end of March. Although the squad’s performance in the league was waning, there was still hope that we may defeat Bayer Leverkusen, the undefeated team that would shortly be crowned German champions. Amid the glib advertising of “A Seat Like No Other,” which was somewhat ironic given the condition of our Athletics stadium, there was something much worse than just another price increase. The club will no longer be offering brand-new concession seats in bands 1-4 beginning of season 2024-2025.
For those unfamiliar with the stadium layout, the other two bands are located up in the roof and will continue to offer new concession seating. Because these seats are so high, you’ll need binoculars, and an oxygen mask to get the full experience. In essence, the club is discouraging parents from bringing their younger children along and new parents are actually being prevented from bringing their young children to games. Even more offensively, they were informing all season ticket holders who were turning 66 this season that their reward for their years of devoted support would be to either pay the full price for their seats or get ready for a weekly trek up hundreds of steps to the roof-mounted seats.
This was kept buried because the club lacked the courage to include it in the material when it was first released, demonstrating David Sullivan and Karren Brady’s total contempt for the club’s purported “legacy” supporters. It drew a potentially irreversible line in the sand. But any protests and grievances had to wait for a few important matches to be played and a farewell to our most successful manager since John Lyall.
Now, not every fan in the stadium this year may be impacted by this. My dad’s over 66 ticket in Band 3 is still valid. At the moment, I can’t get my daughter to go to games with my son and me. So, at this time, it has no direct impact on my family or me. But hundreds of our supporters will be impacted this season, and many more will be after that.
How can the club condone that when someone new moves into the block next to me, their ticket will cost four times what I pay for a ticket for my son who gets the same view? How can they tell the hardworking people who have followed us to Crewe, Plymouth, Rotherham, and so many other places over the last god knows how many years, that their reward for their devotion and loyalty is the withdrawal of an expected reduction in ticket price when they reach pension age?
The current situation is disgusting, depressing, and could be the final nail in the coffin for a significant portion of the fan base that has sustained the club during challenging times by way of relegations that occurred in 1978, 1989, 1992, 2003, and 2011, to name a few. Through the Bond Scheme, near financial oblivion in the late 2000s and through a stadium relocation when a lot was promised but not much was delivered. Through frequent humiliations caused by the existing custodians. By the selling of prized Academy players and the departure of a team of potential future England players.
Without us, there wouldn’t be a Premier League club that has just experienced three consecutive years in Europe for the first time in our history.
How did we get here, then? How is it that the purported West Ham supporting owner is suddenly forcing us out of our own club and out of the unloved Athletics stadium? When West Ham United was purchased by David Gold and David Sullivan in 2010, there was optimism among the fan base that despite the hatred of the pair from the blue side of Birmingham, the owners being supporters of the club would help to mend the club’s divisions and pull it out of the mess its Icelandic owners had left it in.
Then they appointed Avram Grant and got us relegated, which ought to have been a warning sign that things would become rough. Following years of turmoil due to the stadium relocation – from a beloved home to a rented Athletics stadium, the Baroness’ hostile actions, several near-relegation scrapes, and a 10,000 strong demonstration, things began to settle down, largely because of David Moyes and his courageous and tenacious team. But in the past year, they have returned with a vengeance.
We’ve all witnessed the penny pinching in the transfer market as well and under this ownership, nothing will ever change. This season’s ticket debacle is the last straw!