Article appeared in Killie Hippo 80 (out 23rd August 08)
A sad indicator of the stranglehold the bigoted big dicks have over us wee diddy teams is the reports that both of them have ganged together and are asking for a 5% levy on all away tickets sold by them to their fans to come to our grounds. We have all read the newspapers about it, Falkirk stood firm and sold their tickets themselves, a brave thing to do maybe as rangers were their first visitors on the opening day of the season. Dundee United sadly folded and agreed to pay due to Celtic arriving on the second week of the season.
The rest, well therein lies the rub, what will the rest do? More importantly what will Killie do? Well your guess is as good as mine. The following are quotes from our esteemed Chairman I have copied and pasted from the BBC website from 18th July when he was interviewed about it.
"It's causing a bit of consternation in certain quarters, It's an issue we could've done without." And "We're the club that potentially will be hit hardest by that because we give Rangers and Celtic between eight and nine thousand tickets for the matches at Rugby Park. So, it would be a major financial hit for us. We're considering our options at the moment.” and "We could add the 5% onto the existing price, so that, instead of an Old Firm ticket at Rugby Park being £25, it would become £26.25, but I'm reluctant to impose a price increase on away supporters when they're already paying a premium to come to watch Rangers and Celtic at Rugby Park."
To be fair it really is a catch 22, do we hold firm and potentially lose out on the cash that comes in from these games ( a necessary evil I personally despise) or do we fold like a knackered old deckchair and bend over and take it in the ass, if only to keep the peace with the supposed life blood of all us wee teams? But what if we were creative, what if we turned this into a potential coup, we could bring the fans back and/or at the very least get a glut of media coverage into the bargain? Here’s a few ideas using Michaels own quotes as springboards.
The admission that we allocate between 8 and 9 thousand tickets to the old firm for these, and I really use the term loosely ”home” games isn’t a shock to us Killie fans but surely this is an opportunity to reclaim at least half of this as our own, we can sell the Chadwick stand to away fans in the same style as Falkirk surely and sell Moffat tickets to our own fans, ok we have falling average crowds and this has been a problem but surely this is the kind of gesture to get the fans back, the CIS Cup final (remember that?) showed that there is a fan base out there to be had so a Michael Johnston charm offensive in every newspaper, Sky Sports News every 28minutes, Setanta sports news for anyone who watches it, across all the websites, a olive branch to all the lapsed fans disillusioned in years gone by. Or am I being to optimistic?
Here’s another idea, just sell the Chadwick Stand to away fans and shut the Moffat, we keep an advantage fan number wise and strike a blow that says we really don’t care. The money side could be a problem but how’s about raising ticket prices for all fans for this game, put it up a fiver, there must be Killie fans out there who would happily pay an extra few quid to allow us to feel that in these type of games we are actually playing a home fixture! Again this could get a blast in the media. This might be a bit extreme and totally unworkable, its an idea though.
Right I have rethunk that last idea, the estimated value of these games from memory is 100000 quid, so how do we recoup this while sticking it to the old firm? If we cant fill it ourselves or make it up by paying more why not, why not, why….not, why not get our local businesses to help out, rounding up as many as possible to supplement that audacious stance against the old firm. If they agreed to buy a set amount of tickets (whether they use them or not is by the by) we wouldn’t be out of pocket, maybe our crowd would go up, maybe it wouldn’t but if the most important thing is the almighty pound then so be it. But it would become a community coming together, we like to think of ourselves as a community club so this would prove it, we could dedicate the match, the programme anything to these businesses, they would get great amounts of exposure out of it too, it’s a win win surely.
Maybe none of these are workable, I am not kidding myself, I don’t know all the facts and really they are just ideas. But and it’s a big but we have a cracking fans website which our chairman used to take part in and there is some clever people on there, I am sure we could come up with something! At the end of the day, if we only do it for the first old firm game then fold for the second, at least we tried, at least we did something and wrung it for all the publicity we could, that would be a positive step.
Manny Watch
He left his Killie van behind at the beginning of June but how is he doing down at his premiership hopefuls (aye right) Norwich? Well after a preseason to remember three wins, a gubbing at spurs and a draw at Colchester, new kit man and co-manager begun the season away to Coventry, im sure he put in a call to his former employees about the Sky Blues, but it started with a defeat. A positive note for Manny is that six of his summer signings started so it’ll take some time for them to gel, a goal down just after half time Manny im sure wanted OJ Koroma on earlier but Roeder overruled (he’ll learn) maybe would have stole a point sadly a goal in the last ten minutes killed of the chances of a 100% win season. Midweek saw them crash out in the Carling Cup to MK Dons, a league down, reports I have read saw co-manager Fowler was obviously disappointed but now they can concentrate on a crack at the big prize, the Premiership! But with Cardiff and Birmingham coming up with plenty of ex SPL players I am assured Manny will come into his own, get them picked on yer coupon, in Manny we trust!
Ruud Kerouac
Killie Beat Writer
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