 Massive Ticket Demand-who Needs The Premiership??
Leeds fans are clamouring for season tickets for the 2007-08 League One campaign in such numbers that the club has had to suspend seating viewing for three weeks in order to cope with demand. Fans will be able to book viewings for July 2 onwards.
Attendances at Elland Road slumped last season to around 19,000, owing to poor on-field performances but also due to uncompetitive prices - remember you can see the 2005 World Champions, Leeds Rhinos for £15 but United seemed to be unaware of this until late on in the season when experimental pricing at a couple of games saw the ground hold around 30,000 fans, the lower artifical maximum attendance due to the closure of the upper tier of the East Stand.
Thanks to the shedding of both the Ridsdale debt and the overpaid under-achievers on the field, Ken Bates has been able to lower prices (though they will still be the highest in the division). It would be nice to think that lots of ordinary Leeds fans who were priced out of the ground by past pricing will put their dispute with Ken Bates on hold and turn out to cheer on the team.
To be fair to Bates he was trying to pay off debts inherited from the past incompetents and so had little real opportunity to take a risk with pricing. Moreover many ordinary fans were priced out of the ground well before this, even during the Premiership days. Thirty-five pounds to watch a game of football is way beyond the pockets of many ordinary fans on minimum wage with families. Frankly, it often poor value too - not just when Leeds were losing! Last season an analysis of a Chelsea match showed that the ball was in play for less than twenty minutes in each half - hardly entertainment. Which would you rather have - two and a half minutes of Premiership football or a pint of beer? Atrocious value for money isn't it?
So for this season the ordinary fan has a chance to revisit Elland Road at reasonable price to watch a league that will be every bit as competitive as last season's Championship. The Premiership is where the money is - together with a massive yawn factor - only two teams can win it and the rest of the League is full of foreign millionaires' hobby teams watched by gates that will be less than those at Elland Road next season! Sky has a problem on its hands when it is committed to showing matches between teams that I wouldn't even watch if they were free on the BBC!! Fulham v Portsmouth anyone? Wigan v Blackburn? Derby v Bolton? The Premiership is lucky that Sunderland were promoted - at least their 47,000 home crowds will help hide the reality of declining gates for the slumber-inducing top division. Meanwhile many teams in League One will be watched by modern-day record crowds this season. Sunderland will receive millions for being in the Premiership and the fans will pay through their nose for the privilege of watching shiftless millionaires go through the motions to fill time between calls to their agents. Leeds may well achieve nothing next season but thousands of long-time fans can once again afford to participate in the life of the club and attend the games. The standard may be more basic and more physical than the Premiership - but it will be much cheaper and more exciting than the boring, cheat-fest travesty that the top league has become. For the first time in years I'm really looking forward to the fixtures coming out; real football is back and we can afford to go again!
*Thanks to Autolycus of leedsutd365.co.uk for this! | 
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