Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1982
Pay on display? - Would football clubs stand to make a loss if their hardened and loyal fans paid what they thought was fair?
I am a Queens Park Rangers season ticket holder; I am a student and 20 years of age. In order for me to have the pleasure of being at Loftus Road for 19 matches a season I have to part with three hundred english pounds sterling. A severe amount for anyone, even the keenest and most brain dead and lovelorn football fans. Even so, that rather staggering amount works out at around £16 a match. If I was to pick and choose games it would cost somewhere between £20-35 to go and see the Super Hoops. About six weeks ago my cheeks lay scrunched in my palms, my happiness in the gutter, whilst QPR, my esteemed QPR, are surrendering 0-1 to a very mediocre Fulham FC. It was at this precise moment that I considered the price I pay to sit in my seat. Is it worth it? £300 a year; £16 a match. Is it worth it? I ran with this thought for about 3 of the incredibly poor 90 minutes that were unfolding before me. It lead me to the theory that would a football club, like QPR, make a loss if they charged their fans the ticket price after the game on a pay what you feel basis. By “what you feel” I mean that through stringent honesty you cough up what the game was worth to you. For example, the dross I witnessed at our home defeat to Fulham wouldn’t of cost me more than about £3.25. However, our spectacular and historical 1-0 victory over our fiercest local rivals, Chelsea, may have seen me part with a triple figure sum. By this logic even the 2011/12 season, not a spectacular season by any means, would see QPR make a profit if they used this unconventional system.
What I find so curious is that a system as fanciful as this may actually benefit both the fans and the club. It would only take a few results similar to 1-0 wins over Chelsea for the club to re-coup the season ticket prices and then if it was a successful season a huge profit would be made. Following the same thought, an uncharacteristically poor season could bankrupt a club. Expectations of the fans and club would have to coincide and players would definitely earn a more performance based income than they do now.
Whilst this does make me smile and satisfy my burning dissatisfaction after certain games, I find there is something romantic about the price of a ticket and it’s uniform nothingness that means anything could happen. Knowing that a ticket Vs Chelsea is just the same as a ticket Vs Stoke allows for the impossible to happen. You shouldn’t have to pay out just because the game was fantastic. You should cherish that on the odd occasion you made a steal. In the same way that you curse your luck when you have been mugged off in home defeats against Wolves, Norwich and Bolton.
Football is not a commodity and hopefully it never will be. If someone said to me, “How much would you pay for that feeling that surged through your veins after you’d beaten Liverpool, after being 0-2 with 13mins to go?”. I’d reply honestly, I would admit that I’d pay a small fortune to feel what I did that evening. But football, unlike most drugs, cannot be bought and placed directly into your bloodstream. Surprise is so powerful in football. Parting with an often ridiculous sum forces fans to have a stiff upper lip that the game could be atrocious. When it’s not, you cherish it and go in search of another surprise and another piece of unpredictable magic.
I pay my money to see Queens Park Rangers because I adore them and know that if they surprise me or disappoint me I’ll be at the next game. Football, for me, is about being there when you shouldn’t have to be. Being loyal. Being apart of something communal as well as personal. It’s about an entire blue and white clad family that all understand from time to time that we’ll be burning holes in our pockets for no good reason. For the sake of some of the best fans in the world, I do hope the prices in W12 become more reasonable because the idea of alienating people who have been there through thick and thin just due to finance is atrocious. Just a thought.
TX
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Jamie Travis, 2012
Sometimes things can really creep up on you, the sudden and unexpected feeling that comes with that surprise can be almost as sensational as the thing itself. The “thing”, in this case, is a musical endeavour from someone I vaguely know. Guitarist, producer and general conveyer of music, Jamie Travis, has very very slyly put this together in the past few months. Yesterday night I heard this track out of nowhere and could not believe it when I heard who was being credited for its wonderful guitar tones and pulpy vocals.
All I can say is enjoy this perfectly mediated 3 minutes 38 seconds of music.
For more: www.soundcloud.com/jamietravis
“You keep telling stories, but I’m still living mine…”
Mrs. Doubtfire, 1993
I took time out of my incredibly free schedule to watch old family classic Mrs. Doubtfire, Madame. Doubtfire to both the French and the Anne Fine purists amongst us. It’s playful and fun with smatterings of humour and heart for all ages. It deals with divorce and cross-dressing, so it is pretty educational for the younger viewer, maybe even the older viewer(I don’t know). It’s hilarity really does peak when Pierce Brosnan, Sally Field and a fully made-up and breasted Robin Williams, other hairy handed actors are available, all share the 35mm together. The height of this hilarity being when the three sit awkwardly discussing freely their relationship and Sally Field’s, Miranda’s, awful ex-husband, Daniel, who of course is in fact standing right in front of them, incognito only due to his/her “flawless” Edinburgh accent. I love this film I really do. I just remember throughout my childhood lying on my front, knees care free behind me, watching and rewinding an old VHS over and over again.
This Japanese poster of it’s release in ‘93 is pretty bizarre, insanely creepy and weird. It definitely gives the wrong impression. Nevertheless I like it all the same.
“Cop: Ma’am, are you aware that it’s against the law to possess animals of a barnyard nature in a residential area?
Miranda: What if you’re married to one?”
Esme with Love and Squalor, 1960
Despite having absolutely no money whatsoever, this weekend I bought this 1960 edition of J.D.Salinger’s Nine Stories that he wrote in The New Yorker in 1953, entitled Esme with Love and Squalor. This 1960 publication(above) has the most incredible cover. I’m yet to read it, yet I can’t help but stare.
