Value for money?

Supporting a club who haven't won a trophy for ages and having spent years away following local clubs who don't really have a sniff at a trophy I don't really understand how cups have become 'devalued' to the extent where everybody seems to field weakened teams. The trend seems to have caught on so much that last night Ely City fielded a weakened team against Fulbourn Institute in the Cambs Invitation Cup. The starting line up only included 4 first teamers and two of them were coming back from suspensions (Richard Chadwick and Ben Lawrence), one had been missing for a while (Simon Warren) and the other was left back Kenthoh Gray (there aren't that many left backs around). However, unlike some bigger teams Ely still charged 6 quid to get in last night, which is a bit of a cheek when you consider Villa are charging a tenner for the Burnley match in the League Cup and Burton dropped their prices to a fiver for the Paint cup thingy. When you consider that 6 quid is about the same as it costs to get into a Werder Bremen game it really does seem a bit steep, although I don't really resent paying it when the first team play.

Mind you on another level if value was measured in goals we did OK, there were 7. And as it was a cup game in meedweek it obviously went to extra time so we got another half hour there. And I doubt that I would be complaining if things had carried on the way they started.

The game kicked off and Ely were 1 up within 20 seconds when Chadwick broke through the defence to slot the ball home past the keeper. Fulbourn had a chance that they fluffed badly on 5 minutes after the Ely defence slipped up, but for the rest of the first half hour it was all Ely. On 8 minutes the goalkeeper flapped at a chance and Ely could have easily been 2-0 up and they also hit the post on 18 and 20 minutes. However, Fulbourn got back in the game and grabbed an equaliser when a cleverly worked corner saw them passing the ball back 30 yards for an on running midfielder to blast the ball into the back of the net. Ely still looked more likely to go into the break with the lead though and again bothered the woodwork on 38 minutes and then on 43 minutes Chadwick was upended in the area and the Robins were rewarded a penalty. Grant Robbins stepped up to take the penalty, but unfortunately rather than the back of Fulbourn's net bulging for the second time, the wooodwork was hit for the fourth time in the half.

The second half started off the second half more brightly than Ely coming close straight from kick off and dominating for the next 10. However, Ely showed some intent on 59 minutes when Kenthoh Gray went on a run through the whole of the Fulbourn team. Nothing came of that move, but Fulbourn then went up the other end to put themselves into the lead for the first time in the game.

After the Fulbourn goal things were quite unsettled and neither team seemed to have much control in midfield, although Ely mixed things up a bit with the introduction of 'the man with no name', well we didn't recognise him and his shirt was completely blank without a sponsor or even a number. Whoever he was he did seem to gain control of the midfield and Ely perhaps could have equalised on 72 minutes if Grant Robbins hadn't stumbled over the ball. Amends were made a couple of minutes later when the mystery substitute crossed brilliantly to Robbins who finally got his name on the score sheet.

Robbins had a chance to make a double ammends on 82 minutes and send us home on time, but again he hit the crossbar. The last 10 minutes were played out without many chances and the game went into extra time.

The first 10 minutes of extra time looked like we would be going home after penalties, but then Fulbourn took the lead and it was curtains for Ely. The second half of extra time saw Fulbourn add 2 more goals to their tally to finish the game as 5-2 winners.

Comments

Michael said…
Football in this country is scandalously overpriced. £18 to see Darlington vs Gateshead in the Conference, £13 or £14 to get in to Harrogate Town one league below. That's more than you'd pay to see top division games in lots of other European countries.
Richard C said…
i seriously think you should either write the reports for our website or at least tell the ely standard & cambs evening news your report as theres are either completley wrong or boring 2 lines , good work
Neil said…
To Michael.
I agree and it has been like this for ages I remember payinng £8 to see Lazio V Juventus on a Sunday and then £14 to see Wycombe play Walsall the weekend after and that was 12 years ago. I think that the problem is that clubs from the Premier to Step 3 have been living beyond their means for ages and still want to pass the cost on to the increasingly hard up fans.
I thought that the recent financial fiascos might have led to a more sensible approach, but then along came Manchester City and everybody else felt like they should still cream off as much cash as possible in order to 'compete'.
Neil said…
To Richard,
Thanks for the comments. It was good to see you back in the team on Wednesday night. I've been quite lucky with fixtures lately, but I sometimes work Saturdays (tomorrow for example) so I don't always get to so many matches. The problem with the Cambridge paper is if they can ever be bothered to send anyone he spends the whole match with his notebook out talking about bloody Chelsea. I don't know if I really fancy standing there with a pen and notebook either. Anyway, cheers and good luck tomorrow. Was the suspension just for league games or are you back from that now?
Michael said…
You're right about clubs living above their means, though a further problem is that English fans think loyalty means blindly paying whatever your club asks you to.

That only applies to club loyalties, of course. Looking at the pricing structure for the 2012 Olympics, I'd be surprised if they get crowds of 10,000.
Chadders11 said…
thats good to know im doing something right! lol yeah suspention is over now 3 games in the league, and havent heard anything about the incident which i thank you for helping out in, i wasnt sure if i saw you at the home match last saturday and didnt want to guess who you were so please give us a tap on the shoulder so that i can thank you personallay, very unlucky yesterday with a 93rd min goal against us, but everyone is back now so we should be strong in the next coming fixtures
Neil said…
To Michael,
I think you're right especially at the higher levels of the game where the clubs basically treat their fans badly and just expect them to keep renewing their season ticket, which they do because they are scared of missing out. I wish we had a bit more of a fan movement like they do in Germany where the fans are still loyal but don't put up with all the nonsense we do. However, I think the leagues and clubs at lower levels have to start behaving a bit more responsibly and accept some of the culpability. I mean some of the ground standards enforced by lower leagues are costing clubs money they can't afford and don't really add to safety. Also prices in the Conference are set by the league, with a few of the clubs not being happy about charging so much, although none of them complain that hard to get it changed. Also you've got start wondering why clubs like Histon who are now complaining about having no money were paying reserve players £500 a week only last season.
Neil said…
To Chadders,
I'm glad that the Cambs FA didn't throw the book at you. We seem to have had some ridiculous bookings and sending offs though lately. I wasn't at the game on Saturday because I had to go to work, but hopefully I'll make it over to Newmarket tomorrow night.

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