Whoever thought anything good would have come from Man City fans?

But by sending a significant proportion of their tickets back for Sunday's game for being far too expensive they have opened a whole can of worms. And hopefully the discussions taking place not just between City and/or Arsenal fans, but across football fandom in the UK in general can only be a good thing.

I personally stopped going to Arsenal on a regular basis around 4-5 years ago because it became too expensive, a little more so for me living a few hundred miles away (but it was my choice to become a Gooner and that's the cross I bear .... among others :) ), but now my son is into football we're looking to get to more matches.

We can't do it on a regular basis though. it would cost between £120 and £200 .... for a football match. And that's not including some food for the day. Craziness.

For the overall longevity of the club it's not a good thing. Not to mention the long we go without a trophy the less likely fans are to pay the massive prices.

Prices in football are ridiculous overall, especially at Arsenal when we have an owner who is purely in it for the money it leaves a more bitter taste in the mouth.

I'm hoping hacks get on board and get some momentum going with this, modern football is sanitised, over priced, and full of exploitation, but if you support a club, you support a club - there's not a lot else you can do.

Only one thing will determine if ticket prices are too low or too high and that's the law of supply and demand. If Arsenal have trouble selling tickets to achieve 90% capacity then prices will fall. If they don't have any problem averaging the best part of 100% as it seems they're still doing then prices won't mobve anywhere except up. The club did budget for a fall in volumes this year citing economic conditions but so far, half way through the season, that doesn't appear to have happened. In fact PL attendances overall are slightly up on last year. Won't tell us much until the end of the season I guess but the club must be mindful of getting their pricing points right.

Would be nice to see what % of those attending are actual regulars, and not tourists who are clearly the club's ideal fan for match days.

Superficial analysis from thine eye would tell you something different though Amos, I think there are more and more empty seats every season. In fact I know there are. Maybe the seats have been sold though, i'm not sure. I always say this but if a seat hasn't been used for a few months they should be offered to local kids or something. There should also be more of an incentive to get youngsters to the games so they can go with their pals. Not gonna happen though.

The tickets are being sold but not all are being taken up. Such a big contingent are season ticket holders. maybe it ought to but it doesn't really matter from a revenue point of view who buys the tickets as long as they're sold.

I've just read an interesting comment on the 900 tickets that City have supposedly returned which equates the revenue value of those tickets as more or less the equivalent of 3 days pay for Samir Nasri. If City supporters want a reason why ticket prices are so high that fact should tell them that City's effect on wage inflation is a hefty part of the problem.

There are definitely less bums on seats, hence the chopping of the attendance announcement at games these days, and the subsequent chortles.

I don't think the City fans are oblivious to the irony of it, but it's not their fault is it? They're football fans, who want their team to do well, now, not in 10 years.

This is also the club second guessing what the away allocation will take up, I don't understand why they've done it. A club with their means, refusing to take on the risk of not selling 900 seats.

There's definately a decline .... however because we've always had such loyal support it's going to take a while before it's massively noticable .... but it's definately started as SW states.

Back in 2004 own a red membership was nothing more than being on the first step of the ladder to silver membership, you could but hope to get a league game or two per season, go to a couple of cup games or something.

Fast forward 9 years and red membership all but gurantees you a ticket if you want one. Of course the extra seat help massively but I think the numbers of tickets Arsenal predicted would be available to red members is way under what it actually is.

I think in a few years Arsenal might even reconsider restructoring the whole membership thing because it's not going to matter whether you're red or silver sooner or later.

I think fewer people are bothering to turn up to matches but so far the club aren't selling fewer tickets though I'm sure tickets are more readily available. In the current climate that's not too surprising but if they're getting the revenues then they'll be happy with that.

It isn't the cost of tickets alone though. If anything travel costs have risen even more steeply. I think the cost of a return train ticket from Manchester is a bit more than the £62 entry.

Travel costs are ridiculous but then so are a million and one other things are in this country - the official City coach done a return for £30, that's fantastic value, although it is with the official travel, and if it's anything like ours, and you're remotely normal, you'll wanna avoid it.

I've never had the need to travel with the official Arsenal coach .... what's the problem with it SW?

Looking back at all the times I travelled to London with Yorkshire Arsenal that dropped us at the WhiteHouse Pub a couple of minutes walk from Highbury and picked us up from the same place .. £20 for the trip was absolutely fucking amazing value.

Never really appreciated it till now.

^ £20 would be amazing.

nothing massively, just full of weirdos who've never had full sex with a woman!

There we a couple of those on the Yorkshire Arsenal coach. But £20 and getting dropped off/picked up on the doorstep far outweighed paying £60 for a train, then getting the tube to Finsbury Park walking half a mile just to be weirdo free.

Finsbury park is anything but weirdo free! ;)

Last coach i done was Sunderland away end of 07/08, weren't too bad to be fair.

Ha. Too true.

But you can't cross over the road when you're sat on a coach.