It's home.

[Blue_and_Gold]

Congratulations to our National team for their fantastic achievement.


Side note: It's the first time the wife has ever told me to be quiet during a football match!  😂

[Grissles Oleary]

Hopefully it will create more interest in local womens football?

[Blue_and_Gold]

Hopefully it will create more interest in local womens football?

July 31, 2022 by Stefano Hatfield.

The England v Germany Euro 2022 final proves that football really has – to deploy the cliché – come home. Never mind the two outstanding teams, the record crowd for the Wembley final and unprecedented level of media coverage during the whole tournament; it is the reminder of what football is all about that has been the real revelation of this hugely successful event.
Coming as the arrogant, bloated and blasé men’s game returns for what may be a make-or-break season, the women’s tournament has been a welcome breath of fresh air in an overheated summer.
Why “make or break”? This genuinely feels like the season in which loyal fans’ patience may finally be tested beyond endurance. The laughably patronising lockdown mantra of “football is nothing without fans” echoes extremely hollow. As the irresistible forces of broadcast rights money and eye-watering player salaries meet the immovable objects of many clubs’ financial malaise and the economic crisis engulfing so much of its fan base, this might be the season where that ultimate taken-for-granted consumer group – the football fan – belatedly becomes mad as hell and vows not to take it any more.
How does even my little local club, Fulham, reward us long-suffering fans for promotion back to the Premier League? One hundred pound single match ticket prices, mere five per cent discounts for the elderly and new season shirts starting at £70 (lettering is extra). The new shirt sponsor is a Chinese betting firm, W88, not even operational in Britain. Who wants that? The fact that neither the single match tickets, nor the shirts, are anything like the most expensive in the league tells you just how priced-out the average, more traditional, football fan now is.

To be fair, my season ticket at Craven Cottage is only £550: relatively good value, despite four fewer home games in the Premier League than the Championship. However, many families can only do those single matches; they can’t afford four season tickets. The cheapest Arsenal season ticket is now £927, while Tottenham’s most expensive is an astonishing £2,025. For Spurs?
Yes, the Premier League has an away fan price cap of £30, but you still have to travel, sometimes now to games where there are no public transport options back home because of altered game times for TV. Championship away fans can pay more than £30. Add in travel costs, and terrible stadium food options and you can pay £80 plus a head for a family of four.
Can’t afford to go a game? At least you can watch on Sky – as long as you’re in the Premier League, right? Not so simple now that many games are now only viewable, not only on BT, but also Amazon Prime Video (with its recent 12.5 per cent price increase). When families are axing Netflix because of the cost-of-living crisis, is this sustainable?
The women’s Euro has proven that at its best, football still has those captivating elements of passion, skill, grace, determination, agony and ecstasy. It is compelling and addictive. But £300 to £400 for a family to see your team beaten by a top six side, plus £30 a month on TV to watch the league won by Middle Eastern Oil City, again? Let’s see how long that Lioness-inspired euphoria lasts

[Blue_and_Gold]

Hopefully it will create more interest in local womens football?

With the lack of response on this thread, you would have to assume not.   

[rod]

A great achievement and such a welcome contrast with the men's game! Good wholesome family entertainment. Although the majority of supporters are good and decent people, the men's game still has a propensity to attract the dregs of our society.....Not least at the elite level, where technology allows much of the foul language and abuse to be filtered out in TV coverage.

Unfortunately it no longer applies: but were i much younger, would i take my wife and kids to a mens game?....No way !!

[TonyM]

Hopefully it will create more interest in local womens football?

With the lack of response on this thread, you would have to assume not.   

Football is many things to different people.  I have dipped in and out of the women's Euros in the same way I did the mens last year as I don't really enjoy watching football on TV.  Did either 'inspire' me to watch more games (male or female), not at all but I guess I am not really the target audience.  As for the comments from the Fulham fan, some of that was what got me to the Walks regularly rather than Carrow Road as the football seemed more 'real', where I would disagree is that this is a 'make-or-break' season as I think football, certainly at Premier League (and probably Championship) level seems to operate in it's own micro economy and whilst many of us would love to see a 'reset' it looks no more likely this season than any other imo, particularly if the Crouch Report recommendations are kicked into the long grass by a combination of PL lobbying and lack of government will to push them through.

[daleh]

As a football fan of 60 plus years I really enjoyed watching the woman's Euros.  It will evolve as more money comes in, but at the moment there is a purity and love of the game which is sadly missing from the money dominated men's game. The men's game at the higher levels seems to me all about finances, about business and not at all about the joy of the beautiful game. Perhaps I am a silly old romantic but I think we can all remember witnessing moments of magic at a match. It stays with you for ever. For me the win on Sunday was one of those moments.