You know how it is – every year, the BBC does a survey on the cost of football and there are a million articles banging on about how a season ticket at Bayern Munich costs as much as a packet of Haribo and two cartons of Ribena. But we reckon we’ve been quite fortunate at Boro’, haven’t we? After going up two leagues and taking on the big fishes we found in this League One pond of ours, our pockets aren’t doing too badly.
The issue – if you can call it that – of how much we pay to watch the Boro’ ain’t all that new as it goes. Thanks to Boro’ fan Matthew Clark, we’ve had the chance to cast our eyes over a programme from the 1981-2 season – and in that we found something that we thought was a little bit interesting from a “cost of football” perspective. The following piece comes from the pen – or probably rather typewriter – of vice-chairman Keith Berners:
“As you must have noticed, the cost of watching the Boro’ this season has gone up. Along with the usual cry of that dreaded word inflation, which hits us all, we have had to stand a 100% rent increase on the use of the stadium…?”
We know what you’re thinking. What did that cost of watching Boro’ during 1981-2 go up to? Well, we’ll tell you. For all first team games that season, adults would have to fork out 75p! And concessions? A mere 40p. Now, we know full well that was back at a time when Boro’ wasn’t the all-conquering heroes that it is now, but 75p/40p sounds like a right old bargain – even for the United Counties League Premier Division during the early 80s!
Still think the Bundesliga is all that?