Skint at The Terrace
And so we come to the season finale - the players’ awards - usually now held quite some time before the season ends… just like the FA Cup Final, sadly.
This is an evening that became noteworthy due to the exorbitant prices charged to attend in person; presumably because it gives you the chance to rub shoulders with the players, resplendent in jeans and t-shirts, akin to those worn by the participants of the Oscars, and other such star-studded ceremonies.
This year I imagine the supporter of the year will be yet another supporter that few people have seen, but who deserves the award for overcoming the awful odds that life has offered them. That, at least, is something worth celebrating.
Outside of that (as most of us have had to witness on YouTube over the years) we get interminable periods of ‘the ceremony will begin shortly’, interspersed with the occasional ‘your broadband is shit mate’… or is that just me? I’m always a fan of the five minute introduction, followed by two hours of blank screen, while everyone who’s in attendance stuffs their face with food that is hopefully a lot better than that served up by Sodexo on a matchday.
This year, unusually, we won’t be able to witness this wonderful evening of mirth and merriment via our (my) appalling bloody broadband. Instead, there will only be the chance to witness this live or in person. When I say “in person”, I mean “via a video link beamed only to The Terrace”; our new ‘fan zone’ on the periphery of the stadium at Falmer.
This event at ‘The Terrace’ will be followed by a DJ set from a mystery DJ who may or may not be the lovely Fatboy Slim, the man who blessed us with his post-match presence in Athens last year. An event that was cheap, incredibly cheerful, and open to Albion fans who had made the journey to a European city that didn’t cause any Albion fan to seek help for a knife in their arse. When in Rome, and all that.
This event at The Terrace should be a truly magnificent happening, because the powers that be have decided that it will cost £65 to attend. I don’t know if this will result in a free pie and a pint, but I’m not sure ‘free’ is quite the right word. Maybe ‘complimentary’ would better fit the bill, should such a word ever be the right one to replace the phrase ‘fucking rip-off’.
My recollection is that these events are usually finished by about 10pm and so a relatively short evening out will follow, at quite a more extortionate price than going to a gig or a club night. Mind you, I have chosen to eliminate the possibility that there will be special trains laid on by Southern, to get people back into Brighton at 4am, assuming the trains aren’t on strike or impacted by points failures at London Road.
£65… to see an awards ceremony that used to be available to all, for free, even if you couldn’t afford to be there in person. If anyone was convinced that football hadn’t yet sold its soul to the gods of money, profit and capitalism, then feel free to spend £65 of your hard-earned money to see, by video link, a group of players who earn more in a week than most of us earn in a year - players and a team that you’ve already spent a bloody fortune on this year to watch, home and away.
This is the sort of thing that gives football a bad name, let alone a club that have supposedly found themselves universally considered the best run in the ‘business’. A club that used to be sponsored by a record label called Skint, or was that just a future premonition of how fans would feel if they attended all of the events the club had to offer?
Right here, right now, we are witnessing yet further evidence that unless you’re prepared to throw every penny you have at the coffers of football, you perhaps aren’t as welcome as those who can throw every penny that’s required, without it even denting their disposable income.
Season ticket holders, be damned.