Saints shirt sponsors Virgin Media have again dug into their pockets to subsidise tickets for Saints fans.

It cannot be denied that Virgin Media have been good sponsors for Saints so far in terms of what they have done for Saints fans, in these days of high ticket prices they have helped supporters where it matters in the pocket by paying £10 per head to reduce the cost of buying a ticket for Saints supporters.

They did this in the opening away fixture of the season when they not only subsidised the tickets for the trip to Manchester United, but also laid on free coaches.

This followed Virgin subsidising prices for the pre season friendlies amongst other initiatives including Europa League games.

Now Saints fans going to Chelsea will pay only £20 with Virgin paying the extra £10, contrast this with last season's trip to Stamford Bridge when it was £50 a ticket for the travelling Saints fans.

Virgin also subsidise the ticket price for all away fans visiting St Mary's by £10, this has come in for criticism from some Saints fans who are unaware that this is not an initiative as part of Virgin's sponsorship of Saints, but a totally seperate deal as part of their sponsorship of the Football Supporters Federation.

They could have done this at any club in the Premier League, but instead chose to do it at Saints which in turn gives us as a club more positive publicity and many away fans like some of our own supporters wrongly believe it is part of the deal between Saints and Virgin.

But the truth of the matter is that other clubs only get subsidised once a season and Saints fans have got far more than that.

Virgin and the Football Supporters Federation continue to work together in the "Twenty's Plenty" campaign aimed at capping tickets for away fans at £20 in every division.

The labours of that bore fruit this season when Premier League clubs agreed a limit of £30 a head for travelling fans in the Premier, ironically making it cheaper in most cases for the travelling Premier League fan over his counterpart in the Championship.

But that is not enough and Virgin contniue to work with the FSF to try and encourage clubs to agreea £20 cap on away tickets for the supporter who spend most on their club, the travelling fan.

Find out more about the FSF and Twenty's Plenty using the link below.

http://www.fsf.org.uk/campaigns/twentys-plenty/

Photo: Action Images

SaintBrock added 14:41 - Mar 27 This can only be good news Nick and let's hope the links to Virgin Media and Under Armour are getting stronger all the time. One should also hope that with stronger links comes stronger inputs to management here about vision, goals and priorities especially as the Summer Mercator approaches. No way they will want to be associated for long with a failing club that sells more and more of the family silver every year.

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SaintNick added 23:08 - Mar 27 So would they sign long term deals if they didnt have assurances about the way the club is going to go forward ? probably not
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