Southampton supporters will be backing the Football Supporters Association's campaign to encourage clubs to stop exploiting their fans and all Saints fans can help in showing that we in Southampton are as passionate as the rest of the country.
Last week at Manchester City some of the travelling Saints fans joined their Manchester City counterparts in highlighting the fact that these days football clubs take their supporters for granted.
For this season 19 out of the 20 top-flight clubs raised prices last season – only Crystal Palace froze prices – and supporters say far too many club owners and executives see regular match goers as a resource to be bled dry rather than valued.
We at Southampton saw this ourselves as the club raised prices in some areas and made major changes to the stadium in the wake.
Last weekend saw the first of what is a show of supporter strength to let the football club owners know that their supporters are the reason that the club continues to survive and are not a cash cow to milk with increased prices, fan zones with overpriced food and beer and of course the spiralling cost of replica kit where a shirt costs around £5 to manufacture and retails at anywhere between £60 - £100 depending on which team you support.
The Football Supporters Association have cited some examples of this blatant exploitation including Nottingham Forest where the club bumped up prices by 20% and rewrote the rules on youth tickets meaning an 18-year-old could see their ticket jump from under £190 to £850. Nottingham Forest Supporters’ Trust said rises were "totally disproportionate”.
Fan groups at Spurs and West Ham United protested together last weekend over their own clubs’ withdrawal of concessionary rates. Hammers United say the club are "gaslighting us that unless fans pay more, we will not be able to compete”.
A petition against season ticket rises and attacks on the concessionary band has been signed by more than 20,000 Hammers while 15,000 Wolves supporters have also backed a similar petition at their club.
Over at Spurs the Save Our Seniors group points out that the £3m raised by the club through cutting the concessionary category is the exact amount required to cover executive chairman Daniel Levy’s bonus for one year. Villa are looking to charge disabled supporters up to £72 for a ticket.
Perhaps at Southampton we have not seen these sort of figures rise, but we did see certain parts of the stadium be re categorised meaning fans had big increases if they wanted to keep their existing seats., or face moving to a different area to only pay slightly more.
Some fans will sneer and say that protests of this sort achieved nothing, but over a decade ago the Football Supporters Association's Twenty's Plenty campaign, secured a price cap of £30 for all away fans in the Premier League at a time when the likes of Chelsea were charging almost £60.
More information can be found using this link The Football Supporters Association
But you can make your own protest before the game on Saturday at St Mary's, Saints supporters will be joined by Everton supporters to register the protest.
Southampton FC is not being specifically criticised over the football-wide issue, we are far from being the worst culprits, but we are part of a wider issue in football of price increases and need to show solidarity with all clubs in football.
The Saints & Everton fans will be meeting in front of the Ted Bates Statue on the Itchen side of the stadium at 1.45pm.
It would be great if Saints supporters could take a minute or two to show their support for the protest, perhaps take a picture and share it around on social media.
A decade or so we achieved the cap on away tickets, an agreement that still stands today, but we cannot rest on our laurels as football supporters, we have to make sure that football clubs do not take our loyalty for granted.