One of the advantages of helping run a web site is that you can have the
occasional rant about things that wind us up about the football club that
otherwise is so great to follow in so many ways.
Last season it was the sneaky price increase for family entry into the
Barking College Family Stand and the debacle over not taking the full allocation
of tickets for the Norwich City game.
This season the club made a lot of the fact that ticket prices have not gone
up, however there have been a few little increases in some of the extras which
have been slid in again without any announcement.
The
Dagger, our superb prize winning match day programme, will be going up to £2.50
for the coming season. This equates to a price rise of 25% on last season's £2
cover price. In return the size of the programme will go up by just 4 pages to
60 pages, and no doubt some of the extra pages will be adverts. The cover will be of a
higher quality paper though, similar to that used for the play off game v
Morecambe last season.
While quality does cost, and DiggerDagger understands that the programme had
made a minor loss in the last season, the price rise seems a little excessive.
Maybe if the people that decide the prices actually bought a programme
instead of getting them complimentary...
Meanwhile, after my kids had a brilliant time as mascots at the Forest Green
Rovers game last season (below), I have been badgered to get them in as mascots
again "after all dad, you will only have to buy us the new kit
anyway."
I was a little surprised when I enquired about this to find the price for
mascots has gone up this season, again by 25% from £80 to £100.

Finally, anyone who sponsors players kit will also have noticed
that the cost for this has also gone up for 2003/04 to £120.
All of these items are extras that we don't necessarily have to
pay for in order to follow the Daggers, but which undermine the trust between
the club and it's supporters by smacking of profiting from the good will of
fans.
Rant over for now.
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