It All Starts Again This Weekend

Not the Premier League, although it seems that is what the world has been waiting for over the summer months, but the FA Cup where the Extra Preliminary Round kicks off the long road to Wembley.

Affordable football will be taking place up and down the land on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Check out http://www.thefa.com/ or http://therealfacup.co.uk/ for details of fixtures near you.

There is no image problem for the grand old competition at this stage of proceedings. 737 clubs have been accepted into the tournament for 2013/14 and for many teams this is the highlight of their season with the £1,500 prize money up for grabs this weekend capable of making a huge difference to a club's fortunes.

That trend continues throughout the qualifying rounds and into the stage where League One and Two clubs enter the fray as they aim for a tie against one of the Premier League big names.

It is the third round, so often one of the most important days in the football calendar, that has created negative headines in recent years with much-changed sides and low crowds. Fresh from negotiating a new television deal for the competition with the BBC and BT Sport, maybe the FA could try a radical move and subsidise ticket prices on a January weekend when they have the national stage to themselves football-wise and very little competition from other sports.

Last week's blog post about the cost of getting to the game came just before a call from the Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) highlighting how much of an issue that is becoming.

"Our research found that, up and down the country, many fans spend as much money on getting to the ground as they do on buying a ticket for the game," said CBT sustainable transport campaigner Sian Berry.

"Clubs need to learn from other countries and work with train and bus companies to make travelling to the game an affordable part of the match-day experience"

Expect more on that over the next few months.

Affordable Football to look out for in August includes the 2nd Round of the Capital One Cup. First offer that we have noticed is £10 for an adult ticket at West Ham's home game against Cheltenham while the sponsors are again running a two-for-one promotion at selected clubs.

http://www.capitalonecup.co.uk/2for1/