Although there are some tasty ties and none more so than Arsenal versus Tottenham, team changes aplenty are surely likely after three games in less than a week over Christmas.
The game at the Emirates is an easy sell as is, at the other end of the scale, a potential upset such as Macclesfield versus Sheffield Wednesday. But it is for the games in between that clubs will have to work hard to boost interest.
In one of the first posts on Affordable Football, marking the start of this season’s FA Cup, I wrote the following:
‘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.’
Now a number of clubs have reduced ticket prices as follows.
Adult tickets are priced at £10 for the games at AFC
Bournemouth, Charlton Athletic, Sunderland, Doncaster Rovers (with the chance
to win England tickets as well) and Birmingham City.
Birmingham are scheduled to play their 3rd Round tie on
Tuesday 7th January as they await the winners of the postponed 2nd Round replay
between Crawley Town and Bristol Rovers. Tickets for the rescheduled game at
Crawley on 4th Jan have been reduced to £5 and £3.Adult tickets are priced at £15 for the games at Barnsley, Brighton & Hove Albion (£10 in certain parts of the ground) Fulham, Ipswich Town and Middlesbrough (£10 for season card holders until 5pm Jan 3rd).
But a uniform offer of, for instance, free entry for all under-16’s if accompanied by a paying adult, could allow the cup to be marketed as a family weekend of football.
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