£5 Football Is Back At Coventry City

Affordable Football started out, tentatively, as a blog and on Twitter in the summer of 2013. It's inspiration came, strangely enough, from Coventry City's run to the area final of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy in the 2012/13 season.

The Sky Blues had offered tickets at £5 for the area quarter-final against Sheffield United and were rewarded with an attendance of over 10,000 at the Ricoh Arena at a time when gates were falling amidst deepening discontent with the club's owners.

Prices were held for the semi-final against Preston North End (12,665 coming through the gates) and, to the club's credit, for the area final home leg against Crewe Alexandra. This game took on a life of its own as ticket sales grew and grew until the Ricoh was sold out for the first time for a Coventry home match.

31,054 were there and I sat next to a gentleman who was travelling around the country for the next two weeks and watching a game on most days. He had read about the ticket offer on the City website and it formed an idea in my mind about a website where you could read about reduced price tickets and offers in one place.

I wondered whether there would be enough to write about but that certainly hasn't been a problem as clubs, at all levels, up and down the country are constantly trying innovative ideas to get people through the turnstiles.

The Sky Blues were very proactive in that area two seasons ago but disappointingly have not been so since, moving from a 'twenty's plenty' stance in 2015/16 to higher prices now despite being in a lower division.

Add some PR own goals (such as footage of stewards ordering supporters to sit in their numbered seat at a Football League Trophy game despite their being just the 31,180 empty places in the ground) and it has intensified the bad feeling around the club, on top of the ownership and stadium issues, at a time when Mark Robins has put together a competitive side who are firmly in the League Two promotion mix.

But for the visit of Accrington Stanley to the Ricoh Arena, on Saturday 10 February, City have gone all out and have priced tickets at £5 in all areas while local schoolchildren will be handed free entry with their families in the North Stand.