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Sunday 14 June 2020

A Small (Contactless) Price to Pay?

One of the pleasures at watching football the further down the pyramid you go is that many of the traditional accompaniments to the game are still in place.

One of these is the old-fashioned turnstile with 'crooked piles of coins ready to be issued with an accompanying grunt for those fans paying with a note' as Daniel Gray writes so beautifully in Black Boots & Football Pinks.

It's not always as grand as a turnstile, of course, sometimes there's just a table and a friendly face ready to take a fiver or give change for ten.

But on the path back to watching football in the flesh then presumably more and more clubs will follow the trend that has been set over the past few months and embrace the world of contactless payments.

I recently completed a survey, devised by Ian Nockolds of the Toolstation Western League podcast which asks people connected to (or supporters of) football at Steps 5 and 6 of the pyramid in England to give their preferences for what they would be prepared to put up with in order to attend matches.

This is ahead of an FA meeting with leagues at those levels on 19 June in which the way forward will hopefully become a little clearer.

Contactless payments was on the list and although for me it is a small pleasure to hand over my money it will be a small price to pay to pass through the turnstiles once again.

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