About

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.

I update as many things as I can on Twitter but it's not intended to be a definitive list of games to go to and, of course, what is affordable football and what isn't is subjective depending on the clubs involved and the circumstances.

But, I hope it is a blog that people enjoy reading and that it does give people a steer on a game to go to that perhaps they didn't know about before.