ChippenhamRed

Blimey. I was asked directly how we can make it affordable for those who need financial support to enable them attend. It was just a suggestion. Not everyone is on benefits by choice. It seems you are pandering to the Daily Mail trope that anyone on benefits is lazy and spend it all on booze and fags. Many are disabled and unable to work. Many have learning difficulties. Some have had to give up work to become a carer. Others have suffered mental trauma. Are you saying we should do NOTHING to make football more accessible to such people? I have already argued on this thread against OAP discount as an outdated notion based on wealth distribution across the UK. There are no easy answers, but I was simply arguing for a way to make football accessible to as many people as possible, based on need rather than crude age-based discount. You might not like the suggestion, but I stand by that as well intentioned, and your attack is completely disproportionate and unnecessary.

“Probably not much different to now in real terms”. Good grief! Quite incredible that you’re still trying to defend the idea that houses aren’t much more expensive now than they used to be. Its already been explained to you that higher interest rates on a much lower value house are no more painful than today’s more modest rates on a much higher value house. Using your example, anyone buying that £50k house today will have to pay closer to £200k for it. They will also have to pay a lot more than that after interest. And salaries haven’t kept up - nowhere near. The cost of housing today is a million miles away from the 70s, 80s and 90s. https://landregistry.data.gov.uk/app/ukhpi/compare?print=true&from=1999-12-31&to=2019-04-16&location[]=W92000004&location[]=E92000001&st=all&in=avg

The gym just isn’t a fair comparison. It’s not entertainment, it’s just access to facilities. They’re just totally different things. I’m not defending the price increases but the comparisons have to be reasonable. How much would it cost to go to four hours of live music a month at the equivalent professional level? Four hours of theatre? Four hours of another sport?

Further up I proposed a loyalty discount increasing each year. That would be one measure. The fairest way would probably be a discount for those on government benefits, but I’m not sure if that could realistically be implemented. It’s the only real way to identify those who need the help, although some might argue it’s not a reasonable threshold.

Yep. I’m 40 now and feel fortunate that my wife and I were just about able to afford our first house back in 2007 - based on a joint income - and have just about managed to climb the ladder since. But it’s even worse now and just impossible for many young people today.

Ah yes, the old “but interest rates were 15%” argument. They were, but it was 15% on a much smaller sum relative to incomes. The table below shows the effective interest rate over the past few decades when taking that into consideration. What it means is that today’s interest rates are now a very similar financial burden on homeowners to that 15% peak. And that’s on top of the cost of living crisis. I am not pretending for one second that all pensioners are rich. And indeed every generation faces its challenges. But nothing I have said “rewrites history”, and it remains undeniable that - overall - wealth distribution in the UK today is skewed towards older generations - which is why a broad-brush discount for OAPs is so outdated.

When you’re talking about a huge sectors of society based solely on their age, then generalisation is unavoidable and appropriate. And it is absolutely and demonstrably true that they are one of the wealthiest groups in society - see the chart below. The “easy ride” refers to the fact that today’s pensioners are not survivors of the war. They are baby boomers. They have benefitted from affordable housing and the house price boom that is so crippling for younger generations now. They could raise a family on a single income when now it takes two if you want to own a family home - and all the childcare costs that go with that. They were able to go to university for free, rather than leave with enormous debt. Many of them have final salary pensions and will likely have retired younger than today’s working population. Yes, it is true to say that not all pensioners are wealthy and many struggle. But that is the case across all age groups. And it absolutely true - in broad terms - to say that pensioners are the wealthiest group in a society.

Thanks for refreshingly grown up responses to the OAP discount issue. I mentioned similar on twitter and got some utter nonsense thrown back at me by people who seem think someone born in 1955 fought in the war or something. Pensioner discount definitely needs to be revised to reflect loyalty rather than simply age. My Dad - with no mortgage, a final salary pension, plenty of savings and a house worth about twenty times what he paid for it - really doesn’t need a discount more than your average 20-something faced with huge rent and often little prospect of buying their own home. The world has changed.

I won’t be popular for saying this but OAP discount is a completely outdated notion given the distribution of wealth by age group in the UK in 2024. There are - of course - many who are not well off across all age groups, including pensioners. But a broadly applied discount based solely on age must be broadly applicable, and it simply isn’t any more. It would be fairer to distribute that reduction across all age groups, and introduce a loyalty discount increasing with each year which would recognise the long serving (suffering) nature of our oldest supporters. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/distributionofindividualtotalwealthbycharacteristicingreatbritain/april2018tomarch2020

I know it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but why are we such a strange club? We seem dysfunctional so often and this is just another example. Why don’t we have people capable of making basic decisions or organising simple things like a squad photo at the start of the season - not near the end? How can we ever hope to scale Everest and achieve promotion…when we can’t even tie our own laces on our walking boots?

Just catching up, been out all day and wasn’t at the game. If ever there was an unwelcome three points, it sounds like it might have been today. I worry these sort of empty victories just buy Manning more time to do more damage.

Starting to think it might be better is we lose to Swansea, if that means Manning gets sacked. Someone will be along in a second to say "I never want my team to lose"....but if you want the best for the club in the long term, sometimes you can see it as a necessary evil for the greater good. Having said all that - Manning is only a part of the problem, Tinnion and Crayon Boy need to go too.

I guess my threshold for hating everything is just a bit higher than yours Andy.

This is what we’re reduced to now. We’ve lost our fourth game in a row to a club who’ve just spent four years in League One, but it’s OK because “we gave it a go”. So what if it felt different. It felt different against Southampton and we’ve lost every game since then. I have zero faith in Manning now, and even less faith in the people that put him there. Meanwhile Ipswich join the long list of clubs that emerge from the depths of lower league football and pass us on the way up. Sick of this club.

I know, that’s why it’s ridiculous!

Yes but there are 11 teams below us and 9 of them would need to make up that gap. I think we’ll be fine.

Nah. I’ve been making similar arguments to this for a while but today was a turning point for me. It was simply unacceptable. He’s also incredibly uninspiring. He needs to go.

Even so, loads of gaps all afternoon in a sold out stand. They’re the cheapest tickets in the stadium but rarely available, it’s annoying. (Aside from the fact that I wouldn’t actually want to pay anything right now)

Give up the predictions. Manning is failing, but who predicted we’d beat Boro and Southampton and then lose three in a row to QPR, Wednesday and Cardiff? It just doesn’t ever go like we expect it to in the Championship.

That announced attendance is an absolute joke.

So what’s the excuse for this today then? Weekend fixture, fairly big game, loads of youth football cancelled so you’d think if the kids are ever going to come, it would be today. Is it just that we’re crap? Because we’ve been crap plenty of times before and not seen it that empty. Don’t get it.

We heard you the first time!!!

Let’s hope once again that the lettuce lasts longer.

I know, I was agreeing with you!

I’m a member not a STH. Absolutely zero motivation to part with my money at the moment.