A Better Way For United To Spend The £100 Million Transfer Kitty

The extra seats shouldn’t be sold as season tickets they should be used for one simple reason. Pay on the gate. This may sound like a recipe for disaster but I remember vividly in the early nineties when my Dad finally allowed me to got to games on my own- or more to the point just with my mates, saving up ticket stubbs, adding them to the token sheet then queuing for over an hour at the ticket office.

The fact is local youngsters who want to watch United the way I did from the age of 12 onwards just cannot either afford or obtain tickets. This may sound like an outdated, irrelevant point, after all we don’t need just local people to attend Old Trafford, but the way things are going I genuinely worry how many of Manchester’s kids will be United fans in the next few years. To ignore the importance of Mancunian support when it comes to United would be short-sighted and somewhat foolish yet allowing a ‘pay on the gate section’ could also help the atmosphere improve.

‘Pay on the gate’ may also encourage a few more die hard fans to come back to Old Trafford as more than a few have simply grown disillusioned not just with the Glazers but also the lack of atmosphere and difficulty in obtaining tickets.

I know you wouldn’t need to expand the capacity at United to implement a ‘pay on the gate’ policy but it would make it a lot more feasible and a lot easier to put into practice. You wouldn’t be taking tickets away from anyone as they’d be coming from the additional seating.

The idea of having a ‘standing section’ seems to be less and less likely with the powers that be reluctant to risk letting football fans actually enjoy themselves at games  nowadays so something else is surely needed.

The more I sit lamenting the atmosphere, while listening to my mates tell me how they can’t afford to take their kids to Old Trafford, or can only get tickets for ‘lesser’ games, the more I see people leaving in droves with 20 minutes left to go and the more I see the club losing touch with the fans that made it what it is today, the more I believe drastic action is required.

Manchester United once went 26 years without winning the league, we once suffered the indignity of relegation a mere six years after we’d been kings of Europe, Liverpool were practically perennial champions while we had to settle for the occasional distant second place and I do mean occasional.

The idea that United could ever return to such dark times seems laughable, but with Sir Alex Ferguson one day retiring what better shape to leave the club in, than with the biggest stadium in the land and a crowd capable of raising the sort of atmosphere that used to be the envy of Europe.

£100 million on expanding the stadium may seem like a waste when you can buy at least four top class players, but it may turn out to be a bargain, if it keeps the club at the very top for many years to come.

Have I gone in off the deep end yet again with absurd flights of fancy masquerading as insightful suggestions or is their a modicum of truth to the rantings I’ve subjected you to? Feel free to comment, abuse and discuss below.

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