Taking a look at the home fixture changes can drive you completely mad and/or angry!
There are many fans who travel from the far north to deepest south by public transport as they follow the Hammers.
But the new times of matches over February and March are making things either very difficult indeed or expensive.
The kick off times – in a lot of cases – make it impossible for long distance travellers to get home on the same day and would depend on them spending dough on an overnight hotel and perhaps travelling back on the worst day of the week by rail – a Sunday.
All this on top of the cost of a season ticket!
It’s nobody’s fault but the TV companies of course. However, that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow as fans look into convoluted ways of getting value from their STS.
Next Friday evening we’ve got Fulham on a Friday evening(19.45), then Newcastle on a Saturday evening(17.30), Huddersfield at 3pm on a Saturday (hallelujah!) and then Everton on a Saturday evening again(17.30).
At the moment the April and May games are at 3pm on a Saturday – Leicester and Southampton – but the TV games for April and May haven’t been announced yet, so expect even more changes !
As ClaretandHugh Facebook member Michael Miller declares: ” It’s driving me absolutely crazy as it completely messes up the weekend however big a fan you may be.”
Agreed!
It all means that by the end of March the Irons will have played eight of 18 games at the traditional 3pm Saturday kick off time.
What’s worse for me is when weekend games are moved to a weekday night because then I can’t attend the game due to work commitments so I lose out. It’s a real pain. I would go with the Simon Jordan suggestion of a Netflix channel for premier league football where you pay £8.99 a month to watch games. That would bring in billions for the premier league clubs, far more than they get from Sky. And they could have all the games at the same time and you just watch whichever team you support. Fans would still attend the games live at the stadium because that’s what fans do to get the whole atmosphere, the complete match day experience, even when it’s on the telly.