Football is a community, not a commodity. Why we need to Save Our Seniors at Spurs.

There is a special feeling at the start of every season, a feeling when everything seems possible. It’s said that football is all about opinions, and while there are plenty of those to go round, most of us want to be optimistic because football is entertainment, the thing we do to forget troubles elsewhere, and we want it to be rewarding.

So, it is never the easiest time to pitch a campaign. But bear with us while we do. Because Save Our Seniors will continue to highlight the Club’s disgraceful decision to erode and then withdraw concessionary season tickets for senior citizens over the coming months.

This will be the last season in which fans over the age of 65 will qualify for a 50% discount on their season ticket – a discount already only available in certain seats. From next season, no new concessionary season tickets will be offered to senior citizens, and existing senior season ticket holders will see their discount reduced to 25% over the following four seasons.

We’ve estimated that the move will save the Club around £3m. The same amount as chairman Daniel Levy paid himself as a bonus last year. But this isn’t a commercial decision. It is an ideological choice. The Club wants to charge the maximum it can for every single ticket. This won’t help us pay better wages, attract better players or be the difference in operating the right side of PSR. To be clear, the money the Club would make from fleecing pensioners is fractional against overall revenue. This is not a financial necessity. It is, very clearly, a choice.

The Club has restricted the availability of concessions to certain areas of both the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and, previously, White Hart Lane for many years. When it announced it was withdrawing new senior concessionary season tickets from the end of this season and halving the discount for those already in possession of a senior season ticket over the subsequent four years, it said it was doing so because “the number of concessions was becoming unsustainable”. What that means in plain English is that not enough of our loyal fans are dying off quickly enough to enable the Club to make as much money as it thinks it should be making.

If this wasn’t crass enough, they went further this summer by writing to every senior season ticket holder suggesting they were all on the fiddle. The words the Club used were that they wanted to “limit the misuse of concession seating that we have previously seen”. But if a ticket has been misused, it is easy for the Club to know which one. Writing to all senior concession holders was a clear implication that they were all misusing – to use the Club’s word – their tickets.

The Club, therefore, intended to ensure that senior concession season ticket holders could now only share their season tickets with an adult supporter if the difference in cost of a full price ticket is paid. They have also removed the option of sharing with anyone with a THFC customer reference number and restricted sharing to paying One Hotspur Members only. Of course, there would be no option to downgrade a ticket when transferring a full-price ticket to someone entitled to a concession.

THFC is quick to trumpet its policies on inclusion, but its approach to its fans over 65 is clearly discriminatory. No other section of our support is subject to the same restrictions.

For PR purposes, and to appease the Premier League and its rules, the Club is continuing to offer senior discounts on one-off match day purchases. This is pretty much meaningless considering the Club removed senior One Hotspur memberships several years ago and when the low volume of seats eligible for senior discount across the stadium is taken in account. What it does offer, however, is evidence that the Club is not interested in preserving the inter-generational communities of support on which the foundations of Tottenham Hotspur are built. They may deign to admit seniors once or twice a season, but they are not wanted at every game.

It’s been argued that older fans are better off, and so shouldn’t qualify for any discount. This is a phoney argument. Many genuinely struggle to afford the price of football tickets at elite level when they stop earning. Those who can afford to pay top prices could be given the opportunity to opt out of the discount. But THFC’s Board doesn’t think that will make it as much money as scrapping concessions altogether.

The Save Our Seniors campaign believes that fans who have supported the Club all their lives should be given some reward for that. These are the values held by most fans, and it is the fans – not the temporary custodians – that set the values of our Club. We also don’t believe that the Club will stop at senior concessions. If we tolerate this, then the Young Adults will be next. We are already seeing an erosion of the 18-21 category from cup games. The simple fact is that the Board of the eighth richest club in world football does not believe in the idea of concessionary pricing at all.

Last season, fan anger at the Board’s greed and contempt for its support saw banners displayed in home and away sections at every game following the announcement that senior season tickets would be axed, and tens of thousands of fans inside the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium turned their backs on the pitch in the 65^th minute to protest at the Club turning its back on fans over 65 years of age.

That campaigning caught the attention of the national press and helped encourage fans at other clubs to protest against price increases and the erosion of concessions. As we begin a new season, there is growing pressure to step up campaigning to challenge football’s rampant ticket price inflation. Through the Football Supporters’ Association, fan groups from clubs across the Premier League are organising.

We will continue to protest at Spurs, and to play our part in national actions. But we need to be smart. THFC’s Board is clearly prepared to sit out any protests until we run out of steam, and clearly have little concern for their own appalling reputation. So, we need to pace ourselves, and campaign more smartly and effectively.

This season, we will continue to display protest banners. And we are asking fans to make their own banners and to display the colour yellow – signifying greed – at games. We are writing to Club sponsors to ask if they are happy to be associated with a club that discriminates against the over 65s and seeks to undermine the ties of tradition and community that make our game what it is.

We will also be taking part in nationally coordinated actions against football ticket price inflation, and working with the FSA to ensure fans have proper input into pricing policy when football’s new independent regulatory framework is set up.

We won’t be outside every game with leaflets, but we will still be spreading the message. And we’d still like to continue the practice of turning backs or taking action on the 65^th minute of every home game. We recognise fans just want to enjoy the game when they come to the match, but just one minute of showing opposition to a terrible policy could help stop our Club’s attacks on its own supporters and reassert the values that defined Tottenham Hotspur long before the current owners arrived. 

If you can help us, mail us on [email protected]. Most of all, do what you can to display visible opposition to the Club’s attack on its own fans. You can also follow us on X @SaveOurSenior66, and @SaveOurSenior66 on Facebook.