Bulls respond to Blues Statement

Hereford United has responded to the statement released by Birmingham City about ticket pricing for the Carling Cup game.

The Club felt it was necessary to respond to the statement issued by Birmingham City Managing Director Karren Brady.

It was disappointing to read Ms Brady’s comments about the pricing structure for our forthcoming Carling Cup 2nd Round tie against Birmingham City. It is also disappointing for them to threaten to “go public” and embarrass us if we did not agree to their pricing structure.

Thankfully the Football League have adjudicated in the case, to our satisfaction.

Birmingham’s desire to charge their 13,700 season ticket holders just £5 & £2 was unacceptable to us and although the statements for the reasoning behind it was laudable the small “gate receipts” would be shared, however the “secondary spend” booze, burgers, programmes and hospitality where there are big profits would all be Birmingham’s.

We may be a small club but naive we are not.

We had a similar situation with Leicester City several seasons ago when they wished to discount the admission price for their season ticket holders. We reached a very amicable agreement which was to everyone’s satisfaction but that of course that would have cost Birmingham City some money.

The outcome is that the admission prices are £10 & £5 “across the board” the cheapest being charged by any club in this round. Having surveyed all other ties we are very satisfied that all supporters are getting a good deal.

Far from being embarrassed by Birmingham City's disclosure that we and the Football League are to blame for not allowing £5 & £2 charge, we are confident that the majority of supporters including some of those fair minded Blues fans will believe the pricing structure to be fair and equatable.

This was just a case of a big club making threats and bullying a smaller club in to agreeing to their demands.

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