Period Football Chants

[Feltwell]

Or even "Anal"! :shock:

It's a good job I had "England" tattooed at the top and "Arsenal" at the bottom - if it was the other way round I could have ended up with "Anal Gland", which wouldn't be great.

 

[oxalto]

Nigel, I'm really interested to know what the "cheap" tickets cost.

I'm always slightly saddened when we musicians are told that the price of Opera tickets is excessive (£8 in the circle for students to go and watch WNO at Oxford & 1 free adult ticket for every 10 students) yet I believe that premiership footy matches are really pricey. Even Covent Garden does stand by tickets for about a tenner (yes, I know) - even less for the Ballet. No 0-0 draws there with your main star out injured - but 1-0 wins with your main 2 stars injured in front of you is pretty similar!

I believe that these companies are subsidied by taxpayers money though, although I'm happy for my tax to go there rather than some of the other schemes that get funded!

For interest, you might all like to know that in Handel's day the main singers were paid equivalent sums of money to that which Premiership footballers get today. There was a catch, though.....

 

[robgil]

Oh my god , A nipple slip!

If that were Madonna or the Queen even it would be worth a fortune.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

This is rather a masculine thread is it not Girls------

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Well, I've solved the housing problem. Just build flats on top of wherever the football grounds (used to be) are. Never understood the attraction of it, and growing up on the border between a football city and a rugby league town clarified which was the better game, and who the better spectators, very early on...

 

[oxalto]

This is rather a masculine thread is it not Girls------

Hang on - I mentioned Opera and even BALLET!

 

[Nigel Watts]

Nigel, I'm really interested to know what the "cheap" tickets cost.

I've not been to Covent Garden for some years but I do go to Glyndebourne, which receives no state subsidy. Gallery tickets there cost about £95. Stalls seats are more.

To go to most Arsenal games you need to be a member (£55 per year minimum) . As the lowest class of member I only get a choice of what is left after other members have had their pick, which means seats high up and further from the pitch. The last ones cost me £39. No child seats were left so I had to buy my 11 year old an adult ticket. To get cheaper child seats you have to be a higher level of member, which I guess will cost more.

You can buy a season ticket. I believe these are in excess of £1,000 per season. Boxes can also be bought (there is a completely separate tier of these at the Emirates) which must be an order of magnitude more.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

OK Nigel, so that's the cost of the package with a helicopter taxi and lobster/champagne meal thrown in, with nubile Venezualan girls fanning you during the match to keep you cool.

Suppose I just want to go and watch the football - how much would that cost? :shock:

 

[Nigel Watts]

Very few tickets are available for the general public to buy. All premier league games are members only and international games like the recent one against Barcelona are only available to higher classes of member than me. Carling or FA Cup fixtures against lesser teams in earlier rounds of these tournaments seem to have been opened up to the public but in these you may not get to see the top stars. Ticket prices seem to be in the £30-£40 range.

What seems to happen in practice is that members and season ticket holders lend their membership cards to friends for particular matches (tickets are not issued; instead bookings are electronically registered against one's membership card which you need have with you to get through the turnstile). Two couples we know have a season ticket each and they alternate so that husband and wife can attend every other game together, unless it's Chelsea or Barcelona of course when only the men go. My older son went to this week's match with a school friend's family, who seem to own at least three season tickets.

To become a higher class of member you have to sit on a waiting list. All very complicated and clubby. Probably not unlike Lord's, although the waiting time may be less that most of a lifetime.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Well, I've solved the housing problem. Just build flats on top of wherever the football grounds (used to be) are. Never understood the attraction of it, and growing up on the border between a football city and a rugby league town clarified which was the better game, and who the better spectators, very early on...

Very glad to read this. Flats, excellent plan. Chris entirely agrees - he won't watch any form of exercise, apart from ballet. ( I've trained him beautifully in this regard)

Gosh, I'm so lucky to have a husband who's wild about clothes-shopping, making cocktails, opera and ballet. How rotten it must be to have your peaceful home filled with the unspeakable noise of football!

 

[Penners]

Chris entirely agrees - he won't watch any form of exercise, apart from ballet. ( I've trained him beautifully in this regard)

He's not alone, you know. My entrechat, assemblé and jeté have to be seen to be believed.

And I am, in actual fact, a pa(s) de deux.

 

[essexbearhunter]

I confess that the idea that if you support one club , you must hate another has always seemed absurd.

As a (somewhat passive) Liverpool supporter, I have enormous respect for the achievement of David Moyes at neighbouring Everton, who seems to perform wonders on a relatively miniscule budget.

As old stalwarts, like Danny Murphy, Emile Heskey & Sami Hyypia eventually move on and take interest to other clubs. Ditto with past managers.

No different really to architecture, where a work like the Archer Pavilion at Wrest Park, leads onto a whole string of daisy chains to other buildings and architects (and mural painters).

 

[essexbearhunter]

And I am, in actual fact, a pa(s) de deux.

Aaah, not a faux pa(s) then!

 

[oxalto]

I've not been to Covent Garden for some years but I do go to Glyndebourne, which receives no state subsidy. Gallery tickets there cost about £95. Stalls seats are more.

Why not got to Covent Garden soon, then, or come to Oxford for WNO - it's not far at all. You might also like to try Garsington which is moving closer to you this year - meet half way, or even Holland Park! I went to Glyndebourne a couple of times - didn't pay a penny as I had friends in the cast! I was rather upset by the number of people who never returned after the dinner interval!

What surprises me is that so many thousands of football fans are willing/able to part with such large sums of money on such a regular basis. Reasonable Opera/Ballet tickets aren't much more expensive than football and I wouldn't expect to go to the Opera/Ballet every other week. I'm on a slightly less than average teacher's salary and I might go 3 times a year (but I am trying to restore a house as well which uses up lots of money!). Yet 10s of thousands of others, not all of whom appear to be company executives, will pay £50 or more almost weekly to go and see footy. Add in the membership fees and the merchandise (replica kit appears to be required fan uniform) the program and refreshments and the expenditure seems to be quite substantial. Similarly I am astonished by how much is regularly spent by those going out clubbing "of an evening". I certainly don't mind how people spend their money or resent their choice of entertainment (my wife and I watch MOTD most weeks, though I don't club!) - rather I am surprised at the amount of disposable income that so many normal working people have.

I know that we are in tighter financial times but it seems to me that there is some way to go before the country is really suffering. These are just thoughts written down rather than any manifesto, but they are just things I've spotted when trying to fathom if classical music is elitist as it is often felt to be.

 

[Flyfisher]

I wouldnt say that classical music is elitist, at least not in a financial sense. It may be 'elite' in the sense that, broadly, it would appear to appeal to fewer people than, er, 'popular' music, but I don't detect any financial barriers to enjoying classical music, opera or theatre when compared with major sporting events or 'popular' music events. Indeed, my experience is that it often costs far more to attend a 'popular' music concert these days than a classical one. The last Eric Clapton concert I declined to attend had ticket prices of £135. Ridiculous, in my view.

But at least these 'popular' events - sporting or musical - are not subsidised by taxpayers. Well, apart from the Olympics of course. :roll:

 

[wobs]

Football chants:
I recall a sketch on the 80s comedy show Absolutely, where the sensible family suggested to the FA that fans partake in more potile chants, and thereby much of the aggravation that blighted the stands then and now could be reduced. They came up with the faultless "WE'RE GOING SHAKE YOU WARMLY BY THE HAND!" [to the rythm of "you're going home in a Yorkshire ambulance" type chant.]

Tickets prices:
Never having been to a football match (perhaps because I'm in Hull), I can only assume it is expensive. But major rock gigs can be extremely costly. However, I tend to favour smaller gigs, and if the price exceeds £20 its considered a lot!

When we see prices like £45 to Red Hot Chilli Peppers, I think of when we saw the Polyphonic Spree for £12 at the Leadmill in Sheffield, and there were 23 of them! Top gig BTW.

Saw Half Man Half Biscuit last week, and it cost about £16. Could be the last time I go to such a gig for quite a while given imminent situation!

 

[Nigel Watts]

Why not got to Covent Garden soon, then, or come to Oxford for WNO - it's not far at all. You might also like to try Garsington which is moving closer to you this year - meet half way, or even Holland Park! I went to Glyndebourne a couple of times - didn't pay a penny as I had friends in the cast! I was rather upset by the number of people who never returned after the dinner interval!.

I would if my wife were a little keener on opera. The Glyndebourne thing is also a great day out, which she likes. I used to go to Covent Graden in the past. Jon Vickers and Gwyneth Jones's Tristan & Isolde was astonishing, as was Vickers in Peter Grimes. I saw Domingo in Sampson & Delila, Boris Cristoff's Boris Godononv (1976 I think)..... My experience of Regional opera has been less happy. ENO's Tristan was as dull as ditchwater (my companion walked out), its Cosi leaden - these from several decades ago.

Glyndebourne has always been good musically in my experience and I get tickets on the back of my mother's membership. Members usually buy the cheaper seats and leave the expensive ones for the hospitality boys with the curious result that the cheaper seats are the more exclusive). John Christie, Glyndebourne's founder, always wanted to put on Wagner but the house was too small. Recently however they staged Tristan and this year they are doing Meistersinger. Tickets to these are very restricted due to heavy demand. As a teenager I was a Wagner nut and would love to see these productions but at a good five hours long they are not many people's cup of tea - certainly not my wife's.

 

[Penners]

Peter Grimes.

Aaaargh.. Britten. :x

 

[oxalto]

Peter Grimes.

Aaaargh.. Britten. :x

Surely you like Hymn to the Virgin or even Rejoice in the Lamb. Youtube them!

 

[Penners]

HTTV isn't too bad, I find it unremarkable. RITL - not for me thanks (except as a motto for Sunday lunch).