An interesting last few days for me.

I bought a Newcastle United membership for me and my son a year ago to try and ensure a decent chance of tickets for the matches last season.

My first ever serious financial commitment to my club (other than following home and away) having never been a season ticket holder and having spent the majority of my life rocking up and paying in at the turnstiles, then relying on mates still living on Tyneside – especially for occasional away tickets when they could / can manage them.

Once again, I commit to Newcastle United membership for this new (2023/24) season and then suddenly find out I will only have the ballot opportunity of obtaining a ticket instead of doing what I did previously, which was logging on to the website and waiting for my turn to purchase a ticket. This I was successful at last season but only ever getting tickets in level seven. However, level seven giving my twelve year old son his access to our great club.

This season’s Newcastle United membership is capitalism in its finest form.

Forking out fifty seven quid for me and my son to be in a ballot for the chance of purchasing a ticket.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place, pay the money and have a chance, or don’t pay and have no chance.

So Wednesday arrives and I have got me and my son on the ballot for the Villa game. Now we have to wait and hope that we are lucky and get tickets.

If we think about this process, living in a capitalist economy and society, how do season tickets fit in?

Season ticket holders as part of the cooperative, the club, or are they part of the conservative club ready to pay up and so conserving the status quo?

Capitalism is based on supply and demand, so why would a business pass up the chance of a huge amount extra income, just to appease a group of season ticket holders (customers) who have been going to the game for years?

No other business would do this. Surely this fanbase can be milked to the point where they quit and then wealthier fans will replace them to be milked further.

Football though is not a business as such, in my opinion, though many capitalists would disagree. A Football club carries tradition, local affiliation, and culture. The clue is in the word club – but capitalism respects none of this. Thatcher even went as far as saying “Who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women” and there we have it.

A stadium that is too small, demand for tickets stratospheric, and a successful team pouring fuel onto this capitalist’s dream scenario.

A debacle of Newcastle United membership suddenly alleviated at the last minute, all this while the seat prices are increased and the people are distracted. The perfect capitalist ruse.