I'm not a big fan of visiting other fans' sites, as it's usually a pointless excuse to wind people up but having read your 'open letter' to our club secretary I thought it was worth making a few points (feel free tp shift this if you don't like opposition fans here, cheers).
- In the first instance the widest point in this whole debate is that football in Scotland is far, far too expensive for a league which completely lacks diversity, entertainment, competition or quality. A sensible, concerted and organised effort to do something about this would be excellent and would no doubt be supported by fans around the country, especially if it meant the 'wee' clubs were able to work together a bit more intelligently, arrange reciprocal deals, away 'season tickets' and stop treating fans like value-less cattle.
- However, the letter does smack slightly of hypocricy. Fir Park is famous, or should I say infamous, amongst many away fans for the very poor treatment of visiting fans. In all honesty I can only say the Old Firm manage to treat visitors in a poorer way. We've put up with many years of unequal ticket prices at Fir Park and been baffled by our treatment. I can assure you that this is often allied to poor service, an antagonistic attitude and food that runs out after about 10 minutes.
- Letters of complaint or questions about pricing, arguments and poor service from away fans go completely ignored by Motherwell, so consider yourself blessed that Kilmarnock take paying customers on both sides a bit more seriously.
- I know you acknowledge it in your letter, but Motherwell haven't done anything in previous times to make Kilmarnock fans want to come to the ground. No discounts for tv games etc, so not entirely sure why Motherwell want to be a special case for 400 people.
- Rugby Park, with arguably better facilities, is cheaper than Fir Park anyway.
- Today's game was the cheapest in the entire SPL. Perhaps it would be good to write a second letter to the club thanking them for charging you less than you'd have paid at any other game today. I'm amazed that some of you used the price as an excuse not to support your team just down the road when the game is cheaper than your home games. That your 'celebrity fan' chose to make the same weird point about pricing at RP without noticing that we're charging less than anyone else today speaks volumes.
- The Moffat Stand at Rugby Park has always been a family stand with special pricing and offers. Because an away fan is not aware of this does not change that fact.
- It seems odd that a properly registered Trust would go to the extent of breaking confidences and publishing good faith correspondences from a club which has made an effort to answer a question to score such a cheap point on such a weak argument. Is this the worst thing you've experienced as an away fan this season? If so you've been terribly lucky.
- Her name's Kirsten, not Karen.
- As for the point about forking out money to suffer watching Killie try to stop Motherwell playing, it looked quite the opposite from where I was sitting (which incidentally cost me £20).
Anyway, there's a good point in there somewhere - we're not getting value for money across the board, be it £20 at RP or the £25 we've been asked for to sit at Fir Park, and hopefully something can be done about it in the long term, but a weak pop at a completely rooked SPL competitor trying to make enough money to keep going hardly seems the way to do it. Is almost £30 for a 'limited view' seat at Parkhead, for example, not a far better target?
All the best for the future. At some stage I think clubs of our size are going to have to realise that we're stronger together, and when Killie, Well, Falkirk, Dundee United, Inverness etc etc start to work together perhaps Scottish football and the SPL might have a future slightly brighter than it looks right now.
