The Pompey Supporters’ Trust entered into constructive dialogue with the club and Hampshire Police around the policing, travel and ticketing arrangements for the South Coast Derby, attending four meetings in total with a view to finding the best possible solution for supporters.
In these meetings, we spoke out against the use of ‘club-managed travel’, which requires fans to travel on official coaches to the game, as we feel this causes unnecessary inconvenience to supporters. We respect that the two clubs nonetheless jointly-chose to implement this strategy, understanding that they took this decision with safety in mind.
We were assured that, to mitigate the inconvenience to fans, supporters would be given a range of pick-up locations, and that coach costs would be kept to a minimum. We’re pleased that three pick-up locations were agreed, to minimise the unnecessary journey times some fans would need to make as a result of the mandated coach travel. This is an improvement on arrangements for the previous ‘bubble’ fixture in the 2011/12 season.
We are, however, disappointed with the £22.50 cost of coach travel to fans, which is disproportionate with the length of journey. Fans will travel 21 miles from Fratton Park, 18 miles from Lakeside North Harbour and just 11 miles from Winchester Park & Ride. Fans are being charged more for these short, enforced trip than they are if they book officialclub coach travel to Bristol City (125 miles, £20), Millwall (76 miles, £21), QPR (78 miles, £21) and Watford (82 miles, £21).
We’ve been assured that Portsmouth Football Club will not profit from these coaches, but with 2,700 Portsmouth supporters cumulatively paying a total of £60,750 to travel to their nearest away fixture of the season, it doesn’t feel like fans have been protected from unnecessary added expense for what has become a mandated part of their day.
The £40 price of an adult match ticket – set by Southampton Football Club – is also incredibly disappointing. When we were made aware of the home club’s decision to create a new “Category A*” for this fixture – which will see disabled children in some sections of the home end charged as much as £50 – we met with the club to discuss how best to protect our own supporters from such steep pricing.
We encouraged Portsmouth Football Club to offer Southampton a reciprocal pricing arrangement, whereby the clubs would jointly agree a lower matchday ticket pricing structure for visiting fans. This strategy has been used successfully by other clubs in the Championship to bring costs down for their travelling fans. This offer was put forward by Portsmouth Football Club, but disappointingly Southampton Football Club opted to turn down the proposal. As a result, Portsmouth fans will pay more when they travel to St. Mary’s in September, and Southampton fans will pay more when they travel to Fratton Park in January. We understand that Portsmouth Football Club are now considering the ticket pricing for January’s home fixture in light of Southampton’s refusal to bring prices down for the September fixture. We will continue to work with the Football Supporters' Association to campaign for a £30 cap for away ticket prices in the Championship, which has already been successfully implemented in the Premier League.
The South Coast Derby is the most anticipated fixture of the season for Portsmouth and Southampton fans. We’re disappointed that, for some, it has become an opportunity to squeeze the loyalty of supporters for more money.