My kids are Arsenal fans and we’re looking at surprising them with a trip to London over Christmas to watch a match. I’ve been on the website and I can’t figure out how the hell we get tickets – looks like you have to be a member, and all the family will have to join (c £100 for all four of us) in order to order tickets – is that right??

Anyone have any tips & don’t say watch Wigan, Man U {insert your team}

hi,

season ticket holder here (and former red member, the basic membership level). Unless a game goes to general sale then yes you have to be a member (for a fee) to obtain tickets. Even then you have to register with the system operated by ticket master to buy tickets. Some games, the ones the club expect to struggle to sell, will become “friends and family games” allow members to purchase more than one ticket – normally a membership only allows the purchase of one ticket. However as we are doing a bit better this year ticket demand has gone up slightly.

It is a massively closed shop and purely to make money, Arsenal are not the only club that does this before anyone starts.

There is a kids membership (junior gunners) but not having kids or not being a BBC DJ from the 70s I haven’t looked into it, but it “might” be cheaper to join that for the kids.

If you fire me an email dha.forward@gmail.com I can look at what games are friends and family in the coming months

Don’t you have to hand over your first born, then sign a sworn declaration that you won’t make any noise during the match?

Prawn sandwich anyone? 😉

As the above. Same for Chelsea etc too.

I’m a Chelsea member and can normally get tickets for each game if I buy on the first day of sale. Membership is £25 a year adult and £15 child. But you get £5 off ticket price so if you go a bit (we go to about a dozen games a year) then it pays.

Buy the membership as if you go once you’re likely to live it (even at Arsenal!!) and want to go more.

And a quick view of the fixtures over the next weeks/months, the only games likely to go to general are Hull (4th Dec), Fulham (18th Jan). Marseille might, but it’s midweek and not easy to get home early for work the next day.

Southampton, Everton are already sold out (ticket exchange in operation and you must be a member to use this). Chelsea is yet to drop to the lower level of membership but will sell out.

And binners – basically yes. Unless you sit (stand) in the slightly rowdy section where we have fish paste rather than prawns!

velocipede, I fancy you’d have more chance of seeing baby Jesus being born, with the Prophet Muhammad and Buddha acting as midwives.

Seriously, I looked into this with the hope of going to watch Arsenal play away up North where I live, in with the Arsenal fans. Red membership puts you towards the back of the queue for tickets, only just in front of general sale, by which stage most tickets have gone. You can’t jump in at a higher level of membership (if you had the funds or the inclination!), you have to serve your time at the lower levels of membership, which is a good thing I suppose.

Are your kids already Junior Gunners? If not you could get them membership for Christmas, they have meet the player days, but not at Christmas time I don’t think!

There are ways of jumping, and perfectly acceptable.

Away tickets however are like gold dust, that is a complete closed shop

The best way to get tickets unofficially, is via the @arsenal_tickets service on Twitter.

Trusted sellers list and FAQ: http://www.arsenalticketsfaq.blogspot.co.uk/

More info: http://skinhead69.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-get-Arsenal-tickets-at-face-value

United is the same. As is Liverpool. You have to have membership, which costs about the same.

I used to go to OT all the time using one of my mates season tickets. Loads of them had them. Now they’ve all given them up (including one who’s had his for 40 years!). The final straw was, on top of the massive price hikes, you have to buy a season ticket covering all competitions. So not just league games, but League Cup, Champions league qualifiers, FA cup first round, all up front.

So if you’ve got 2 matches in a week, then with transport, a couple of beers, you’re looking at £200! A week! 😯

I haven’t been for years now. I haven’t got that kind of money. I just watch big games in the pub, with my ex-season ticket holding mates.

Basically, as a fan of any big club, you have to accept the fact that they’re out to fleece you at every turn