Being a football fan has never been more expensive.

A recent BBC report found that, since 2011, the average price of the cheapest available match ticket has risen at twice the rate of inflation.

This doesn’t even include the other costs incurred by football fans, such as parking and travel, as well as food and drink.

The average cost of a Premier League season ticket is £697.

According to MoneySuperMarket.com, the average fan pays £262 per season to cover travel and parking costs.

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Even Barnet, a club not usually associated with eye-watering sums, charge £49.90 for a replica home shirt.

For Arsenal fans, this is just a small chunk of their £2000 plus season ticket, which is ten times more than a season ticket at Barcelona or Bayern Munich.

Such costs in England exist against the backdrop of a game awash in money, with Premier League clubs receiving £5.1 billion collectively for the 2016-2019 seasons.

Despite this unfortunate state of affairs, attendance figures have been rising in recent years, in both the Premier League and the Championship.

The latter had the fourth highest figures of any division in Europe over the past few seasons.

It is argued that because fans will continue to pay whatever is asked of them, prices will continue to rise.

However, commonsense dictates there is a limit to how much people can afford to pay. Should the cost of tickets continue to rise, supporters may be forced to find something else to do on a Saturday.

But what is to be done to counter this trend? In terms of match tickets, the Premier League has operated a £30 price cap for all away tickets this season, and in the Championship,

Reading FC have embraced the FSF’s Twenty’s Plenty initiative – so far the signs have been encouraging on both counts.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

After all, it is in everyone’s interest to keep fans flooding through the turnstiles, and affordability is essential to that happening.

As Jock Stein once famously said: “Football without fans is nothing.”

To put it in terms the suits at Wembley and St George’s Park might understand, football in England relies on TV money.

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Would people pay to watch games played in empty stadiums?

To avoid finding out the answer to that question, football clubs and governing bodies must arrest the trend of rising prices.

Thankfully, at Huddersfield Town, we don’t have to contend with that problem.

Once again, Dean Hoyle and the Board are ahead of the curve, putting supporters at the front and centre of their vision for the present and future.

So too are the Huddersfield Town Supporters Association (HTSA).

We are committed to making football an affordable family pastime, and that’s why a seat on one of our coaches is more often than not the cheapest available option.

We have also been working hard to add to our existing portfolio of shareholder benefits.

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Whether you fancy a pre-match breakfast at The Keys (10% off your bill), a post-match drink at Zephyr Bar and Kitchen (50p off all drinks), or a warm drink at Coffee Evolution (10% of food and drink), you’ll make your shareholder fee back in no time!

For more information on these and other benefits, visit our HTSA website.

For those of you who are just here for the travel news, we’ll announce our intentions for the play-offs as soon as the fixtures are confirmed.

Happy saving, Town fans!

Remember, HTSA are the voice of the fans. If you’d like to know more or get involved, visit our HTSA website , email travel@htsa-web.com, or call our Travel Line on 07905 580784.