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Manchester United had just secured consecutive victories and there was a sense of renewed hope amongst supporters, making it perhaps the ideal moment to unveil season ticket pricing for 2025/2026.
On Monday, United disclosed their season ticket costs for the upcoming campaign and they appeared fairly modest initially. Most season tickets experienced a five per cent increase whilst prices for Under-16s remained unchanged, however the specifics reveal that elderly supporters have borne the brunt of the changes.
Previously, pensioner season tickets would receive a 50 per cent reduction, but United announced that discounts would be diminished and Sir Jim Ratcliffe is now encountering criticism from supporters. Liverpool's owners Fenway Sports Group would be wise to avoid making the same mistakes.
Senior reductions at Old Trafford have been cut in half and will now provide 25 per cent off, rather than 50 per cent. United also confirmed the qualifying age for a senior ticket will align with the state pension age of 66.
Club insiders have indicated "a few thousand" season tickets will be impacted by the reduction in pensioner discount, though it appears the number could be higher, based on the extensive response across social media and correspondence sent to the Manchester Evening News regarding the price rise.
United have also contended that preserving the 50 per cent discount was "not justifiable" given the increasing number of season ticket holders in the senior bracket, and that those granted pensioner discount from the 2022/23 season had only received a 25 per cent reduction. The reality is that numerous pensioners whose discount has been slashed will abandon their support entirely.
Some will relinquish their seats because they simply cannot afford the increase, whilst others will feel unable to stomach the price hike.
Tony Christian, who has been attending Old Trafford since 1962, is amongst those supporters contemplating whether to renew their season ticket. He feels "disgusted" by the decision to cut the pensioner discount, which will see some fans' tickets rise by approximately $395 for next season.
"I'm in the Sir Alex Ferguson Stand and near the halfway line. They're really good seats and there are loads of people around me who have the 25-year name badges on their seats," he told the MEN.
"I was speaking to someone at the game a few months back and I said raising tickets to $87 is testing the water. I said he'll cherry-pick what he can get away with and we'll be in the firing line because we're getting a price that you could get double for if getting rid of every old person.
"I think he's done data analysis and looked at how many people are old-age pensioners who are getting the seat for half the price. He's thought, 'If I could persuade them to pay a lot more, great, but if they drop out, I'll get full price. We've got an eight-year waiting list, and that could fill them up'.
"It's almost like Ineos accountancy euthanasia. He talks like a ruthless businessman and not about anything to do with the supporters and why the club has been successful in the past because of that loyalty, and the fact that for 12 years since Ferguson retired, we've had crap managers and crap teams, and it's still full every week.
"I've got George Best's debut programme since 1963 and I've got the programme from the '68 final at Wembley, but if I look back, it wasn't all fun and games. The fans have stuck through thick and thin.
Numerous local supporters feel United have little regard for them.
They have levelled accusations of disdain towards the club's core fanbase and suspect the hierarchy would prefer flogging tickets to tourists at inflated prices. Ratcliffe's alterations over the past 12 months have faced fierce criticism, with fans ridiculing his cost-cutting measures whilst the 72 year old has committed costly blunders in the boardroom.
"Let's say 10,000 fans have been affected by this and they charge them $395 more each," Christian said. "They're making $3.9 million and that's 10 weeks of Casemiro's wage and less than the $5.2 million that was required to pay off Dan Ashworth after giving him a job for just five months.
"I think a lot of the Premier League clubs when United put up the price of the tickets because they know they can sell them. That's one thing, then Spurs last season didn't offer a pensioner discount, and I thought Ratcliffe was going to see that and think we should do the same. It's death by 1,000 cuts. They've lost the soul of the club by doing what they're doing and the trick with the juniors is, if you've got a junior who is 11 or 12, you will pay full price in four years.
"Freeze them, collect the father's money and get the juniors addicted to United, like my dad with me, then they have to pay full price. They've probably done analysis on pensioners, and they'll know how many more there could be in the ground in a few years' time, and they will carry on going until they die.
"A full pension is $1,112 a month and now tickets are a month's pension for people. I had a good job and, thankfully, I can afford it, but I'm still disgusted by it. I said to my wife, if he does this dirty trick then I'm not going to renew because we've watched rubbish for the last few seasons.
"He shouldn't have kept Ten Hag in charge last summer, he shouldn't have given him a contract extension because it then costs more to get rid of him and they shouldn't have allowed him to buy more players in the summer transfer window. Ratcliffe has presided over this wastage.
"Then they had to buy Amorim out. Given the situation and trying to fund a new stadium, you could four or five years of turmoil, he won't want to pay Mainoo, they'll sell him and sell Garnacho.
"He's not criticised the Glazers and he's doing lots of things to build his share value back up, but he's ruining the heart of the club. There's loads of old people near me. The guy in front is 72.
"He used to hitch-hike from Lincoln when he was a lad, and now he gets the train. I've seen him at semi-finals in the 90s and in Barcelona for the Champions League final in 1999. He's now saying he's forking out $237 to get to the game and a lot of people on a standard pension won't be able to go."
Christian continued: "Ratcliffe is not going to change his mind because that would mean showing weakness, but what he's doing is purely dirty financial tricks, and they need to publish the exact numbers of people over 65. I didn't realise last year that the fans who had just turned 65 had only received 25 percent off their season tickets, and we carried on with the 50 percent off.
"They're looking at us and thinking 'we know you've paid full price for 40 years, but we don't want you having 50 per cent off for the next 15 years and we don't care because we have a list of people waiting to get tickets'. They slid this under the radar when it was announced this week.
"And it's for a stadium that's past its best in a lot of places. They're just exploiting supporters now."
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