Whether things will come to a head or not anytime in the next season or two, or resentment will continue bubbling along for a while yet, there is a feeling in the air that Scottish football is soon about to have a reckoning with its supporters over the rising costs of ticket prices.
Last season saw disruption during Celtic's title-clinching victory against Dundee United. Twice during the one-sided contest did play stop due to the away supporters chucking things on the park. First it was fruit, accompanied by the banner 'enjoy the fruits of our labour', then it was footballs hurled into the penalty box.
The Celtic fans did this in protest to United charging an eye-watering £42 per ticket. And do you know what? Good on them. You'll always get people mumping and moaning about such actions, annoyed at the disruption taking place and using empty criticisms like "attention-seeking". But that's the bloody point! The point of a protest is to make it clear that you're unhappy about something and to have as many people as possible aware of the problem. That doesn't happen with banners alone. You need to make people take notice.
It wasn't just Dundee United v Celtic which had supporters feeling more than a little perturbed at what they were being asked to pay to cheer on their favourites. I paid £40 for the privilege of sitting in the fourth row of Hampden Park, watching my team ultimately defend for the best part of 120 minutes and eventually lose to Aberdeen. Value for money it certainly was not.
Speaking of which, the cheapest adult season-ticket price for the next campaign at Rugby Park and Dens Park is over £400. For the cost of a PS5 and GTA 6 you instead get to watch a team managed by Steven Pressley or Stuart Kettlewell for a season. How can you argue that?
There is certainly justification in these protests and things need to change, but how effective they are is a very different matter. Having attended football games for 33 years now (christ!) and witnessed many of these protests firsthand, I'm just not sure how entirely effective they are. The acts of throwing fruits and footballs on to the park brought more attention toward the Tannadice hierarchy for their decision, but did it do anything meaningful to stop them from acting so again in the future?
It seems unlikely. Club boards are used to criticism and they certainly care a lot less when it's from fans of other teams.
In order to make change happen, clubs need to be hit where it hurts them the most – in the pocket. Otherwise there's just not that much incentive for them to care about a ticket-price protest. It needs to be fans withdrawing their money entirely.
This is tricky if you follow Celtic or Rangers. Regardless of where they go there are limited tickets available for away supporters to purchase. The number of people who follow the Glasgow two is so disproportionately large and there's no real away stadium which can satisfy the demand.
Therefore, even if many supporters decided enough was enough and decided to protest with their feet for such occasions, you'd have thousands of their fellow fans behind them going "mmmmm, I don't get to go to away games much" and paying the exorbitant cost because it's more of a one-time thing. And while this is far from an issue only impacting Old Firm followers, the zeitgeist does (unfortunately) revolve around them in this country. Therefore, they have the power to influence change the most.
To defend those running our beloved teams, I don't believe they're actively going out there to shake down every fan for everything they've got. They're focused on being competitive and squeezing out any advantage they can find. If such an advantage comes from a supporters' base who seem to be largely fine with prices continuing to rise, bit by bit, season after season, then they're going to do it.
The nature of football fandom, especially in a country where it's as tribal as it is in Scotland, is also a barrier for change. Because what we really need to have happen is fans from all sides put their differences aside, come out and say "that's it, this is the line".
Unfortunately you often witness the opposite and Celtic's demonstration was one such example. Sure, there were a lot of fans, smart fans, who were empathetic in some way if not fully on their side. But there were plenty of others who couldn't see past their dislike for one team and derided it, especially as it was easy to point out the hypocrisy of protesting against others when your own board charges over £600 for the cheapest adult season ticket. And something similar would happen if it were Rangers, Hearts, Kilmarnock, whoever.
This mentality helps the owners and chief executives. It's not entirely purposeful, but it's a typical divide-and-conquer scenario. If everyone is squabbling amongst each other rather than looking up, then nothing is going to change.
Supporters need to put aside the petty squabbles – not for long, because it is a big part of the fun – and do something meaningful together. The organised 'fairer deal for fans' protest towards the end of last year, which included both United and St Mirren supporters holding up banners with that message during their post-split encounter, is a step in the right direction, but the act needs to be bigger. It needs to be a co-ordinated protest where stadiums are half-empty up and down the country. Then, and only then, would something be done.
Our favourites don't want to price fans out of the game because ultimately that means no money for them. But they also need to be told in a loud and clear fashion when things have gone too far and a tipping point has been reached. Going to football games is a habit and once match-going supporters – which, unlike some leagues, is the lifeblood of football in Scotland – break themselves out of that then it can be very hard to get them back.
We can't reach a point where attendances begin dropping because the cost of getting in has been taken too far. Not for the first time, and certainly not the last, Scottish football needs to be saved from itself.
