Surrey - also, the game was apparently at Kingsmeadow, but if you zoom in, there’s a packed huge two-tier stand in the background, so there must be about 50,000 spectators there….

An interesting game OTD in 1962 as I see three teams were involved. One wearing orange, one wearing white with white shorts, and one wearing white with black shorts.

Turning that “bursary” element into a revenue generating “concession” would make sense. Scrap the over 66s “bursary” discount on season and match-day ticket sales and replace with a “concessionary” discount for certain less popular matches in less desirable parts of the stadium. For example - an Over 66s promotion at £12 for an evening match ticket or expand the over 66s promotion to a ticket, pie & pint for just £18! If the Club could make this work – it would not only save over £350,000 of the current “bursary” element but would in addition generate increased revenue which otherwise would have been missed. A double whammy – positive all round.

I’m lucky because I have a work pension as well as a state pension, so I obviously pay tax, but I know several people who only receive a state pension and some even still have a mortgage or loans to repay. Doubtless some will say they just didn’t work hard enough or save well enough during their working lives, but people’s circumstances don’t always allow for those things - illnesses, injuries, and all sorts of other factors can affect someone’s finances over their lifetime…

Postman - we are away on Friday, no - or was that just info for those travelling in the general direction of Wimbledon?

What, another one!!?? [Link]

As you get older you normally earn more money, hence pay more tax. A breakdown of income levels v tax paid for the over 70s would provide a better basis for analysis. Some are wealty but many are not.

Strangely enough in 22/23 over 70s paid more income tax than under 30s . There's the problem.

Matchday concessions are like the triple lock. These days, there's a lot of pensioners who have saved and had good jobs with occupational pensions inc tax-breaks. But there's also many folk who have to get along with state pensions/benefits. Politicians can't crack that one and neither, I suspect, can football clubs

Concessions are an interesting one and seem to be relatively unique to sport in terms of venue attendance. Concerts, Theatre etc don't tend to offer them. I guess with Kids its a "start 'em young" approach, but other discounts are just trying to take into account people have less money and are more a social kindness as I can't imagine a few quid is really the difference between going and not going.

Dropping the unwaged concession is a pity but not one I will cry over for long.

No trams to Wimbledon this Friday and sat engernering works

Spit-I remember the season we got to Wembley in 1988 we gave away 22 penalties!!! I went through the end of the season video(remember them?)and had a look and exactly half were pens but also half weren’t just bad refereeing

Surely those on universal credit should get free tickets, being a social justice club..

JG must be pretty nimble on the key board to trot out verse and chapter on his views , 3 lengthy posts. Perhaps he would be better employed being the secretary of our Industrial & Provident Society. Sorry George your tenure is in danger.

But one bit of good news! It does appear that the Club have now removed discounts for the "Unwaged".

Fact 3) The £23 seat for the Peterborough game was the cost of the ticket for the seat next to mine in the East Stand – very close to the halfway line. The seat was occupied by an American Professor of Law at Yale University. He was attending a conference in London for a few days and wanted to attend a London Football match. Both he and his wife attended although they weren’t sat together. How do I know he’d paid £23 – because he dropped his printed ticket which I then picked up for him. And I have just checked for the forthcoming Plymouth game and there are plenty of seats available for the over 66s in the East Stand for the even lower amount of £19 (Block 127, Row F, Seat 13 as an example).

Fact 2) “Concessions” or “Bursaries”. I tend to think of a concession as a marketing discount aimed at increasing overall sales and revenue. For example, Dobbie’s Garden Centres on a Monday (their quietest day) providing OAPs with a 10% discount or free coffee. Its purpose being to attract shoppers who wouldn’t otherwise be customers. In contrast I think of bursaries as a form of charitable subsidy. Assuming that most of the over 66s would still otherwise purchase their ticket without such a discount and on the basis that even if they didn’t you could fill their seat with a full paying supporter – then the giving of such a discount definitely falls into the latter category. It has a real cost to the Club – one that I’d estimate is the equivalent of around £350,000+ per season. It has a real monetary cost – aka a donation. If no such discount existed and the club, whilst losing £2m+ pa, determined to donate £350K to Help the Aged I suspect most fans would be appalled.

I want to address three disagreements we had yesterday over “facts”. There was a suggestion that I might be prone to embellishment. Fact 1) The Wimbledon Football Club Supporters’ Society was established as an Industrial & Provident Society. It is not structured as a Trust. It could have been, but I assume that a Trust wouldn’t have met the idoalogical criteria deemed wanted. In 2014 under the Co-Operative and Community Benefit Society Act it legally became a Community Benefits Society but existing Industrial & Provident Societies were allowed to carry on using the IPS description. It is therefore far more misleading to refer to it as the Dons Trust (which it most certainly isn’t).

Vars adjudicating on the Gazza bollocks crush would of been funny

Yeah true,and all them 22 player brawls would of taken 30 mins to sort out;-)

Was thinking the same thing Spit but if all those bad decisions had been corrected by VAR we’d have still finished games with 8 or 9 men most weeks.

Them first few years on div 1 in late 80s would of been interesting to VAR., some terrible penalties and decisions against us back then. The refs had made their minds up before kick off ,only have to look at that Everton game in 94.

The late 90s was where it started to feel like refs were more than happy to give dodgy decisions against us. It was still better than having VAR.

Blimey, that's an interesting one. Jermain Dafoe is the new Woking manager. I've been told that Neal Ardley wasn't at all happy there.