Cricket Witness No 1 - Class Peace

131 Change of Culture; Change of Cricket in the upper tiers of football where the crowds remained sizable and the troubles threatened, was a mighty heft in the ticket prices. Obviously the major motive for this policy was a financial one but it had the attendant social effect of aiding in the restoration of comparative order. It is true, of course, that not all football hooligans were or are working class youths; the court records show that some older men in middle class occupations were among the guilty parties. However, Premiership prices nowadays are outside the range of those other than with high and, importantly, for spectating is a regular habit, stable incomes. By the 2007/08 football season the proportion of Premier League spectators from social categories C2, D and E, the definitive working class element, was down to 25%. This was a complete reversal from the 1940s and before when the working class percentage had been an estimated 75% or 80%. 6 From the 1880s to 1946 it cost 1s for an adult to watch a Football League game; from 1946 it was 1s3d; 1950, 1s9d and by 1960 2s or 2s6d. Since then, and with the massive increase of wage bills, it has ballooned. It has been calculated that the minimum salary required to afford regular Premiership spectating is £38,000, against a national average income of £26,000. This effectively precludes four-fifths of the population from watching mainstream football, with younger people perhaps especially affected. The average age of an adult Premier League season ticket holder is 41. 7 That scenario is easily transferable to cricket, even if the social research may not be as rigorous or as available as that for football. For major international and other prestigious matches the prices have risen substantially. In cricket’s golden age it was possible to enjoy a day at the Australian Test at Lord’s for a shilling. For peak days now it could be a £100 or £110. The comparison of ratios is startling. It is an increase of 2000 times. As a fraction of the relative weekly earnings, it is a rise from 1% to 20%. One ticket would cost one-fifth of the weekly income for the average household, realistically ruling out the vast majority. The Lord’s Test possibly presents the extreme case but pricing everywhere is comparatively high by former standards. County memberships remain at reasonably high levels but, as hitherto, are very much the province of older loyalists and die-hards with steady incomes. The small coteries of a few thousand who have stayed to worship the beautiful game at county level are resolutely middle-class. The alternative myth – that working class people did not watch first-class cricket – has finally been proved genuine where once it was not. The gentrification of cricket moves on apace. During a seven year period when I had the enjoyable task of editing the MCC annual or yearbook I attended an interesting meeting about advertising revenue, the hope being that with a circulation of well over 20,000 that might easily be found. The advertising consultant soon dispelled that aspiration, indicating that the demographic was exceedingly narrow, as in male (as was then the case) almost entirely A and B in social category and average age 71. ‘Why would a manufacturer of bras for young women be