Fan equity is important to the game, but it's different to fan entitlement.

The City I’d acquainted myself were swashbuckling good. In the doldrums of the old Division 2, during the 98-99 season, the supposed team to beat were listing until promotion rivals Fulham, came to town.

A one off family day out to Maine Road I enjoyed so much surpassed my Dad’s expectations so much, a month later I was watching us overturn Macclesfield and making our ascent up through the play-off places.

Eight months before the Fulham game, on a pleasant May afternoon, I’d sat by the radio to hear us win at Stoke, but go down regardless. The City I’d heard of were nowhere to be seen until the back end of the 1998-98 campaign, and when they finally showed up, I was hooked.

From there on in, there were two places I was guaranteed to go to at the weekend; church and City. Only one took permanently.

In a quarter of a century since, I’ve experienced the full spectrum of football and the joys and lows that come with it. Relegation, promotion. Cup final wins and losses. Championships and trips to Europe. I’ve said goodbye to the old home and watched us grow in to the new one.

Though there was a match going hiatus in the early 2000’s; when coming of age meant the cost of a season ticket jumped to adult prices and the bank of Dad could underwrite my favourite past time no more.

Had I bought a ticket and wanted to sell a few games off to keep the whole thing affordable, that would have been a challenge then. There’s a solution for that financial quandary today though, the various ticket exchange platforms clubs use when a punter can’t make a game.

In defence of the platform, it aims to protect against exuberant touting and keeps tickets affordable for fans who for various reasons might only be able to make the odd game. That doesn’t help the clubs’s financial goals though, and in a PSR age, every penny counts. When enjoying success, lower levels of season tickets are actually better, raising stock that can subjected to dynamic pricing.

In June City joined ranks with a number of other clubs, particularly those at the Premier League’s summit, and introduced a minimum attendance for the coming season, where City host their first home game this weekend, in order for fans to be eligible for renewal next season. Your seat can’t be bumless for three of the nineteen league games. Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs all have similar criteria. However, City have gone a step further in that the holder must attend ten games themselves (meaning six are permitted to be transferred to a friend or family member, resulting in the required 16 being attended).

Initially I looked at this as reasonable, preventing season tickets from being hoarded and touted, and to ensure if season ticket prices don’t increase at the same rate as general sale tickets, there’s enough general sale stock to make up the revenue shortfall. But the debate is more complex than that with Trade Union Blues urging the club to have a rethink.

They have a point; particularly around a fan with a new child, someone who suffers an injury at work or elsewhere, someone who works shifts or someone who loses their job and needs any means of income possible.

What the club is aiming to do appears to be tackled with a broad brush approach that doesn’t give leeway for those in the aforementioned scenarios, or similar.

City are a club with deep roots in fan and community welfare. Maybe not the best, but well intentioned. Letting Hyde FC shake buckets outside the Etihad to stave off administration comes to mind. And the things that look small but take effort, sensory rooms around the ground for example. And City In The Community needs little introduction. So the move is unlikely to be malicious or ill intended towards supporters.

Should fans only be looking to buy season tickets with the intention of going to all the games though (even if it might not work out that way)?

For health related reasons, there should be dispensation and a simple process for fans to document (not to submit for approval) but to advise the club of circumstantial changes. Or ‘the first one is free’ but if a fan attends less than ten games twice in a row, then they cannot renew. This would solve the issues around pregnancy, or many illnesses.

Buying and retaining a season ticket knowing you can’t make half the games should be policed. When I moved overseas, after two years of knowing I wasn’t coming back, I gave it up. That’s a seat another fan can have, rather than me control who gets to use it by sharing it or selling it to a small pool of fans I controls.

If the club is being asked to demonstrate equity, fans should demonstrate equality, and hoarding a seat shared with family and friends only takes one season ticket off the market and prevents other readily willing fans from going.

Surely there’s other compromise too (in addition to a two seasons of low attendance policy). Once and once only I’ll borrow an idea from the A League (which in fairness comes from the AFL). Renewable tickets with limited games, say five or ten.

It’s worked well in short form domestic English cricket, and whilst those aren’t renewable (there’s not enough demand that a fan runs the risk of not being able to get the same package the following year) there’s no reason football, and Manchester City couldn’t explore that.

If there’s one thing City can be accused of it’s perhaps jumping the gun and trying to put a blanket policy in place. But the fan response is a bit dramatic. There’s many examples when the fans have spoken the club has listened. It’s a missed opportunity to consult first and act second. Clubs need their fans and fans need their clubs. Put the talk of legal action aside hopefully common sense will prevail.