‘You got your education from The Kop’. An old-school chant about growing up supporting Liverpool. But it seems increasingly that’s no longer the case.

A report published by the BBC has found that young adults, 18-24-year-olds, are ‘put off’ going to football by the cost. Four out of every five asked – a whopping 82% – said it was too expensive. And that is despite more than 80% of Premier League match tickets having been frozen or reduced in the past couple of seasons. In fact, the average cost of tickets in the English top flight is at its lowest for four years.

This hasn’t just happened. Young people have been frozen out gradually over the past years as clubs continued to put up prices, making it difficult, if not impossible, for them to buy a ticket. Now we have the situation where the younger generation aren’t going to games at all.

There was no increase in the cost of a like-for-like season ticket at Anfield this year, but Liverpool still have the third highest-priced season tickets in the Premier League, behind Chelsea and Arsenal.

Liverpool FC are most likely well into the planning stages of their ticket budgets for next season, 2018/19. The club’s newly set up fans’ forums were meant to begin back in September, but as yet there is no date for the first meeting of the Ticket Pricing Forum. Spirit of Shankly urge the club to set a date for this and to actively engage with us and those involved in the supporter forums when fixing the new prices.

As advocates of reduced-price tickets for young adults, SOS would welcome this subject being discussed at the upcoming forums, along with a policy for fans turning 65 during the season to have their age-related season-ticket discount applied at the start.

We will keep you posted when we have any updates or information to share.