Why is Everton a grade A game?

[Kirby_86 0]

Quite suprised at that decision to be honest.

[Beauseant 0]

[quote user="Kirby_86"]Quite suprised at that decision to be honest.[/quote]

 

I may be wrong, but I think games are graded when the fixtures come out. If so it seems quite a reasonable decision.

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

[quote user="Beauseant"]

[quote user="Kirby_86"]Quite suprised at that decision to be honest.[/quote]

 

I may be wrong, but I think games are graded when the fixtures come out. If so it seems quite a reasonable decision.

[/quote]

 

Beau, I don''t think that is the case, because late last year someone (possibly rather naively!) complained to McNally that every game seemed to be a category A, and McNally said there would be some B or C games, but didn''t say which. Which suggests that the decisions had not then been taken. And that makes a kind of sense. How would one rate our last game, against Villa? At the start of the season one might have assumed it would be vital, and a high category game. Now not so much.

[CharlieFarlie 0]

Its all ifs and buts, but if we win or even get 3 draws from Newcastle, Wolves and Fulham games and results elsewhere go in our favour the Everton game could be our confirmed survival game so that’s why I think this is cat A .

[Beauseant 0]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="Beauseant"]

[quote user="Kirby_86"]Quite suprised at that decision to be honest.[/quote]

 

I may be wrong, but I think games are graded when the fixtures come out. If so it seems quite a reasonable decision.

[/quote]

 

 

Beau, I don''t think that is the case, because late last year someone (possibly rather naively!) complained to McNally that every game seemed to be a category A, and McNally said there would be some B or C games, but didn''t say which. Which suggests that the decisions had not then been taken. And that makes a kind of sense. How would one rate our last game, against Villa? At the start of the season one might have assumed it would be vital, and a high category game. Now not so much.

[/quote]

Thanks for the clarification PC. It certainly makes more sense to decide closer to the actual fixture, in which case the OP is right to question Everton''s grade A status.

[Christov 3]

Its also Easter weekend so they''ll ramp up the price because of the increased demand from exiles visiting family. Like Fulham really on new years days.

[Mr. Bump 0]

They''ve practically sold out already.

[......and Smith must score. 1,342]

[quote user="Beauseant"]

[quote user="Kirby_86"]Quite suprised at that decision to be honest.[/quote]

 

I may be wrong, but I think games are graded when the fixtures come out. If so it seems quite a reasonable decision.

[/quote]It''s anything but a reasonable decision, Beauseant.......Yes, the fixtures are graded when they are first announced but it seems with a proviso that includes '' moveable goalposts ''.From memory - the original grading list published on the official site seems to have conveniently disappeared - there were just seven games graded at '' A ''. The list comprised the usual heavyweights in Man Utd, Man City, Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool together with the end-of-season home game against Villa. All fair enough....Now as the season has progressed we found that Newcastle and Fulham ( unbelievably ) were upgraded  to '' A ''.Now Everton has been added to that list. Personally as a season ticket holder it makes no difference to me what NCFC charge for casual tickets but with no disrespect to the Toffees I''d certainly think twice about shelling out a minimum of £53 to rent my piece of plastic for 90 mins when they roll into town........

[Wings of a Sparrow 1,414]

Just to echo some of the above sentiments..

The same question popped up when the Fulham game was classed as a Cat A game. (Hell that seems a long time ago now).

I think that the considered opinion was that categories of games were decided closer to the time of the game rather than at the beginning of the season.

You would think that rightly so Man U, Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham would be nailed on Cat A games due to (usual) Premier League placings, fan base etc.

Whereas Everton, Fulham, Villa etc – the middle ranking teams would be Cat B.

Cat C would be chosen from the (you would think) newly promoted teams (unless it was Piswich) and the perennial strugglers and/or teams with a smaller fanbase.

What has the breakdown been for Categories this year does anybody know?

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

[quote user="......and Smith must score."][quote user="Beauseant"]

[quote user="Kirby_86"]Quite suprised at that decision to be honest.[/quote]

 

I may be wrong, but I think games are graded when the fixtures come out. If so it seems quite a reasonable decision.

[/quote]

It''s anything but a reasonable decision, Beauseant.......

Yes, the fixtures are graded when they are first announced but it seems with a proviso that includes '' moveable goalposts ''.

From memory - the original grading list published on the official site seems to have conveniently disappeared - there were just seven games graded at '' A ''. The list comprised the usual heavyweights in Man Utd, Man City, Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool together with the end-of-season home game against Villa. All fair enough....

Now as the season has progressed we found that Newcastle and Fulham ( unbelievably ) were upgraded  to '' A ''.Now Everton has been added to that list.

Personally as a season ticket holder it makes no difference to me what NCFC charge for casual tickets but with no disrespect to the Toffees I''d certainly think twice about shelling out a minimum of £53 to rent my piece of plastic for 90 mins when they roll into town........
[/quote]

 

Apologies, Beau. Obviously from this I was wrong to think there hadn''t been an original grading at the start of the season. I did look on the official site to find one, and when I couldn''t rather assumed there never had been one. Seemingly a naive assumption!

 

I think the likelihood is that as the season has progressed, with success on the field, and near full houses, the club has decided it could up the grades. And I suspect the default position is that a game will be as highly graded as possible. So with Wolves being B I doubt there will be another category C game this season. Some posters may know, but was Wigan the only C game we have had so far? If so, that is a fair indication of how the grading policy is working.

[......and Smith must score. 1,342]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="......and Smith must score."][quote user="Beauseant"]

[quote user="Kirby_86"]Quite suprised at that decision to be honest.[/quote]

 

I may be wrong, but I think games are graded when the fixtures come out. If so it seems quite a reasonable decision.

[/quote]It''s anything but a reasonable decision, Beauseant.......Yes, the fixtures are graded when they are first announced but it seems with a proviso that includes '' moveable goalposts ''.From memory - the original grading list published on the official site seems to have conveniently disappeared - there were just seven games graded at '' A ''. The list comprised the usual heavyweights in Man Utd, Man City, Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool together with the end-of-season home game against Villa. All fair enough....Now as the season has progressed we found that Newcastle and Fulham ( unbelievably ) were upgraded  to '' A ''.Now Everton has been added to that list. Personally as a season ticket holder it makes no difference to me what NCFC charge for casual tickets but with no disrespect to the Toffees I''d certainly think twice about shelling out a minimum of £53 to rent my piece of plastic for 90 mins when they roll into town........[/quote]

 

Apologies, Beau. Obviously from this I was wrong to think there hadn''t been an original grading at the start of the season. I did look on the official site to find one, and when I couldn''t rather assumed there never had been one. Seemingly a naive assumption!

 

I think the likelihood is that as the season has progressed, with success on the field, and near full houses, the club has decided it could up the grades. And I suspect the default position is that a game will be as highly graded as possible. So with Wolves being B I doubt there will be another category C game this season. Some posters may know, but was Wigan the only C game we have had so far? If so, that is a fair indication of how the grading policy is working.

[/quote]With Mr McNally at the helm I suspect you''re right, PC.......Regarding Grade '' C '' games there certainly haven''t been many. Maybe Swansea was one ? The two televised games against Bolton and Sunderland in October may have been relegated to '' C''s '' as trousering £1 million from the TV companies we could afford to be a little generous in getting bums on seats.You mentioned earlier about the Villa game being of less importance now. That is certainly true as both teams have a real mid-table look about them.Just don''t hold your breath if you''re expecting to see that reflected in the ticket prices on the day.....

[CharlieFarlie 0]

Only 40 seats left so not had an impact on sales then !

[Cambridgeyellow 0]

I dont really get this thread. Wigan was a category C game and if we did sell out the home areas it was only on the day of the match. Everton is category A over the Easter break and has as good as sold out. In the bigger picture the Wigan game was a bigger game, however should we win our next few this could be for a European place.Clearly Lamberts budget would need to be reduced next year if we follow your principles and make certain sell outs less than maximum price. If you want to watch category c games you need to go when we play the likes of Wigan or is it the opposition you go to watch rather than NCFC

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

[quote user="Cambridgeyellow"]I dont really get this thread. Wigan was a category C game and if we did sell out the home areas it was only on the day of the match. Everton is category A over the Easter break and has as good as sold out. In the bigger picture the Wigan game was a bigger game, however should we win our next few this could be for a European place.Clearly Lamberts budget would need to be reduced next year if we follow your principles and make certain sell outs less than maximum price. If you want to watch category c games you need to go when we play the likes of Wigan or is it the opposition you go to watch rather than NCFC[/quote]

 

The point is that the club has decided it has three categories of games, in terms of entertainment value. On that basis the 19 games ought to be split up roughly one-third, one third,one third. So, say, seven As, six Bs and six Cs. What, perhaps totally predicatbly, has happened is that as the season has gone on the club has categorised the vast majority of games as A or B and very few (perhaps so far only one?) as C. So Fulham, which by no stretch of the imagination qualifies as a top game, ends up as an A. So the immediate point here is about fairness.

 

The longer term point is whether this is a sensible policy in terms of increasing support, in a recession, when you have a busines plan based on filling a 35,000-seat stadium for every game.

[Cambridgeyellow 0]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"]

[quote user="Cambridgeyellow"]I dont really get this thread. Wigan was a category C game and if we did sell out the home areas it was only on the day of the match. Everton is category A over the Easter break and has as good as sold out. In the bigger picture the Wigan game was a bigger game, however should we win our next few this could be for a European place.Clearly Lamberts budget would need to be reduced next year if we follow your principles and make certain sell outs less than maximum price. If you want to watch category c games you need to go when we play the likes of Wigan or is it the opposition you go to watch rather than NCFC[/quote]

 

The point is that the club has decided it has three categories of games, in terms of entertainment value. On that basis the 19 games ought to be split up roughly one-third, one third,one third. So, say, seven As, six Bs and six Cs. What, perhaps totally predicatbly, has happened is that as the season has gone on the club has categorised the vast majority of games as A or B and very few (perhaps so far only one?) as C. So Fulham, which by no stretch of the imagination qualifies as a top game, ends up as an A. So the immediate point here is about fairness.

 

The longer term point is whether this is a sensible policy in terms of increasing support, in a recession, when you have a busines plan based on filling a 35,000-seat stadium for every game.

[/quote]

So why have people bought the tickets for a category A game and not a category C game ? As an average the difference is about £17 per seat. There are about 6600 tickets on sale. Everton was an auto sell out even if you would have added another £5 to the price as was Man U Spurs Arsenal, Newcastle ect as the away supporters alone would have bought the tickets. So for this game you advocate a category C ( or at least get rid of some of the category A''s. This would cost the club around £115000 per game. Glad you dont run my business - client rings up and says I would like to buy all your stock for £1million your reply would be no have it for £660000.

Unfortunately football is not measured in fairness to the supporters anymore it is measured by the supporters in success or failure, there is nothing in the middle. If you want a second rate team I would suggest you start a campaign that says we would rather have savings on tickets and in return we are happy to have a smaller playing budget. Or maybe you think we should spend money we dont have ala Portsmouth. There is yet to be a category A game where the home areas did not sell out, so at a cost of £115000 which games do you think should have been changed to category C ?

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

[quote user="Cambridgeyellow"][quote user="PurpleCanary"]

[quote user="Cambridgeyellow"]I dont really get this thread. Wigan was a category C game and if we did sell out the home areas it was only on the day of the match. Everton is category A over the Easter break and has as good as sold out. In the bigger picture the Wigan game was a bigger game, however should we win our next few this could be for a European place.Clearly Lamberts budget would need to be reduced next year if we follow your principles and make certain sell outs less than maximum price. If you want to watch category c games you need to go when we play the likes of Wigan or is it the opposition you go to watch rather than NCFC[/quote]

 

The point is that the club has decided it has three categories of games, in terms of entertainment value. On that basis the 19 games ought to be split up roughly one-third, one third,one third. So, say, seven As, six Bs and six Cs. What, perhaps totally predicatbly, has happened is that as the season has gone on the club has categorised the vast majority of games as A or B and very few (perhaps so far only one?) as C. So Fulham, which by no stretch of the imagination qualifies as a top game, ends up as an A. So the immediate point here is about fairness.

 

The longer term point is whether this is a sensible policy in terms of increasing support, in a recession, when you have a busines plan based on filling a 35,000-seat stadium for every game.

[/quote] So why have people bought the tickets for a category A game and not a category C game ? As an average the difference is about £17 per seat. There are about 6600 tickets on sale. Everton was an auto sell out even if you would have added another £5 to the price as was Man U Spurs Arsenal, Newcastle ect as the away supporters alone would have bought the tickets. So for this game you advocate a category C ( or at least get rid of some of the category A''s. This would cost the club around £115000 per game. Glad you dont run my business - client rings up and says I would like to buy all your stock for £1million your reply would be no have it for £660000. Unfortunately football is not measured in fairness to the supporters anymore it is measured by the supporters in success or failure, there is nothing in the middle. If you want a second rate team I would suggest you start a campaign that says we would rather have savings on tickets and in return we are happy to have a smaller playing budget. Or maybe you think we should spend money we dont have ala Portsmouth. There is yet to be a category A game where the home areas did not sell out, so at a cost of £115000 which games do you think should have been changed to category C ?[/quote]

 

I think this is aimed at me. For starters there are not 6,600 tickets on sale for league matches. We have 22,000 season tickets, and the effective capacity is 26,700. So that is 4,700 casual sales, plus some buybacks, with up to around 2,700 of those being for away fans. So around 2,000-plus casual sales to home fans.

 

Secondly, I never said some As should have been Cs. You made that up. I said there should have been  fairer mix. Ie, some As being Bs and some Bs being Cs. Which was apparently what the club promised at the start of the season and has now been quietly shelved. Bearing that in mind,  in terms of the price differences between categories, A tickets are from £43, B from £33 and C from £28. So, taking those prices, the difference between an A and a B is £47,000, and the difference between B and C is £23,5000. Not to be sniffed at, but hardly close to your imaginary figure of £115,000.

 

Thirdly, I am all for running the business sensibly (and I am the very last person on this message-board to accuse of wanting to follow the example of Portsmouth or Hull) but fairness is not to be sniffed at. If you are going to have three pricing categories, then there have to be a reasonable number of games in the bottom grade. Otherwise you might as well just have two categories. Which is in effect what we have this season.


Fourthly, you need to understand my longer-term point. The business plan is based on filling a 35,000-seat stadium every game in the PL To achieve that you need to find 7,000 new Norwich City fans.

[Jim Smith 2,317]

For me its just unecessary penny pinching to keep categorising games as Category A when they are clearly not the big fixtures. I could understand it when we were cash strapped but now that matchday ticket revenue presumably comprises a much lower proportion of our overall income I feel the club needs to reconsider this.

I assume they will say that the fact its Easter saturday has something to do with it and will point to the fact that the game is almost sold out as vindication. However I think that is short term thinking. What concerns me most is this season we have p**sed off a few away clubs and fans through excessively high categorisation of games. I don''t think it was fair on fans of newcastle or fulham to have to pay category A prices and i think its very harsh on Everton fans to have to pay these prices for what is a mid table clash. As far as I can recall we were not charged as much when we went there. If we keep doing this then clubs will reciprocate next season when we go to them and it will be our away fans who suffer, not the club.

[Jim Smith 2,317]

PS this adjusting price bands as you go along is a new thing introduced by the current regime. In the past, so far as I can recall, the prices were fixed at the start of the season when the games were banded. It would be much fairer to go back to that with maybe flexibility for a couple of games to be converted into A games if circumstances dictate it is appropriate.

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

[quote user="Jim Smith"]

For me its just unecessary penny pinching to keep categorising games as Category A when they are clearly not the big fixtures. I could understand it when we were cash strapped but now that matchday ticket revenue presumably comprises a much lower proportion of our overall income I feel the club needs to reconsider this.

I assume they will say that the fact its Easter saturday has something to do with it and will point to the fact that the game is almost sold out as vindication. However I think that is short term thinking. What concerns me most is this season we have p**sed off a few away clubs and fans through excessively high categorisation of games. I don''t think it was fair on fans of newcastle or fulham to have to pay category A prices and i think its very harsh on Everton fans to have to pay these prices for what is a mid table clash. As far as I can recall we were not charged as much when we went there. If we keep doing this then clubs will reciprocate next season when we go to them and it will be our away fans who suffer, not the club.

[/quote]

 

Agreed. I am all for running the business well, but sometimes what looks good in the short-term is bad in the long-term. And next season, if - say - we have lost Wigan, Wolves and Bolton or QPR and gained West Ham, Southampton and Middlesbrough, it''s hard to see, based on this season, what games would be Cs. The honest thing would either be to scrap the C category, or admit hardly any games are going to be in it.

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man 3,820]

Supply and demand I guess... even at Category A prices, the game will still sell out. McNally will be aware of that, so I suppose he is doing because he knows he can, and maximise the gate receipts.

[Wings of a Sparrow 1,414]

They should just do away with the bullshit and have standard seat prices for the season.

[Jim Smith 2,317]

[quote user="Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man"]Supply and demand I guess... even at Category A prices, the game will still sell out. McNally will be aware of that, so I suppose he is doing because he knows he can, and maximise the gate receipts.[/quote]

Yes it is supply and demand but (i) the benefits we gain from it are relatively marginal when you look at the extra money ot brings in and (ii) Mcnally won''t be the one who has to shell out £50 to sit in the away end at Goodison next season when they hit us with tit for tat pricing.

[Canariesworld 0]

[quote user="Jim Smith"]

[quote user="Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man"]Supply and demand I guess... even at Category A prices, the game will still sell out. McNally will be aware of that, so I suppose he is doing because he knows he can, and maximise the gate receipts.[/quote]

Yes it is supply and demand but (i) the benefits we gain from it are relatively marginal when you look at the extra money ot brings in and (ii) Mcnally won''t be the one who has to shell out £50 to sit in the away end at Goodison next season when they hit us with tit for tat pricing.

[/quote]

They wont do that though because they have to charge their own fans the same price for the same areas. Looks like Everton is virtually a sell out already.

OTBC

[7rew 0]

I don''t see why they should be balanced.

There are three categories of club (before the start of the season)

T) Top 6: ManU, ManC, Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea, Liverpool

M) Middle 7: Newcastle, Sunderland, Everton, Fulham, Villa, Bolton, Stoke

B) Bottom 6: WBA, Wolves, Wigan, Blackburn, Swansea, QPR

Which would go category A, B and C naturally as you argue.

But there are also three kinds of matches:

GT) Bank holiday weekends and school holidays.

NT) Ordinary Weekends.

BT) Midweek Matches.

And of course Televised/Not. If you rank them with giving 3 points for T and time span GT, 2 points for M and time span NT and 1 point for B and time span BT and then taking off a point for it being on TV you could assign the bands:

A = 5 or 6 points

B = 3 or 4 points

C = 1 or 2 points

You get things like Fulham (M) on Dec 31st (GT) not on TV with 5 points in band A and Wigan (B) on March 11th (NT) on TV with 2 points in band C.

With the small number of midweek games and not really getting big teams on premium match rounds, we will have a higher number of band A than band C.

[......and Smith must score. 1,342]

[quote user="Jim Smith"]

For me its just unecessary penny pinching to keep categorising games as Category A when they are clearly not the big fixtures. I could understand it when we were cash strapped but now that matchday ticket revenue presumably comprises a much lower proportion of our overall income I feel the club needs to reconsider this.

I assume they will say that the fact its Easter saturday has something to do with it and will point to the fact that the game is almost sold out as vindication. However I think that is short term thinking. What concerns me most is this season we have p**sed off a few away clubs and fans through excessively high categorisation of games. I don''t think it was fair on fans of newcastle or fulham to have to pay category A prices and i think its very harsh on Everton fans to have to pay these prices for what is a mid table clash. As far as I can recall we were not charged as much when we went there. If we keep doing this then clubs will reciprocate next season when we go to them and it will be our away fans who suffer, not the club.

[/quote]Agree with you completely on this Jim.....What is the point of being seen as a bunch of greedy b*stards, especially for this Everton fixture, when, to all intents and purposes, we are safe in this League this season and the Club can look forward to another minimum £42 million for 2012/13 when the gravy train pulls into Carrow Road next time round.I paid £36 for my Upper Tier top price ticket at Goodison. I think the Lower Tier seats were about £3 cheaper. Compare that to the outrageous £45 we''ll be charging the Toffees fans. ( even the under 16''s price is a whopping £25 and if you''re lucky enough to be under 12 you''ll still be stung £15 ! )As far as I recall Everton are pretty cash strapped at present but they were far more reasonable with their pricing structure especially bearing in mind everyone knows we have a huge away following. They could quite easily have asked us to pay a bit more and got away with it. Do we really need to be like this ?

[norfolkbroadslim 223]

Newcastle away tickets are £26 for adults, which is significantly less than what Newcastle fans had to pay in their away game against us.  However, what must be borne in mind here is that to Norwich Newcastle is a bigger game than Norwich is to Newcastle.  This can also be applied to other games and hence why there is a discrepancy with the pricing for corresponding fixtures. 

 

Regarding the increase to 35,000, with this we would see more grade C and B games.  With an increase in supply one would probably assume a reduction in price.  However, the club would sell more season tickets (how many more?, I don''t know) and have to give up more away tickets with a 35,000 capacity.  There would still be more casual tickets available though, but perhaps not the number that some are thinking.  But, you would think, that initially at least, the prices for some games would be lower, until, or if it ever even became apparent that we could fill the stadium as easily as we are doing now and then you would see the prices increasing again.

 

I can see both sides of the arguement here, but with relatively small supply and a fairly large demand the club can fill the stadium whilst charging more money, but at what cost (if any) to attracting more fans to the club for the not too distant future when the capacity is increased?  

 

The fans who perhaps couldn''t afford to pay (or would refuse to pay) Grade A prices for certain games wouldn''t necessarily get in to see the games if they were Grade B or Grade C because they are being sold out at Grade A prices anyway.  This arguement would only be valid if many seats were going unsold at Grade A prices.

[norfolkbroadslim 223]

[quote user="norfolkbroadslim"]

Newcastle away tickets are £26 for adults, which is significantly less than what Newcastle fans had to pay in their away game against us.  However, what must be borne in mind here is that to Norwich Newcastle is a bigger game than Norwich is to Newcastle.  This can also be applied to other games and hence why there is a discrepancy with the pricing for corresponding fixtures. 

 

Regarding the increase to 35,000, with this we would see more grade C and B games.  With an increase in supply one would probably assume a reduction in price.  However, the club would sell more season tickets (how many more?, I don''t know) and have to give up more away tickets with a 35,000 capacity.  There would still be more casual tickets available though, but perhaps not the number that some are thinking.  But, you would think, that initially at least, the prices for some games would be lower, until, or if it ever even became apparent that we could fill the stadium as easily as we are doing now and then you would see the prices increasing again.

 

I can see both sides of the arguement here, but with relatively small supply and a fairly large demand the club can fill the stadium whilst charging more money, but at what cost (if any) to attracting more fans to the club for the not too distant future when the capacity is increased?  

 

The fans who perhaps couldn''t afford to pay (or would refuse to pay) Grade A prices for certain games wouldn''t necessarily get in to see the games if they were Grade B or Grade C because they are being sold out at Grade A prices anyway.  This arguement would only be valid if many seats were going unsold at Grade A prices.

[/quote]

 

....Although this isn''t necessarily the case for all games or would only account for part of any discrepancy.

[SwindonCanary 455]

Why the hell are games graded when every game is a sell out ?

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="Jim Smith"]

For me its just unecessary penny pinching to keep categorising games as Category A when they are clearly not the big fixtures. I could understand it when we were cash strapped but now that matchday ticket revenue presumably comprises a much lower proportion of our overall income I feel the club needs to reconsider this.

I assume they will say that the fact its Easter saturday has something to do with it and will point to the fact that the game is almost sold out as vindication. However I think that is short term thinking. What concerns me most is this season we have p**sed off a few away clubs and fans through excessively high categorisation of games. I don''t think it was fair on fans of newcastle or fulham to have to pay category A prices and i think its very harsh on Everton fans to have to pay these prices for what is a mid table clash. As far as I can recall we were not charged as much when we went there. If we keep doing this then clubs will reciprocate next season when we go to them and it will be our away fans who suffer, not the club.

[/quote]

 

Agreed. I am all for running the business well, but sometimes what looks good in the short-term is bad in the long-term. And next season, if - say - we have lost Wigan, Wolves and Bolton or QPR and gained West Ham, Southampton and Middlesbrough, it''s hard to see, based on this season, what games would be Cs. The honest thing would either be to scrap the C category, or admit hardly any games are going to be in it.

[/quote]

 

Michael Bailey has very kindly now provided the gradings for this season, up to and including the Everton game. We have had seven As, eight Bs, and one C.

 

The three games yet to be graded (Man City, Liverpool and Aston Villa) are all likely to be As. Villa was apparently categorised as such at the start of the season and it is hard to see the other two being anything but As. If so we will have had ten As, eight Bs and one C. That makes a nonsense of a three-grade system.

[......and Smith must score. 1,342]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"]

 Michael Bailey has very kindly now provided the gradings for this season, up to and including the Everton game. We have had seven As, eight Bs, and one C.

 The three games yet to be graded (Man City, Liverpool and Aston Villa) are all likely to be As. Villa was apparently categorised as such at the start of the season and it is hard to see the other two being anything but As. If so we will have had ten As, eight Bs and one C. That makes a nonsense of a three-grade system.

[/quote]Exactly !!If a grading system is to be used then we must stick to it. You can''t go adding three extra Grade '' A '' games willy-nilly and then screw the customer even further with ridiculous '' B '' gradings for the home games against WBA, Sunderland and Wolves, particularly as the first two were live on TV.