Great value on offer at the Camrose

I HAVE got some good news for Basingstoke football fans – season tickets at the Camrose are the cheapest in the Conference South.

I have to admit that I almost glossed over the announcement of the club’s season and matchday ticket structure for the 2014-15 season a few weeks ago.

However, on noticing that St Albans, who have just been promoted to the same league, plan to charge £15 for matchday admission, I decided to have a look at how much clubs are asking supporters to pay.

I managed to find 2014-15 prices for 17 of the 22 teams, while I had to settle for last season’s prices for another three. I couldn’t find any information for Whitehawk, who it seems have recently moved websites.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by what I found.

Basingstoke Town are charging £160 for an adult season ticket. It doesn’t sound amazing on its own, but no other club in the division is charging less, and all bar two are asking for more.

In fact, 11 Conference South clubs are asking supporters to splash out more than £200 for their season tickets, with the most expensive being St Albans, who seem to have gone a bit crazy with their pricing and are charging £252 – £92 more than Town.

There’s more good news for families, with junior season tickets costing just £20, again one of the cheapest in the division.

I have always thought that charging £12 for matchday admission to the Camrose was a bit much. I have to point out that it is totally in line with other clubs in the division, with 13 of them charging the same price, but it still seems a bit of a stretch.

However, buy a season ticket and it will cost you £7.62 per game, which is really good. Even better is the news that dads (or mums) can take two children to every league game of the season for £200 – that’s under £10 a time.

Put it like that, and a season ticket at the Camrose looks like really good value.

Basingstoke Gazette:

Far from a happy camp at Mercedes F1

MERCEDES continue to go from strength to strength in Formula 1. In fact, it’s hard to see anyone else winning a single race all season.

That could make for another boring season, but the Mercedes drivers seem determined to keep things interesting, one way or another.

Earlier in the season, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg treated us to an enthralling ding-dong battle at Bahrain, while last weekend’s events at Monaco were certainly intriguing.

The pair are supposed to be good friends, having grown up together on the motor racing circuit – but things seem far from cordial within the team at the moment.

Things came to a head at the end of qualifying on Saturday. Rosberg had recorded the fastest time in the early stages of the shoot-out for pole position, but during his second run he overshot a corner and parked his car in a run-off area.

As a result, everybody, including Hamilton, was unable to challenge his time as yellow flags around the incident meant drivers were unable to go full bore for the whole lap.

There was a suggestion that Rosberg may have parked up intentionally, to stop anyone beating his time, but the stewards ruled otherwise and with overtaking so difficult at Monaco, he romped to victory the following day.

Nobody apart from the man himself will ever really know what happened, but I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt, mainly because I don’t believe he would have been able to think up such a cunning plan while driving at high speed through the streets of Monaco.

Hamilton was far from happy in his post-race interviews, though. Whether that was simply frustration or a more deep-rooted anger, I don’t know, but it’s kept things interesting.

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