Mel Barrett Loses Carrow Road Seat After 62pc Price Hike
Mel Barrett says he has been priced out of his Carrow Road hospitality season ticket after Norwich raised the cost by 62pc, lifting the bill from £2,122 to £3,435. The 76-year-old pensioner says the increase has ended six years in the Sir Arthur South lounge and forced him to give up a place that had become part of his routine.
The rise added £1,313 to the ticket Barrett had saved for by cutting back on holidays and other luxuries. He says that is no longer possible on a pension, leaving him without the seat he had used as a regular home at the ground.
Mel Barrett and Carrow Road
Barrett has been going to Norwich football stadium for decades and says the club’s price change has shut him out. He lives in Thetford, is retired and volunteers for the council as a driver taking people to and from hospital.
For him, the loss is not just about access to a matchday seat. He says the lounge gave him a regular place after his wife died 10 years ago, and the people around him there became part of his week.
Sir Arthur South lounge
“I cannot afford it. I am a pensioner there are a lot of people with money who can, but I used to skip holidays and things so I could afford my season ticket,” Barrett said. That increase turned a seat he could once protect by saving elsewhere into a cost he says he cannot meet.
He also said, “The club changed, it was a family club, I took my kids there and I have been all over the ground and then I found my niche, and now it is gone.” He added, “I lost my wife 10 years ago and I made friends up there.”
Norwich pricing change
Barrett said, “The staff all call me Mel and know me well,” and argued, “They are a championship club, they should not be charging that.” For supporters in similar seats, the hard number is simple: the increase was 62pc, and his hospitality ticket jumped by more than a thousand pounds in one go.
His case leaves a sharper question than the price itself. A long-time fan who had built his matchday life around the Sir Arthur South lounge has now lost it, and the change has turned a familiar seat into something he says he can no longer buy back.
