Tips for seeing a Football Match

Craven Cottage is the home of Fulham FC who are not in the Premiership but the Championship (2nd Tier).

For Premiership tickets the first thing to consider is that reselling tickets other than by registered partners is illegal. Buying through that route gives a very high risk of scamming, no ticket or entry refusal.

First consult the website of the London or vicinity Premiership teams. They are currently Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham, Watford. They will tell you how to obtain tickets and the current schedule of home EPL games but bear in mind these dates may change. Then look at their routes for purchasing tickets but this may well be only the hospitality route which will be very expensive.

You may want to consider or league such as the Championship at Fulham, QPR, Brentford, Charlton Athletic etc. Tickets are generally easier to obtain for tier 2 and below.

Crystal Palace are also at home on the 4th April (currently). Tickets for their match with Burnley may be marginally easier to get than some others.

Premiership tickets are harder to come by plus these matches are likely to get moved anytime between Friday and Monday to suit the tv schedules, so opt for a Championship match.

Book the tickets direct with the club through their website. Your best options would be Brentford or Fulham. Avoid Charlton v Millwall, as this will be busier, being a local derby.

Jennifer is a bit too polite about reasons to avoid Charlton - Millwall, the truth is that it's one of the traditionally worst hooligan flashpoint matches in the London area.

Philip got it right.

I used to have a boss who was a Millwall supporter. Say no more.

For a nominal fee, you buy a membership in a club. That is what we had to do this year to get tickets to a Chelsea match.

We did it right when the season started, but you could probably do it now. After you buy a membership (we paid about $30 each for the Chelsea memberships) you are able to buy tickets on what Chelsea calls their "ticket exchange." I believe that other top teams (Arsenal and Tottenham for sure) also do it the same way.

So, you buy your membership, then log into the exchange where season ticket holders who can't make it to a particular match put their seats up for sale. And you score your tickets there. No buying from touts on the street (and getting arrested, or kicked out of the stadium.)

Unlike in the States, the tickets on the Premier League team exchanges are NOT re-sold at a premium. We got ours for basically the same price that regular tickets would cost. And we didn't have to buy a "hospitality" package, which is CRAZY EXPENSIVE. We got decent seats, too.

You might think buying a membership in order to have the privilege of buying tickets is too expensive, but in fact, it is FAR less expensive than hospitality. You can generally buy a junior ticket along with an adult ticket, too, without a separate membership for each child. (Each club has their own rules, so double check.)

Also, we found that (at least at Chelsea's Stamford Bridge) the prices for a program (three pounds fifty) and a beer (five pounds) and a burger (seven pounds fifty) in the stadium were insanely less than buying food and beverages when seeing any kind of sporting match in America. So you will still come out ahead!