Pricing has to be attractive for families in the Championship

While I was pleased to read that the Premiership is finally looking to reduce away ticket prices for supporters with the BBC covering the story, I have found that you have to be on your lookout for good offers even in the Championship.

I have been quite careful to pick and choose which away games I can go an see this season. I hope to go to more away games than I have in previous seasons, but it's not easy when you have a couple of children that you also want to take and you are looking for favourable prices. That left me with a bit of a dilemma the other week when AFCB's October fixture ticket prices were announced for the Nottingham Forest and Leicester City away games.

The Nottingham match was particularly attractive to Cherry Chimes as a family away day because of the kids for a £1 initiative that Forest were offering with the half term a good opportunity to pull in more juniors to see the game. While the date was a bit of a problem for me with one of my sons having a prior karate grading commitment on the day, at least I'll be able to take my eldest son to see the match.

It was a real bonus to end up with Forest and Leicester tickets.

Having gone to University in Leicester and yet not gone to see the Foxes play at the old Filbert Street stadium I also wanted to go and see the Cherries at the new King Power stadium. That was until I saw their prices for under 18s and under 12s. It looked too expensive and I thought this would be one to miss out on and then, on Tuesday last week, AFCB announced that there was a mixed family zone for 150 supporters with fans under 18 and 12 now able to attend for £5 and £3, respectfully and £20 for adults. That was as long as you did not mind sharing the block with some Leicester City supporters. Wow! Result I thought and I was straight on the phone to book some tickets.

The discounted tickets are in support of the FA's respect campaign. When I phoned on Sunday, AFCB said some 200 tickets had been sold for the Leicester City game to AFCB supporters, so there are likely to be more mixed zone tickets still available, if you call in this week and want a good price.

Hopefully you should get my match reports now of both Forest and Leicester games and I'm particularly interested to report back on how the mixed family zone atmosphere is at the Leicester match. For those that listen to the excellent All Departments' Kangeroo Court podcasts, I'll also be talking with my friend Michael Dunne after the Nottingham Forest game, all things being well, to give some opinions on the Cherries and how the match went.

So Cherry Chimes will be racking up the miles again to cover some away games as well as the home matches from his Surrey base in these next few weeks. I am just pleased that petrol prices have also begun to fall back a bit. It all helps when you want to support your team.

Sadly, I am not going to do the Burnley away match as it is a bit too much travelling I have decided for me and my Junior Cherries, but it is good to see that that the club have put on a free coach for those who want to do the long journey.

Tomorrow we will have a Rival Lines with the Forest 24-7 blog. Blog writer Peter Ottaway notes that the Nottingham Post has not represented Forest in a very good light this week and you can read his opinion on his local paper here.