Manchester United fan, 76, feeling ‘helpless’ as family seat is given to VIPs

A Manchester United fan said he feels “helpless and hopeless” after being evicted from the seat his family have held since just after the second world war to make way for £300-a-head VIPs.Tony Riley, whose father-in-law played for United under Sir Matt Busby, is among 1,100 supporters forced to move under cash-boosting plans overseen by Sir Jim Ratcliffe.The prime seats near the dugout in the Sir Bobby Charlton stand will be reallocated to hospitality from next season.“We feel it’s an injustice, not just for us but all the others as well,” said Riley, 76, whose family has used the seat continuously since 1949, when United returned to Old Trafford after the war. “I just feel really sad about it. I feel helpless and hopeless”.The Sir Bobby Charlton stand shortly after its renaming in 2016. Photograph: Alex Livesey/Getty ImagesFor £315 a head, VIPs will be offered “some of the best seats in the house” – and a three-course meal at Gordon Ramsay’s Lucky Cat restaurant – in the spot where Riley and his family have sat for nearly 80 years.Those hoping to “impress key business contacts” can pay £425 a seat for “the most premium” game-watching experience, with “luxury padded seats”, champagne and sommelier-selected wines. The cheapest adult season ticket, by contrast, is £646.Even though his name is engraved in the seat, Riley feared the move was coming when a neighbouring block of 600 fans was turfed out last year for what he called “the prawn sandwich brigade” – the passionless corporate fans lambasted by the United captain Roy Keane in 2000.He said: “I now have the pleasure of sitting next to them. I don’t begrudge them [but] they spend more time taking selfies than anything else. They’re not hardcore supporters.”By the start of the next Premier League season in August, about 1,100 lifelong fans will have been forced to make way for hospitality in the Sir Bobby Charlton stand since Ratcliffe’s arrival in February 2024.Ratcliffe at Old Trafford in 2024. Photograph: Plumb Images/Leicester City FC/Getty ImagesRiley’s father-in-law, Laurie Cassidy, played for United’s first team under Busby in the late 1940s, with several of his trophies in the club museum.Cassidy, who died in 2010, taught the club greats Nobby Stiles and Brian Kidd while headteacher at St Patrick’s primary school, in Collyhurst, and later worked for United, helping trainees including a young David Beckham.Riley, who lives in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, still attends virtually every home game despite the 180-mile, near four-hour round trip to Old Trafford. From next season, he has been told he will no longer be able to sit next to his son as there are not two available seats together.“It’s going more like American football,” Riley said, with top English clubs increasingly banking on big-spending visitors rather than long-serving fans who “just want to watch the football, support the team and have a moan and groan”.Manchester United Supporters Trust (Must) said it always opposed compulsory moves for fans, and that “being moved for yet more hospitality is especially galling”.A Must spokesperson said it was a “major concern” that families and wider groups could be split up in the moves, urging United to work with those affected.There are concerns too that handing about 1,200 tickets to VIPs every year means those on the season ticket waiting list, who paid £100 for a deposit, will have to wait even longer for a seat.Manchester United supporters at Old Trafford in January. Photograph: Carl Recine/Getty ImagesRiley’s daughter, Catherine Riley, 49, accused the club’s leadership of an “absolute failure … to understand, let alone value, the fans that turn out whatever the weather, the day of the week or the competition to cheer their team on”.She added: “I know that Premier League football is a business now, perhaps even more than it is a sport.“But I am incensed by the treatment of my dad, who is not ‘high net worth’ enough to justify keeping a seat he has earned through a lifetime of supporting a club that is literally part of my family’s history.”She said it was as though loyal fans were in an “abusive relationship” with the club, “whereby United are telling my dad he is not good enough even as he continues to show his unblinking loyalty to the club”.“He is going to accept being moved to another seat with a poorer view of the pitch because he cannot leave – and they know that,” she said.As it stands, Riley and hundreds of others will return to their seats only four more times before the VIPs move in. Their final Premier League match at Old Trafford this season will be on 17 May against Nottingham Forest.The club said it was committed to keeping families and groups together during the relocations, which it acknowledged were inconvenient and could have an emotional impact on fans.