The whole spirit of football is that the game can be played at low cost with relatively low equipment.
Wigan Athletic’s trip to Stamford Bridge at the weekend highlighted so much that is wrong with the modern day game and how it is losing touch with the people that make the sport so enjoyable.
Firstly there is the unavoidable topic of ticket prices. The standard adult price for the game on Saturday was £49, a figure that if it were a telephone network would be advertised as more than 50p a minute.
Such an admission price is not for a premium seat with the best view, it is rather for a lofty view of the corner flag. Neither is the price for a prestigious cup final ticket, or a crucial league fixture, but rather for entrance to an innocuous precession of over-paid superstars which after ninety minutes means the home team has won.
Forgive me for not wanting to make the trip.
Picking up on the later point and the power is where the money is and as with most walks of life those with the money do not want to relinquish either the power or the money, and we end up with the usual cycle at the top of the table.
Manchester City aside, who largely bought the league title last year, and Blackburn who equally bought it ten years before them, all other winners of the Premier League have come from the small crux of powerful clubs and this cycle doesn’t look like being broken this year.
As equally un-satisfying as it is to travel at a high cost to London, the least satisfying part of a trip to follow the Latics at Chelsea is the knowledge that we are so unlikely to get a result. The odd blip aside a victory at one of the big clubs truly does feel like a miracle.
Wigan Athletic now operate in a league where success is represented by finishing 17th each season and continuing to roll along on the gravy train of Premier League money.
Whilst I cannot disagree that our present set up and manager continue to punch above their weight it somehow feels wrong that we have such modest ambitions.
But these ambitions are considered modest when considered in terms of success. Yes we dream of winning the league or even the FA Cup, but in reality both are little more than dreams.
To stay in the Premier League year after year represents a huge success for a club of our stature and represents a great ambition that we seek to do so year upon year, whilst growing off the field.
The issue is not with our own ambitions but with the hierarchy of football that has lead to such an uneven playing field whereby the smaller clubs are left to feed on the scraps of the bigger clubs.
Gone are the days where a team such as Reading can continue to ride high on the success of a promotion and go on to challenge in the top flight.
This is now starting to affect the football that is being played.
The aforementioned Reading came up with an attacking out-look on the game and were hoping to take teams by surprise. This approach culminated in a strong of defeats that finished with an embarrassing
home demolition by Arsenal.
The Royals are now receiving global praise for playing 4-5-1, being hard to beat, and grinding out results. Whilst there is nothing wrong with that, there are four teams chasing the title, and the remaining 16 are happy to stay in the division and that cannot be right.
Attendances are starting to dwindle, particularly the away followings are on the decline. To the point where Premier League attentions have been awoken as to the problem and must surely realise where the problem lies.
I am a fan of sport and a fair contest, and football could do well to look outwards away from its self-glorification and expectation that it will continue on the current path it is today.
There will come a day when the Manchester United fans become disgruntled at paying silly money to eat prawn sandwiches and see their team run out 4-0 winners every week.
There will come a day when the arm-chair supporters lose their interest, switch off their Sky subscriptions, and go to watch their local league club, they will want more than the glitz and glamour of the big names.
I dream of the day where football returns to its history, much as the game is played at grass roots level, and it is played for enjoyment.
The day when the global circus moves out of the Premier League and we’re left with the honest domestic game we once had, a game played by men for the intrinsic value of sport as opposed to any financial benefit.
We're lucky at Wigan that our family football club isn't as fashionable as others and we can enjoy top level sport with the most minimalist of detractions, but games such as Saturday's are as unattractive to Latics supporters as seeing Bolton doing well.
The cameras will turn off, the foreign stars will go home, and the money men will go chasing their pots of gold elsewhere. What’s more we will be left with the sport that we fell in love with, football.