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The Campaign for Better Transport (CfBT) has called on top football clubs to help fans tackle the spiralling cost of getting to matches and warned that poorly organised and increasingly expensive transport options could leave fans priced out of football.

Last season the Football Supporters’ Federation launched the Away Fans Feedback Project – an ambitious project which aims to measure the experience of the travelling fan.

While attention in recent weeks has naturally been focussed on the Twenty’s Plenty campaign on away ticket prices, the FSF has been working for some time on a range of projects to help improve the lot of the travelling fan, including our Away Fans Feedback Project.

Last week we explained how Southend United fans who had travelled to their side’s game at Aldershot Town were left out of pocket after the game was abandoned at half-time. This was because the Shots have a policy not to refund tickets in such circumstances and, after a little research, we found out that this was actually pretty common across the leagues.

If you’d travelled almost 200 miles to watch your side on Boxing Day and the game was abandoned mid-match due to floodlight failure you’d expect to get your money back, right? Wrong. It’s likely you’d receive no refund as hundreds of Southend United fans found out after their team’s game at Aldershot Town was called off. While this issue was brought to our attention by an incident at the Shots many other clubs have this policy too.

Football fans are going the distance in support of their team – and it’s an average 1,970 miles a season for domestic games across the Premier League and Football League, according to Virgin Money’s Football Fans’ Inflation Index.The most miles a season are clocked up by West Bromwich Albion fans who claim to put in 3,290 miles a season going to league matches – an average of 86 miles for every Premier League game beating the 2,471 miles – or 65 miles a game – clocked up at Manchester City. Across the city Manchester United fans put in 2,238 miles a season or 58 miles a game.

Premier League football is an expensive business nowadays and after you’ve forked out £39.50 for a ticket at the very least you’d expect to be able to watch 90 minutes of football, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately this wasn’t the case for Everton fan Ian Buffey at Spurs last Saturday after he was refused entry to the stadium despite having what should have been a valid ticket.

The big freeze has seen fixtures disappear quicker than a snowman in summer. Were all the postponements really necessary though? We think that many games could actually have gone ahead and yesterday The Sun asked FSF chair Malcolm Clarke to explain exactly why winter games are getting the cold shoulder…

Cardiff City fans will tomorrow (Tuesday December 8th) hold a protest following West Bromwich Albion’s decision to cut the Bluebirds’ ticket allocation to 1,300 – teams are normally given around double this at the Hawthorns. Cardiff City Supporters’ Club (CCSC), an FSF affiliate, is organising the action which will take place outside Sandwell Police Station (in the centre of West Bromwich, one mile from the ground) at 6pm for around 15 minutes. This will allow everyone to attend the game itself and will cause no disruption to locals, just the authorities who sanctioned the ticket reduction.

The FSF is pleased to confirm that it will be running another one of its famous Fans’ Embassies for the Champions League Final in Rome. Following on from the success of our efforts in Athens and Moscow, as well as our years of experience following the England national side, we will have a team of volunteers out in Rome on the 26th and 27th May offering information and advice to Manchester United fans ahead of their clash with Barcelona at the Stadio Olimpico.

The FSF is pleased to announce that we will be out in Rome for the Champions League Final on Wednesday, May 27th, and should hopefully be operating one of our famous Fans’ Embassies. For those not in the know Fans’ Embassies offer information and advice to travelling supporters and appear at every England game. FSF Cymru also has its own version for Wales trips abroad while the FSF ran one for the last two Champions League Finals in Moscow and Athens.

Reading fans looking to make the trip to Carrow Road for the clash with Norwich City on the evening of Monday, April 27th, have been given a boost. The club have announced that they will be laying on free coach travel for supporters, in conjunction with the Supporters’ Trust at Reading (STAR).