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A football weekend in England without Premier League prices

Watching a football match in England can cost less than twenty pounds. This is how to plan a weekend at Macclesfield FC.

By Dutch Silkmen · 2 October 2026

A ticket for a Macclesfield home game costs £18 on the terrace and £19 for a seat this season (source: Macclesfield FC, 15 July 2026). For comparison: the Premier League has a price cap of £30, and it only applies to away fans. For home fans there is no such ceiling.

That difference is what this page is about. You can do a weekend of English football without the tickets being the most expensive part of the trip. And you get something back that you rarely experience in a sold-out stadium with 60,000 people.

We are Dutch supporters of Macclesfield. This site exists because we go to those games ourselves. Below is what we have learned, including the things that disappoint.

What a weekend roughly costs

The biggest cost of a football trip to England is not the match. It is the flight and the hotel. That sounds obvious, but it does change the way you plan.

With an expensive ticket, you build the weekend around it: you only book the trip once you have the ticket. At eighteen pounds it works the other way round. You first look at when flights and hotels are reasonable, then pick a matchday that fits, and sort out the ticket last.

In practice, that is where most of the money is saved. It also has nothing to do with which club you visit: the same applies to any football trip to England away from the big clubs.

What we deliberately do not do on this site: quote prices for flights, hotels and train tickets. They change every week and every season. We can tell you where to look, though, and that is in the Macclesfield travel guide.

What you get for eighteen pounds

Moss Rose holds 5,350 people, 2,095 of them seated (source: Wikipedia, Moss Rose). The rest stand. That is the biggest difference from a visit to the Premier League straight away.

Standing is hardly offered any more in the top divisions. At this level it is simply the normal place for most supporters. You stand close to the pitch, you hear the players, and you are among people who know each other.

The second difference is access. No membership, no ballot and no waiting list of several years. You buy a ticket for the match that suits you.

The third difference is less romantic but just as real: there is no covered megastore with twenty tills, no stadium tour and no museum. If you are looking for a day out with a full programme around it, you will be disappointed.

Why Macclesfield in particular

Macclesfield is in Cheshire, south of Manchester. That is the practical reason: you fly into Manchester Airport, an airport with plenty of connections from the Netherlands, and continue by train.

So a football trip to Manchester and a visit to Macclesfield combine well. You can even sleep in Manchester and take the train on matchday. How that works exactly is in the travel guide.

The deeper reason is a different one. This club started again in 2020 after the old club disappeared. That means almost everyone you meet in the stands has made a conscious choice to be there. You notice it in the atmosphere.

See when they play

The fixtures and the table are on the fixtures page and are updated every night.

How to put the weekend together

The order that works best for us:

  1. Look at the fixtures first. Home games are usually on Saturday afternoon, but there are midweek evening games too. That makes quite a difference for a weekend trip.
  2. Only then check the flights. Manchester Airport is the nearest airport. Which airlines fly there from Schiphol or Eindhoven changes per season, so check for yourself.
  3. Book flexibly. Fixtures move because of television, cup games and the weather. The closer to the match, the more annoying a change is.
  4. Sort out your travel permit. Dutch travellers now need a travel permit for the United Kingdom. Arrange it well in advance and check the requirements on the UK government website, because they change.
  5. Choose your base. Macclesfield itself for the atmosphere, Manchester if you add a city break, or near the airport if you fly back early.

Getting tickets

You buy tickets from the club itself. That is the cheapest and most direct route, and for most visitors it works fine.

If you do run into trouble, for example with paying from the Netherlands or because you are coming with a larger group, you can have it arranged through The Football Travel Agency. That is the same company behind this site, so we say so openly.

Who this does not work for

To be fair, this is not for everyone.

If you want to see the players you know from television, you need the Premier League and you will pay more. That is a perfectly good choice, just a different one.

If you are travelling with people who do not care much about football, a small stadium in a provincial town is a hard sell. Manchester or Liverpool offers more to do around it.

And if you expect comfort, you will be disappointed. It is small, it can be cold and it rains regularly in Cheshire.

Where it does work: if you want to see what English football looks like without the layer of marketing on top. Then this is exactly the right place, and the ticket costs less than a pizza at Schiphol.

In short

Going to a football match in England does not have to be expensive. At Macclesfield you pay £18 for a terrace ticket and £19 for a seat this season, and that stays the same all season. The flight and the hotel decide your budget, not the match.

So plan the other way round: look at the fixtures and the travel costs first, then choose your match. The practical side, from the route from the station to where to stay, is in the Macclesfield travel guide.

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