Celtic fans hold up a banner protesting against high ticket prices at Hamilton in September

£52 for Rangers v Celtic. £34 to watch Hearts v Hibernian. £25 to see Livingston v Ross County. £24 for St Johnstone v St Mirren. Is Scottish football too expensive?

The Scottish Professional Football League says attendances rose in Scotland for the fourth consecutive year last season, but, with banners protesting against ticket costs appearing in the stands this term, BBC Scotland examines whether the game is becoming unaffordable.

'Normal supporters can't afford to go'

Rising ticket costs have been a concern for St Mirren fans group Northbank for some time. When in the Championship two seasons ago, they chose to protest a targeted price hike by Dumbarton by refusing to pay to go to the match, instead watching the game overlooking the ground from Dumbarton Rock.

And, after seeing Celtic fans display 'Twenty's Plenty' banners this season, the group decided to join in to make their voices heard.

Those running a regular St Mirren supporters bus transported members for free to Tynecastle for a league with Hearts last month in an attempt to offset the cost of a ticket. And, at the same match, away fans threw fake bank notes as well as displaying a banner. For them, enough is enough.

"The thing is a lot of normal fans and normal supporters can't afford to go to games now," says Josh Magennis, one of the founders of the group. "Especially following a team like St Mirren, if you're not playing well and have to fork out that amount of money, people are opting not to go, or simply cannot go.

"It's putting a lot of strain on supporters' buses as well because they're starting to lose regular members and it obviously has adverse effects on the pubs and clubs and things that people usually go to."

What do the rules say?

The SPFL's rules govern ticket prices for league matches in Scotland and state that the price of ticket is decided by the home side alone. They are free to set whatever figure they see fit.

There is a minimum price set for cup games but, if both clubs agree, they can be set lower. There is also a rule that away fans must not be charged more than home fans for "broadly comparable" seating.

This takes into account where in a stadium away fans are seated and whether the facilities, including toilet and catering, are of a comparable level. So, away fans in the main stand at a particular fixture could justifiably be charged more than home fans whose tickets are behind one of the goals, for example.

In practice there are rarely complaints of away fans being charged more than the home support for comparable seating.

Of course, the SPFL is a members' organisation and so these rules can be changed by the clubs themselves should enough of them wish to do so.

How do clubs set prices?

Fans' desire for lower prices is one thing but clubs need to cover their costs and, in Scotland, match-day income can amount for almost half of some teams' revenues.

BBC Scotland has spoken to one major Scottish outfit about the factors they consider when setting prices, and a crucial one is the need to sell season tickets. These provide clubs with a cash boost and allow them to budget for the season ahead, while also allowing them to know roughly how many people will be visiting their stadium every second week.

To make them appealing, they need to offer a significant discount, which means irregular supporters find a one-off ticket much more expensive, which in turn affects away fans. Clubs often discount tickets bought in advance compared to those bought on the day for similar reasons.

External factors, such as prices charged by comparable clubs, are considered but not key factors.

Many, but not all, Premiership clubs categorise games, which means different prices for different sets of fans. Kilmarnock, for example, explicitly external-link charge different amounts for the visit of Celtic and Rangers, while there is potentially an £11 difference in cost external-link for fans of the Old Firm, Hibernian or Aberdeen on a visit to Tynecastle compared with the other seven teams in the top flight.

These differences reflect the increased cost of policing and stewarding for bigger games, not just a desire for extra money.

Will things change?

In February this year, Premier League clubs in England unanimously agreed to extend a £30 cap on away ticket prices to the end of the 2021/22 season, a decision which was initially made for the start of the 2016/17 term.

This was a result of campaigning from the Football Supporters Association and fans across the country. For example, in 2016 Liverpool supporters staged a walkout in the 77th minute in protest at a £77 home ticket, which convinced the club's owners to scrap it.

So could fans force change in Scotland? The main obstacle is financial. When the cap was announced in England, the Premier League said their new £5bn covered the shortfall, but in Scotland clubs are far more reliant on gate receipts and associated income due to a far smaller TV rights contract.

One club told BBC Scotland that they have no wriggle room to reduce prices and they are as cheap as is feasible.

The second issue is the lack of co-ordinated fan approach. While clubs in Germany, for example, are able to unite around issues, Scottish football fans rarely speak with one voice.

The Celtic and St Mirren fans who have protested so far have done so in isolation of each other, something which Magennis thinks has to change if protests are to result in action. Even agreeing a way forward among a small group of St Mirren fans is proving tough.

"It's been very internal, there's not been any correspondence with any other supporters groups as of yet but I think that is something that, if we're going to make it work, has to happens in the future. It's cloudy looking - that's the way to put it. It's quite hard to see where the next step is going to be."

Scottish Premiership prices 2019/20