Photograph yourself eating or drinking packed lunch, tweet it to the FA, add #ripofffacup and tag lineker, merson, crooks and trump. We could all take a vegetable and get a selfie with it inside the ground, that would be coooooool
I believe the FA are now considering allowing us 544 in the interest of making it a closer and more entertaining game.
We absolutely shouldn't. We simply don't have enough fans. That's just the way it is. It will never ever change. One day we'll be back in the championship and lower, and back to sub 10k crowds. It would be laughable if they were spread out in a 28k stadium or whatever. Hopefully the fact we cant sell out the joint first biggest match in our history will focus minds.
If the club does go ahead with expanding the stadium they will have to be creative regarding their ticketing policy. The proportion of season ticket holders would have to drop and pricing cuts could be looked at to entice occasional fans away from other clubs. In the 80s when football was less popular we would get about 14,000 for a bog standard league game against someone like Coventry but this would leap to 25,000 or more against the likes of Liverpool. Nowadays we have about 13,500 season ticket holders out of about 17,500 ‘home’ seats, so not much leeway for the occasionals. I would also not have any Family Stand season tickets, just lower price family deals on a match by match basis. It would help if Arsenal continue to have a mediocre team for a number of years since they draw a lot of their support from Herts.
It would be nice if season ticket holders actually turned up. Southampton last week, The Elton John stand looked half empty and next to me there is a family of four who I reckon have been to 3 games this season. I think we should expand as it is quite difficult to get tickets together if your cat C.
This is always going to be an issue when games do not stay as 3pm on Saturday as originally scheduled.
But after several years of PL football it can hardly surprise anyone that games get moved for TV. The days and times, and often the games likely to be moved, are usually predictable in advance. People can't really use that as an excuse.
Please provide us all with the revised fixture dates for the whole of next season on 14th June. We can then check how true your statement is this time next year.
It depends how far away they live, for me mid-week games are just about doable without leaving work early but anybody north of Northampton is going to struggle. That said, they could allow them to be resold (not sure if that scheme is still running?).
Think you've missed my point. You say Saturday 3pm is 'as originally scheduled' but come on, everyone knows there will be at least 4 fixtures every weekend moved for TV in the Premier League. We'll be on 10-12 times a season, so that's over a quarter of our matches. And after four years now we know they're most likely to move Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea and Man City of our home games (funny how many manage to make those games). Maybe a couple of other random ones. Then you've got movement for cups, others' European adventures or whatever and there's no such thing as 'originally scheduled'. Presumably you're not suggesting there are hundreds of people buying season tickets every summer, blissfully unaware that at least half our home games will not be Saturday 3pm kick offs? I accept the movement of games is a reason why some people don't make it a couple of times a season. It's no use blaming it for mass or regular non-attendance though. I'd argue if you buy a season ticket these days you're buying a seat at a game which will be played sometime between Friday night and Monday night. People need to ask themselves if they can commit to that. I just hope the club start dealing with it, though expect they won't to any large extent for fear of a petition or letters to the Wobby.
Think they scrapped that scheme so not sure what letting the club know would achieve?! I'm a ST holder and generally a midweek no-show-er. If I left work dead on 5pm, hit perfect traffic and magically found a space right next to the ground, I'd still miss the start of most games. I'd also be getting home after midnight. That's with a perfect run. Add in an inevitable delay on the M1 each way and 20 minutes finding a place to park and walk to the ground, I'd probably miss the first half. So a 5 hour round trip for 45 minutes of football is quite a lot of effort. Doing it on weekends is enough for me. Unfortunately this year all the later fa cup games that fall on prem weeks were all home games for us this year so all were moved.
Realised my response was a bit terse, not meant to be. I think the reply from Horace gives a good example of the problem. I think the issue (that the club say they are working on) is identifying the people who only turn up for the big games, not the people who cannot make some games that are rearranged.
Yeah I get it. But it also leads me to question why he bothers with a ST. I expect it's the usual reasons. People like the convenience and people they sit near, maybe have a decent renewal price which makes it cheaper than buying even 13 game-by-game tickets or are prepared to write off the surplus as a 'donation' if they can't even do that. The club could help a lot - stop granting top priority for everything to season ticket holders for a start to encourage some to give it up. People recognise it brings perks beyond having a seat for 19 games a season. It probably worked in the league below but it's too blunt a measure with the club in the top flight. Take a more rounded view of someone's support/loyalty/worthiness (whatever word applies). Maybe lower the priority awarded for simply buying a season ticket and start linking it to actual attendance. A points scheme like other clubs run would help with that. Why does the away ticket scheme grant priority for (home) season ticket holders? Does it need to? And start recognising people who buy most often match by match as equals with ST holders - if anything, they're paying more yet get lumped with everyone else in Cat A Home, which is a broad church. And they can't even get a season ticket, even if they're local and want one, because there's a pretty big waiting list and only a few hundred change hands every summer.
I suspect those joining the queue at the weekend have just got past the wheel of death and completed their purchases.
Yeah, they pretty much told me I was wrong and that it was a mixture of seats at Category 3 rather than specific seats - doesn't sound right to me but I couldn't be bothered to debate it.
Agree with your points, there should be a better way of measuring peoples actual attendance to games, home and away, to be used for ticket buying priority. The problem is, while most seats are sold (even if not used) there is no real incentive for the club to change. But as others have said, if we increase capacity and the club want to sell the tickets a better system is needed.
I saw a pair briefly in 135 today, asked if i could move from upper tier and swap, but alas not. Shame, but cant say i fancy the work of selling 30k ish tickets much. Despite my fascination with the seat map that wembley brings.
It's my first year up here to be honest and I didn't know how it was going to work out with timings and games. When you calculate it though, I miss 5 or 6 games and I'm still pretty much breaking even on single matchday tickets. Then I get the convenience of sitting in my usual seat in my usual stand. And why should I have to go to the trouble of fighting and scrambling to get a ticket v Man City with the glory supporters when I drag myself down on a ******* down and cold Saturday vs Huddersfield with the ground half empty. I've earn't my seat. And if we go ever down and the grounds half empty every week, I'll still have a season ticket and make every Saturday I can. But you'll all be fine with that then no doubt.
I reckon that as the next priority group is available from 9am tomorrow, a lot of people who that applies to would have been frantically getting category C fan IDs from anyone they can think of before tomorrow.
Someone i went to school with who was a Arse fan as a kid and took the piss outof me for me goingto and getting beat at Gillingham away, now has a watford season ticket. Lost count of the amount of times hes put on facebook this season his season ticket is avaliable. Of course he was there for the game against arsenal
Not knocking you personally. I'd rather go to the Huddersfield game than the Man City one. And it's not that much of a scramble for tickets for big games even now really. I'm not sure we've had a proper sell out at home all season. Yeah sometimes it's a pain having to remember to buy - that's probably the biggest downside. I don't buy into the 'I've earned my seat' mentality personally. Prefer to look at it that I've earned 'a' seat. Years ago, growing up, I had a prime ST seat in the East Stand. Then went off to the Lower GT when that closed, before ditching the ST when life took me a bit too far up the road. I haven't missed a game I've wanted to go to since in all that time. As I said in my last post, the onus is on the club to sort this out. There's no incentive for you to give up your season ticket, even with your changed circumstances. They've dug this hole and, if they're not going to substantially expand the stadium, they need to work out how to get out of it. They really need to think about the whole package though. And there are definitely a loads of people to go after before you.
Ok. Not earnt my actual seat as such. Earnt the right to have a reserved bum seat for each game. In any case, your argument above on one hand says we've not had a proper sell out all season and on the other says we need to substantially expand the stadium. What's the point if we barely sell out now. I can't see the issue needs to be addressed unless there's a significant increase in demand for season tickets. As @FromDiv4 above says, sort out the season tickets who ONLY show up for the 4 big games a year.
It seems to run okay. I’ve given up my ticket 3 times for midweek games and each time I’ve been informed that they have been released for resale. No idea if they sell or not though.
There's not been a sell out as while hundreds of plum seats sit there shiny and empty everytime we play someone outside the top 6, the only seats left available to buy online are singles with awful views. It hardly encourages someone to part with £40 of their hard earned cash if they have to sit on their own in a rubbish seat.
Anyway, in on topic news, 2700 extra tickets on sale tomorrow across all price categories amd 'all areas' to Cat C cup folk. https://www.watfordfc.com/matches/tickets/emirates-fa-cup-final-extra-tickets-sale-tomorrow @LaClusazSki @Cassetti's Beard
So the question is: are seats not being released for resale by season ticket holders? Or are club not processing the requests efficiently?
