[Albion] Away fans in home ends

[Herr Tubthumper]

I was on that train. Got a seat eventually but away from my mates and opposite a middle aged, middle class Dutch couple in brand new Liverpool scarves who spent the journey reading and drinking coffee. Further down a lot of people on their own in this season’s home Liverpool kit. Obviously easier to get singles if you want the home end.

The journey was livened up a bit from Crewe by some very cockney (and funny) Dagenham fans.

When you’re doing a long away, half the fun is banter and drinking on the train there and back. Not sitting on an overbooked sauna watching a Dutch women drinking an overpriced hot beverage and multiple Londoners on their own, glued to their phones.

I appreciate it's quite niche, but I'd rather enjoy this. Each to their own.

 

[WhingForPresident]

View attachment 191777From the Argus fan gallery if anybody was wondering what about half the away end looked like yesterday. Our support has never been elite but yesterday was a new low. It needs sorting out.

Danny Dyer's let himself go

 

[Guinness Boy]

That's a completely ridiculous comparison.

It is.

I'd offer up as a way of 'doing it properly' my mate who lives on my road who was born and bred in South Manchester and is a local and dyed in the wool United fan.

However, he moved down here and has now lived in the Brighton area for a lot of his adult life. He has a ST in the Amex East Stand where he takes his son who is Brighton mad, has all the gear, teases him when we (regularly) beat United and will be the next generation of proper home STH supporting his local team.

The dad can talk very informatively about us, wants us to win when it doesn't affect United and has loads of Brighton supporting mates. However, for one of the United away games, four of us including him went up there for the weekend. The three Brighton fans were in the away end and he got a ticket in the home end (he still 'knows people' from living up there).

That's the right way to do it.

I've nothing against people who have a big club team but also follow a non-league club. That's helping the little club. I've nothing against people like my mate who do things the right way. But having a Brighton ST or a mate with 1901 just so you can watch your real club from the away end is not on.

 

[bobbysmith01]

IMO 1901 away tickets should be changed. I don't give a toss how much they pay, their entitlement should only be applicable to home matches they should be treated exactly the same as "normal" fans for away matches. Have a named person on each 1901 allocation and their tickets are not transferable.

To be honest, a 1901 member has to have the correct number of points to buy an away ticket. Yes as you correctly state they can then allocate to another person. I have done this before to a good friend who is a fan of 50 years plus, ex1901 and lives up north and goes to 75% of games home and away, but does not have enough points, sometimes for some games. Think maybe you have a point, but not every case, plus they have taken away a lot of perks they promised when purchasing the 1901 deal all those years ago like, free hot drinks, first call on other events, like rugby, concerts, internationals.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

I am making the assumption that many of the Liverpool fans in the away end managed to pick up tickets at Albion + level.
I guess if they've paid their money for this opportunity, the club can do little about it.

It was a great opportunity for some of the Tier 2 and Tier 3 mob to boost their points and get a visit to probably the most iconic away game in the league. Disappointing we couldn't sell this out at a Season ticket holder level.
I see there are still 620 tickets available for Leicester, which is a much cheaper trip, with 15 (FIFTEEN) loyalty points available
Looks like the keenness for away games has dropped, now there aren't the prospect of European away trips on offer.

My First time at Anfield and whilst the result was annoying, I couldn't fault the racket their support made for the last 30 minutes.
Without doubt, the most intimidating atmosphere, I've encountered at an away game.
Makes a mockery of the claims by our friends up the road, of having the best atmosphere in the Premier League.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

To be honest, a 1901 member has to have the correct number of points to buy an away ticket. Yes as you correctly state they can then allocate to another person. I have done this before to a good friend who is a fan of 50 years plus, ex1901 and lives up north and goes to 75% of games home and away, but does not have enough points, sometimes for some games. Think maybe you have a point, but not every case, plus they have taken away a lot of perks they promised when purchasing the 1901 deal all those years ago like, free hot drinks, first call on other events, like rugby, concerts, internationals.

I have a great deal of sympathy for fans who can't justify a season ticket, but pay full whack for 10+ home games and all of the away games they get a ticket for.

Good friend of mine decided to give his season ticket up after 12 years and then went on to do 12 home games the following season.
Missed out on the opportunity for Europa league away games.

He would have been better off keeping the season ticket and exchanging them.

Them's the breaks I guess

 

[Brovion]

...

My First time at Anfield and whilst the result was annoying, I couldn't fault the racket their support made for the last 30 minutes.
Without doubt, the most intimidating atmosphere, I've encountered at an away game.
Makes a mockery of the claims by our friends up the road, of having the best atmosphere in the Premier League.

Also makes a mockery of those who (when people complain about the Amex atmosphere) say "Oh all Premier League grounds are like that". We know we can turn it on for 'big' games, Liverpool fans can turn it in for humdrum league games against non-elite opposition.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

Also makes a mockery of those who (when people complain about the Amex atmosphere) say "Oh all Premier League grounds are like that". We know we can turn it on for 'big' games, Liverpool fans can turn it in for humdrum league games against non-elite opposition.

Yeah but they were as quiet as the Amex for 60 minutes when we had the upper hand.

No different to the Amex in that regard

Edit: and in truth, when we are 0:1 down and start to make a fist of it, the atmosphere get's significantly better too.
It isn't anything to do about the humdrum nature of a game, it's always about what's happening on the pitch.
On Saturday we started sitting deep and invited them on. The Liverpool fans reacted to that and urged their team on. We would have done the same.... but nowhere near as loud, nor from 4 massive stands

 

[Hotchilidog]

It was hard getting songs going on Saturday. Luckily there was a vocal group near us in AL8 and we were able to make a contribution. The sound did seem to disappear into the ether though with the removal of the roof that was previously there. Absolutely stunned to hear there were Liverpool fans in our end, totally out of order and I do hope that the discussions with customer services yield results. Seemed to be all Albion by me though, a lot of familiar faces.

 

[Talby]

I have a great deal of sympathy for fans who can't justify a season ticket, but pay full whack for 10+ home games and all of the away games they get a ticket for.

Good friend of mine decided to give his season ticket up after 12 years and then went on to do 12 home games the following season.
Missed out on the opportunity for Europa league away games.

He would have been better off keeping the season ticket and exchanging them.

Them's the breaks I guess

As long as you personally attend five home matches then the exchange system works.

But i’ve been quite seriously ill recently and getting the ‘we noticed you didn’t attend the *** match at the Amex’ emails from the Club do kind of get on my wick. They’ve got my money and, as much as they’d like me to exchange my ticket, I don’t necessarily want some random (potential away supporter) sitting with my family and friends.

Likewise, if you’ve got kids who have season tickets since they were very young then the club sending them similar emails when they’re at university is equally crap.

The club want bums on seats - I get that - but if you’re meeting your obligation to pay via DD then that’s the financial relationship sorted.

The club have a very peculiar interpretation of the word ‘loyalty’.

 

[HH Brighton]

I am making the assumption that many of the Liverpool fans in the away end managed to pick up tickets at Albion + level.
I guess if they've paid their money for this opportunity, the club can do little about it.

It was a great opportunity for some of the Tier 2 and Tier 3 mob to boost their points and get a visit to probably the most iconic away game in the league. Disappointing we couldn't sell this out at a Season ticket holder level.
I see there are still 620 tickets available for Leicester, which is a much cheaper trip, with 15 (FIFTEEN) loyalty points available
Looks like the keenness for away games has dropped, now there aren't the prospect of European away trips on offer.

My First time at Anfield and whilst the result was annoying, I couldn't fault the racket their support made for the last 30 minutes.
Without doubt, the most intimidating atmosphere, I've encountered at an away game.
Makes a mockery of the claims by our friends up the road, of having the best atmosphere in the Premier League.

It nearly sold out to season ticket holders. There were a few left for Albion+ members (about 200) as I managed to get my son one

 

[Talby]

It was hard getting songs going on Saturday. Luckily there was a vocal group near us in AL8 and we were able to make a contribution. The sound did seem to disappear into the ether though with the removal of the roof that was previously there. Absolutely stunned to hear there were Liverpool fans in our end, totally out of order and I do hope that the discussions with customer services yield results. Seemed to be all Albion by me though, a lot of familiar faces.

Agree, getting songs going was tricky. We had a good group of people immediately around us and we were all crammed down our row a bit to allow an elderly couple to see the match properly - sitting when they wanted to.

Some familiar faces and laughs but it certainly lacked passion and enthusiasm it felt more like a midweek Cup match at the Amex than an away day.

The train home was hilarious though. All the southerners making their way home…mostly pseudo Scousers.

 

[dazzer6666]

As long as you personally attend five home matches then the exchange system works.

But i’ve been quite seriously ill recently and getting the ‘we noticed you didn’t attend the *** match at the Amex’ emails from the Club do kind of get on my wick. They’ve got my money and, as much as they’d like me to exchange my ticket, I don’t necessarily want some random (potential away supporter) sitting with my family and friends.

Likewise, if you’ve got kids who have season tickets since they were very young then the club sending them similar emails when they’re at university is equally crap.

The club want bums on seats - I get that - but if you’re meeting your obligation to pay via DD then that’s the financial relationship sorted.

The club have a very peculiar interpretation of the word ‘loyalty’.

Disagree. Hate seats going empty and always share/exchange mine if I can’t go.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

It nearly sold out to season ticket holders. There were a few left for Albion+ members (about 200) as I managed to get my son one

If that's the case, then it would seem a large number of our Tier 1-3 fans are passing tickets on to Liverpool fans.
Which is a bigger worry.

 

[NorthstandRacoon]

You mean, they don't appear to be over 60 years old?

That would be harsh. Our support this season has had a lot of younger generation fans mixed, which has been good tbf. Until Sat obv.

 

[NorthstandRacoon]

Are they “plastic fans”, Liverpool fans or, more likely imho, friends and family of players and/or club sponsors? Liverpool is a hugely popular fixture , I’d say the most popular one we have, it stands to reason that it will be in demand from players friends and family and sponsors. I’ve sat behind player’s family myself at Anfield before.

But that dilutes the atmosphere. That must have been a lot of tickets to their friends and fam’. I would imagine alot of this is plastic liverpool fans from Brighton.

 

[NorthstandRacoon]

I think one of them is Mrs Veltman. Be careful , she might also be useful at dark arts.

She can do that to me…

 

[Talby]

Disagree. Hate seats going empty and always share/exchange mine if I can’t go.

That’s fine.

mine is with my two kids, close family and friends..we’ve had idiots/away fans in the past so lessons learnt.

To other friends and family it’s fine.

 

[NorthstandRacoon]

That's a completely ridiculous comparison.

This.

 

[Talby]

But that dilutes the atmosphere. That must have been a lot of tickets to their friends and fam’. I would imagine alot of this is plastic liverpool fans from Brighton.

Loads of friends and family of players. And sponsors too.