[Albion] Final nail in the coffin for “I can’t get away tickets”

[Whitechapel]

Look forward to your explanation when your ID doesn't match the name allocated to the ticket

In the 70 odd away games I’ve been to I have never, ever been asked for ID to match the name on the ticket. Never.

But you look forward to my answer pal, in fact maybe you could write up a draft for me. I’d be happy to use it next time somebody asks me.

 

[studio150]

In the 70 odd away games I’ve been to I have never, ever been asked for ID to match the name on the ticket. Never.

But you look forward to my answer pal, in fact maybe you could write up a draft for me. I’d be happy to use it next time somebody asks me.

One Draft

I'm a whinging moaner who can't accept that the away allocation works well for over 90% of supporters, but because I dropped back in the queue I'm not prepared to accept the rules, and have been taking tickets away from more deserving fans since I haven't been able to get one myself. You've got me banged to rights, and I fully accept that my mates are going to lose their points also and therefore fall down the ladder for helping me.

Your're welcome you have not been charged for this service

 

[Whitechapel]

One Draft

I'm a whinging moaner who can't accept that the away allocation works well for over 90% of supporters, but because I dropped back in the queue I'm not prepared to accept the rules, and have been taking tickets away from more deserving fans since I haven't been able to get one myself. You've got me banged to rights, and I fully accept that my mates are going to lose their points also and therefore fall down the ladder for helping me.

Your welcome you have not been charged for this service

See you at an away game next season

 

[drew]

My problem with how loyalty points works currently is the fact they’ve basically became a blackmail tool to keep people from cancelling their season ticket. Making points only count for consecutive season ticket purchases causes this problem.

Money tight? Well you could cancel your season ticket and see where you are in 12 months but don’t expect to be going to any really big away games for the next 4 or 5 years.

Work every other weekend now? Well you could cancel your season ticket but once you get back to a Monday 9-5 don’t expect to see any games south of Birmingham for a while.

You go to football with you son and he’s off to uni? Or he wants to go backpacking for a year? Well tough shit, unless you leave his seat empty for three years you aren’t going together again for a while unless you break the rules.

All of the above situations would have been largely minimised by simply removing the need for season tickets to be consecutive, but no the club decided to use it as a tool to punish anybody who has the gall to have money flow problems or the sheer audacity to not be able to commit to a season ticket for a single season. For what it’s worth, the season I missed out on was the 2015/16 season, before this rule was brought in. I was unemployed and struggling to find a job when ST renewals came around. My season ticket band jumped up too, I want to say there had been a student/young person group that was removed? It’s the only season I’ve missed since 01/02, and I still managed to attend 15 games that season. However the club decided all my history with them meant f*ck all. I missed out on one season so I deserve to go to the back of the queue along with people who jumped on the bandwagon the year we missed out on promotion via Goal Difference.

So screw it, I could play the game the club wants me to, climb the ladder slowly and factor losing my away game placing in to any life decision which might require me to give up my season ticket, OR I could build up a network of people who rarely go to away games but have found themselves in the top bracket(s), either through being in 1901 or through other means and go about it that way. I wanted to see our first Premier League away game, and I got a ticket, as soon as that happened I realised there was absolutely nothing to worry about and I’ve been proven right. :shrug

That's understandable why you don't like it but the next question is how would it be different. If they didn't reward longevity they have to find another way of limiting those in the top tier to the number of tickets available. If they gave, for example, 1000 points to every season ticket holder then the likelihood would be that they would have to allocate more points for those that go to away games and you would have lost out in the year you couldn't afford to go, setting you back down the list.

 

[Guinness Boy]

15 minutes after Liverpool away went on sale to anyone with a Bronze membership (annual cost £22), there are still 233 tickets for the game available from the first allocation (ie before returns are processed in the week before the game).

If you want to go to away games, you can.

It’s only if you want to pick the most convenient game for you to attend that you’ll have had to put the hard miles in previously.

Do you reckon this will be the case for the big London games?

My issue isn’t me, it’s my 11 year old who would love to go away more but has way fewer points than me since he was 5 when the Amex opened and cant traipse up to the other end of the country at the drop of a hat. If Chelsea, Fulham, Spurs, Arsenal & West Ham get sold to STHs you’ll have a point.

I see [MENTION=5208]drew[/MENTION] is back on his favourite hobby horse. Only a matter of time before he goes off on another 3 day rant because *some* 1901 cards aren’t in personal names.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Whitechapel]

That's understandable why you don't like it but the next question is how would it be different. If they didn't reward longevity they have to find another way of limiting those in the top tier to the number of tickets available. If they gave, for example, 1000 points to every season ticket holder then the likelihood would be that they would have to allocate more points for those that go to away games and you would have lost out in the year you couldn't afford to go, setting you back down the list.

I honestly think the current system if tweaked could work.

As I said above, the problem is the fact that you only get points for consecutive seasons. However rewarding people for having a season ticket for more than one season is a good idea if done correctly. I would have done it on a five season rolling plan. So the 18/19 season would take in to consideration season tickets for 18/19, 17/18, 16/17, 15/16 & 14/15. (BTW I’m picking all the following numbers off the top of my head)

A season ticket for the current season is 1000 points.
An extra 20 points if you had a season ticket for one other season
An extra 40 points you had a season ticket for two of the other seasons
60 for 3
100 for all 4

So all 5 season is 1100 points, two non consecutive seasons would be 1020

Then points awarded for away games work on the current system (5/10/15 depending on the game) Away game points halting every season before being wiped off once they’re outside the 5 year scale.

So, somebody who has had a season ticket for the last 5 years has at least a 40 point headstart on everybody who didn’t have a season ticket every year, and a 100 point headstsrt on somebody who has just got a season ticket. They have first dibs so and as long as they attend some away games they will always have first pick. Somebody who has missed out on one season but has attended numerous away games will be able to catch up with people who have always had a season ticket but don’t travel away, which to me seems fair.

For an example with my situation. On the old system in 16/17 I was one of the higher ranked people because I had a season ticket that year and had been to enough away games previously to always fall in to one of the top brackets. I could have got tickets for Fulham, QPR etc and I managed to get one for Norwich quite easily. Under the new rules in 17/18 I ended up being 2/3 tiers away from a Swansea ticket. That’s how extreme the drop was for me.

With the way I just outlined I would have had a points penalty for missing the 15/16 season, I would have lost 40 points. Enough to see me probably miss out on the most in demand tickets, like Bournemouth & Southampton, but I would have been able to get tickets for the likes of West Brom, Swansea & Leicester. I’ve dropped down the pecking order, but I haven’t been completely obliterated and made to start from the bottom.

I’ve realised how I’ve explained this might come across as me just trying to find a way that works for me, but I honestly think it would be a fairer way of allocating points. It would also help fans with younger kids to slowly introduce them to away games, whereas I feel the current system means if you start taking a young kid now they might have to wait a long, long time to see the big grounds they really want to whilst that magic is still there.

 

[Whitechapel]

Do you reckon this will be the case for the big London games?

My issue isn’t me, it’s my 11 year old who would love to go away more but has way fewer points than me since he was 5 when the Amex opened and cant traipse up to the other end of the country at the drop of a hat. If Chelsea, Fulham, Spurs, Arsenal & West Ham get sold to STHs you’ll have a point.

I see [MENTION=5208]drew[/MENTION] is back on his favourite hobby horse. Only a matter of time before he goes off on another 3 day rant because *some* 1901 cards aren’t in personal names.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Without turning this in to a full blown war on here, I have a genuine question regarding how the points work now for someone who has just started taking a young kid to games/away games.

Do you worry that if the demand for local/London games doesn’t slow down that your little’un will never be able to catch up with the people in the top bracket, as they can hoover up 60+ additional points a season without going north of Watford by simply going to all the local games?

I was lucky enough that my mum started to taking me to local away games when I was 6, although it was Brisbane Road and the County Ground so maybe lucky isn’t the right word. There’s something magical about away games at that age, a football day but it lasts all day, and my trips as a little kid to WHL & SJP are some of the things that got me hooked on travelling around the country watching Brighton. It seems an absolute shame that the next generation of Brighton fans could miss out on that, simply because of how our LP system is weighted

 

[drew]

I honestly think the current system if tweaked could work.

As I said above, the problem is the fact that you only get points for consecutive seasons. However rewarding people for having a season ticket for more than one season is a good idea if done correctly. I would have done it on a five season rolling plan. So the 18/19 season would take in to consideration season tickets for 18/19, 17/18, 16/17, 15/16 & 14/15. (BTW I’m picking all the following numbers off the top of my head)

A season ticket for the current season is 1000 points.
An extra 20 points if you had a season ticket for one other season
An extra 40 points you had a season ticket for two of the other seasons
60 for 3
100 for all 4

So all 5 season is 1100 points, two non consecutive seasons would be 1020

Then points awarded for away games work on the current system (5/10/15 depending on the game) Away game points halting every season before being wiped off once they’re outside the 5 year scale.

So, somebody who has had a season ticket for the last 5 years has at least a 40 point headstart on everybody who didn’t have a season ticket every year, and a 100 point headstsrt on somebody who has just got a season ticket. They have first dibs so and as long as they attend some away games they will always have first pick. Somebody who has missed out on one season but has attended numerous away games will be able to catch up with people who have always had a season ticket but don’t travel away, which to me seems fair.

For an example with my situation. On the old system in 16/17 I was one of the higher ranked people because I had a season ticket that year and had been to enough away games previously to always fall in to one of the top brackets. I could have got tickets for Fulham, QPR etc and I managed to get one for Norwich quite easily. Under the new rules in 17/18 I ended up being 2/3 tiers away from a Swansea ticket. That’s how extreme the drop was for me.

With the way I just outlined I would have had a points penalty for missing the 15/16 season, I would have lost 40 points. Enough to see me probably miss out on the most in demand tickets, like Bournemouth & Southampton, but I would have been able to get tickets for the likes of West Brom, Swansea & Leicester. I’ve dropped down the pecking order, but I haven’t been completely obliterated and made to start from the bottom.

I’ve realised how I’ve explained this might come across as me just trying to find a way that works for me, but I honestly think it would be a fairer way of allocating points. It would also help fans with younger kids to slowly introduce them to away games, whereas I feel the current system means if you start taking a young kid now they might have to wait a long, long time to see the big grounds they really want to whilst that magic is still there.

The problem is that in order for your system to work they have to calculate how many points they set the bar at for each game taking into account the various different allocations. 5/10/15 points would probably not create a big enough differential.

That said, as you state, you are tweaking the system to suit your circumstances. The next person who can't get tickets will want to tweak so it suits them. You've selected 5 years but the club have gone for 8 (although we've currently only had 7 at the Amex). Reading these threads you'll be aware that there are those that have season tickets at Withdean and the Goldstone who feel they have been dumped on and having gone through the wilderness years can't now see some of the glory games now. There is no perfect system.

 

[drew]

Without turning this in to a full blown war on here, I have a genuine question regarding how the points work now for someone who has just started taking a young kid to games/away games.

Do you worry that if the demand for local/London games doesn’t slow down that your little’un will never be able to catch up with the people in the top bracket, as they can hoover up 60+ additional points a season without going north of Watford by simply going to all the local games?

I was lucky enough that my mum started to taking me to local away games when I was 6, although it was Brisbane Road and the County Ground so maybe lucky isn’t the right word. There’s something magical about away games at that age, a football day but it lasts all day, and my trips as a little kid to WHL & SJP are some of the things that got me hooked on travelling around the country watching Brighton. It seems an absolute shame that the next generation of Brighton fans could miss out on that, simply because of how our LP system is weighted

I see a lot of youngsters at away games and I would put money on the fact the majority haven't earned the right to be there. If there was a system where by the club checked that tickets were with the those that were entitled then sales would open up to more people down the tiers as people in the top tier who couldn't go wouldn't be able give them to others. There is a finite number of tickets to go round an you aren't going to please everyone. Provided we stay up then I suspect fewer people in the top tier will keep going to grounds they've been to and others will pick up the slack.

 

[studio150]

The problem is that in order for your system to work they have to calculate how many points they set the bar at for each game taking into account the various different allocations. 5/10/15 points would probably not create a big enough differential.

That said, as you state, you are tweaking the system to suit your circumstances. The next person who can't get tickets will want to tweak so it suits them. You've selected 5 years but the club have gone for 8 (although we've currently only had 7 at the Amex). Reading these threads you'll be aware that there are those that have season tickets at Withdean and the Goldstone who feel they have been dumped on and having gone through the wilderness years can't now see some of the glory games now. There is no perfect system.

And Gillingham

 

[Creaky]

I’m sure there must be a flaw in the following suggestion:-

Why have a separate points system for season ticket holders. Just award the loyalty points for home and away games as in the current system and halve the carry over points as is done at the moment.

Points to be added after each game.

A season ticket holder almost by definition will attend more home games than someone buying on a game by game basis and consequently accumulate more points.

At the moment someone buying their very first season ticket gets priority for away games over someone who may have been buying tickets on a game by game basis for years.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Away games mean different things to different people. For me it’s as much about the day out as it is about the football. A day where I can forget my worries and just have a laugh and a skinful of beer with my mates. I don’t want to have to sit on a coach full of children and OAP’s anymore than you’d want to be sat on a train necking cans of lager at 8am. You want to be able to have a nice snooze on the way home, I want the freedom to be able to stop out after the game for a couple of pints in a pub before getting the last train back.Your post comes across as a pretty petulant jab at people for enjoying football differently to you. There’s no need for it really.

My post was referring to those who say they can't go to evening away games because there's no trains home.

No petulant jab. Why would I?

 

[drew]

I’m sure there must be a flaw in the following suggestion:-

Why have a separate points system for season ticket holders. Just award the loyalty points for home and away games as in the current system and halve the carry over points as is done at the moment.

Points to be added after each game.

A season ticket holder almost by definition will attend more home games than someone buying on a game by game basis and consequently accumulate more points.

At the moment someone buying their very first season ticket gets priority for away games over someone who may have been buying tickets on a game by game basis for years.

Fair point but you are rewarding those that invest most in the club. The club don't make money from people that only go to away games (although there aren't any that now do that legitimately). Those that have had a season ticket longer have invested more.

 

[drew]

And Gillingham

 

[portlock seagull]

You are missing the point. Everyone makes their own decisions on how to spend their money. Getting the opportunity to go to convenient location/glamour matches is a consequence of spending time/money going to all manner of away games. There is an opportunity to go to Liverpool so rather than moan, people should buy tickets. Anyone not going but also not posting moaning threads about loyalty points aren't really affected.

You do realise that August is peak holiday season? And you talk about me missing the point!!

 

[portlock seagull]

Told my wife that we have 3 weeks half term holiday before the season starts so make sure you book holiday during that period.
Holiday booked for family and back 2 days before Watford.

Pleased fixtures have worked out well for you and your family.

 

[drew]

Pleased fixtures have worked out well for you and your family.

But the point remains it is your choice. If you have kids you can go for the first two weeks of the summer holidays and still be back for Watford. You can have your cake and eat provided you can get tickets. If you take your holidays at the end of the school break then of course you'll miss some fixtures.

 

[Creaky]

Fair point but you are rewarding those that invest most in the club. The club don't make money from people that only go to away games (although there aren't any that now do that legitimately). Those that have had a season ticket longer have invested more.

That’s not necessarily the case though and in any case those who went to away games only wouldn’t have more points than a season ticket holder. If they went to all the away games and no home games then they would only have the same points as someone who went to all the home games, (STH), and no away games.

It just strikes me as a little unfair, even as an STH myself, that a brand new STH automatically takes precedence over someone who may well have been supporting the club for decades.

 

[Goldstone1976]

It just strikes me as a little unfair, even as an STH myself, that a brand new STH automatically takes precedence over someone who may well have been supporting the club for decades.

They don’t though. It’s only on renewal that a STH gets points. The first renewal generates 50 LP, which is nowhere near enough to get them into even the third tier.

The vast majority of those in the first and second tier will have been STH for at least 5 years... as well as attending home cup games and a decent wadge of away games.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Without turning this in to a full blown war on here, I have a genuine question regarding how the points work now for someone who has just started taking a young kid to games/away games.

Do you worry that if the demand for local/London games doesn’t slow down that your little’un will never be able to catch up with the people in the top bracket, as they can hoover up 60+ additional points a season without going north of Watford by simply going to all the local games?

I was lucky enough that my mum started to taking me to local away games when I was 6, although it was Brisbane Road and the County Ground so maybe lucky isn’t the right word. There’s something magical about away games at that age, a football day but it lasts all day, and my trips as a little kid to WHL & SJP are some of the things that got me hooked on travelling around the country watching Brighton. It seems an absolute shame that the next generation of Brighton fans could miss out on that, simply because of how our LP system is weighted

It's a concern certainly. I worry mostly that he won't catch up with me.

I go to home games with a big group but always travel with my son, a good mate who lives round the corner and his son. We're all very close. In the Hyypia / Hughton season they were 8 and we took them to Charlton in January and they absolutely loved it. We took them to Fulham at the start of the following season and also the New Year Fulham game where we came from behind to win 2-1 so they've done three really decent aways which we've won, all legitimately. But there were a few games in those seasons that were eitther mid week aways or a long way away that just me and my mate did as an adult day on the beer.

We realised this would be an issue when the adults could get Middlesboro tickets but the boys couldn't. We might have sneaked returns for them at the end but it would have been a scramble, their train tickets would have been more expensive and their legitimate seats would have been in a totally different block. For QPR we were ok and they weren't.

Last season even my points were right on the edge. We were the corporate guest of a friend a couple of times and went in the home end once but again that was just the adults. In doing so I saw some games I wanted to see but didn't get the points for them.

It may be as they grow older that others drop out and more games become STH only. It may be that we have to start them back off on aways with something like Wolves away on a Tuesday just to get points. But the thing is the three aways they've done legitmately - Charlton and Fulham twice - all sold out to Brighton. They just seemed to sell out in a much different way. Maybe we've just got a whole load more really loyal fans as we've become "good"