Stop Moaning

[Kneon Light]

We've just drawn away at QPR. We are unbeaten over christmas.
So what do people do on SCR do? Spend the whole time moaning about Spurs tickets.
i appreciate people are frustrated but this should be one of the biggest games of recent times NOT another reason to moan on and on.
Some of it was just pure rubbish (£2,000 returning people's cheques?)
I'm begining to wish we had never drawn spurs. Surely even if you haven't got a ticket you can be happy for the club that they will at least get a big pay day?
I wonder how many of these moaners would be travelling to St James' Park had we drawn Exeter away?

It's a new year - can't we at least start it on a positive note?

 

[sullyupthewing]

I got so pissed off with there whinging I turned it off.
GET OVER IT.

 

[London Irish]

Harty was doing a good job for most of the phone-in today but he lost it near the end. Surely it makes for a better phone-in if he challenges the assumptions of all these callers phoning in about the ticket allocation?

We have a finite number of tickets, conflicting suggestions of who should get priority, and a small ticket office set-up that would struggle to put any priority system in place. Why doesn't Harty put a few of these points to these callers and see if they have any answers?

Instead, you just get the same old answer trotted out - "it's all the club's fault", "they don't care about us", blah, blah, blah, and all this negative, mindless stuff goes unchallenged.

But good work from "Moya and Laura" who at least gave it a go with their texts

 

[Chicken Run]

Harty was doing a good job for most of the phone-in today but he lost it near the end. Surely it makes for a better phone-in if he challenges the assumptions of all these callers phoning in about the ticket allocation?

We have a finite number of tickets, conflicting suggestions of who should get priority, and a small ticket office set-up that would struggle to put any priority system in place. Why doesn't Harty put a few of these points to these callers and see if they have any answers?

Instead, you just get the same old answer trotted out - "it's all the club's fault", "they don't care about us", blah, blah, blah, and all this negative, mindless stuff goes unchallenged.

But good work from "Moya and Laura" who at least gave it a go with their texts

 

[El Presidente]

Without doubt we have the whiniest fans outside the Prem. Too many think they are something special and the club should be run for their benefit.

No doubt they were not at QPR today as too busy preparing their rant against the club because DK did not personally deliver a Spurs ticket on a silver platter through their lettebox.

 

[Ernest]

What surpriised me was the guy saying it was costing £2k in postage to return tickets or cheques etc.
Well if he had applied then he would know you had to put an SAE in for the return so maybe he is full of bullshit ?

 

[Zebedee]

What surpriised me was the guy saying it was costing £2k in postage to return tickets or cheques etc.
Well if he had applied then he would know you had to put an SAE in for the return so maybe he is full of bullshit ?

Good point Ernest, as I well know to my cost.

 

[Yorkie]

I sent in two texts (one of which was read out ) but I couldn't sit there and listen to the rubbish about the club wastiing £20000 on returning apps etc.
My text was to point out that all applications were in a self addressed envelope so it makes me wonder if the bloke ringing up had actually applied at all?

There are urban myths starting to crop up as well. One caller reckoned a mate went into the club shop 4 days later and bought them over the counter.

I was told in the pub last week that 5 blokes sent in an extra £10 to join the AMS with their applications. Two problems with that a) you have to fill in an AMS form and sign it; b) the club specifically said that no-one joining the AMS after Dec 1st would be considered.

 

[The Laughing Bluebird]

We have a finite number of tickets, conflicting suggestions of who should get priority, and a small ticket office set-up that would struggle to put any priority system in place.

Question for you: wouldn't your ticket office find it a lot easier to cope in circumstances such as these if there was a proper priority system in place?

 

[Yorkie]

Question for you: wouldn't your ticket office find it a lot easier to cope in circumstances such as these if there was a proper priority system in place?

We have a small ticket office (smaller than my bedroom) with two tills.
There is no sophisticated computer in place and to install would cost valuable money.
There is a record of season ticket holders and AMS members but the simplest way is first come first served within that criteria.

 

[London Irish]

Question for you: wouldn't your ticket office find it a lot easier to cope in circumstances such as these if there was a proper priority system in place?

No, because it's not at all clear if our small ticket office has the staff hours and, more importantly, the flexibility of staff hours, to cope with implementing priority systems for a tiny handful of games every season.

 

[The Laughing Bluebird]

No, because it's not at all clear if our small ticket office has the staff hours and, more importantly, the flexibility of staff hours, to cope with implementing priority systems for a tiny handful of games every season.

Are you sure? The way it works at Cardiff for big cup games is that season ticket holders have a few days to apply for their tickets, then club members have few days to apply for theirs, then any that are left go on general sale.

This system works well. As the sales are staggered, the ticket office is not inundated with a mountain of applications from day one.

 

[Kent Seagull]

The club put restrictions on the applications by restricting applications to STH, AMS and litterpickers. In my opinion all deserve to go, why for example is a STH who never goes away more entitled to a ticket than an AMS member who hasn't missed an away game all season?

The simple fact is this, demand far exceeded supply. If tickets were put on sale in the same way as they we for the Cardiff play off final tickets we probably could have sold more like 15,000.

I'm not convinced that being a STH should give anyone a right to any other tickets than the games the STH covers, but perhaps a simple voucher for priority to one away game per season of the STHs choice could be included. After that, join the queue with all the others!

It does seem that because STHs have paid to reserve a ticket at Withdean, some believe that gives them a right to much more. No! All they have actually bought is tickets for all the home games (at a discount) because you want to be there, not because you want to give the Board your money!

Incidently, how many STHs have bought tickets for friends and family who are not STH? Was this allowed?

The fairest way is to put tickets for big away games on sale at the shop or ground for one day for STH vouchers, one day for AMS, then a free for all for others if any remain. Only one ticket per person should be allowed. I bet not everyone agrees on this!

I think that this problem is exasperated because of the fact that we play at a shit ground where non STH fans still struggle to get tickets for home games and more fans than in the past go to away games. I know that when I used to go away regularly, the numbers were far less than they are now. We were a bigger club then as well! This is just one more reason why getting Falmer built is so important.

Unfortunately I am not a STH or AMS so I miss out anyway, perhaps I don't deserve to go anyway! I just hope all that go enjoy the day and do the club proud. A win would be nice too!

 

[London Irish]

Here's a classic example of what is currently wrong with the phone-in.

Someone rang in today and said that he knew for a fact that a number of Spurs tickets had been somehow grabbed by ticket staff for all their friends.

Now, here we have a scurrilous personal accusation made against paid employees of the club.

What was Harty's response?

He knew something was wrong, because he quickly tried to interject that "SCR can neither confirm nor deny that". ie. disassociating the phone-in from the accusation.

But to me, that's not good enough.

What Harty should have said, instead of allowing the caller to ramble on, is that he should quickly interrupted him and said: "You've made an unsubstantiated personal accusation against paid employees of the club who are not here to defend themselves. That is not fair to them. Next caller."

Minutes later, Harty had the cheek to again complain about the Stoke match programme criticising him for the editorial standards of the phone-in, Harty saying it was a "personal attack" on him.

Can't he see the double standards he is employing?

He allows the phone-in to be abused by people making unsubstantiated personal attacks on our ticket office staff, and yet when the club complains about appalling editorial abuses like that, it's "a personal attack" on Harty?

The answer is, surely, that ALL personal attacks must stop.

Over to you, Harty.

 

[Yorkie]

Good point in the first post of the thread, Kneon Light, about our form at the moment. It was a good away point today at a ground where we usually lose.

5 points from 3 games is good going over the holiday period so let's be happy about that.

 

[London Irish]

Are you sure? The way it works at Cardiff for big cup games is that season ticket holders have a few days to apply for their tickets, then club members have few days to apply for theirs, then any that are left go on general sale.

This system works well. As the sales are staggered, the ticket office is not inundated with a mountain of applications from day one.

Yes, a season-ticket priority system would be simple to operate - but that's the only priority system that would be. But as you know from your copious time on NSC, such a solution is deeply controversial and wouldn't even please all season ticket holders, no need to rehearse all those arguments again.

The difficulty for our ticket office comes with the other many different priority systems that have proposed that may need new computer systems introduced and more staff time allocated to administer it.

But if you want to make an adequate comparison between Brighton and Cardiff, here's something you can do for us.

Check out how many staff the Cardiff ticket office employs, what kind of flexibilty they have built in to their staff rotas for periods of high demand, and what kind of specialist computer software they have for the different kind of complex priority systems that have been proposed on NSC in recent weeks.

Alternatively, you could just not bother, and take the approach I take, of trusting the Brighton ticket office to come up with the best solution possible within their resources

 

[Kneon Light]

Good point in the first post of the thread, Kneon Light, about our form at the moment. It was a good away point today at a ground where we usually lose.

5 points from 3 games is good going over the holiday period so let's be happy about that.

Especially given the doom and gloom when Cullip went. Only one (undeserved - bloody ref) loss since he went.

we are staying up!!!

 

[dougdeep]

Can I just say that I posted my application within ten minutes of the draw. I didn't mark the envelope with the word Spurs, as instructed later, and I also failed to enclose a S.A.E. I got my ticket though.
On the subject of the phone-in, One chap asked if he was any less a club supporter because he only goes to away games than a S.T.H. who only goes to home games. The answer to that must be yes. He is no less a team supporter but he puts less into the club than a S.T.H. holder, so the club must look after the people who do most for them financially.
Say you ran a newsagents for example, if you only had one Guardian left, and two customers came in for it, one of whom spent a lot of money with you and the other who normally bought their copy from a competitor, who would you sell it to?
And finally, if all the real fans who didn't get tickets had got them, then the same amount of real fans who have got them would have missed out. There weren't enough to go round, and if I had missed out then I would have accepted that, and not whinged on for weeks.

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

There are urban myths starting to crop up as well. One caller reckoned a mate went into the club shop 4 days later and bought them over the counter.

I actually got my Spurs tickets over the counter, but that is because I had the credit card I included on my application stolen so had to cancel the card. The ticket office were very good and agreed to hold the tickets if we were succesful with the aplication, I then went in and paid cash as the post was taking forever to send the new card. I could understand if the ticket office had just said that we hadnt been succesful with our application and sold them to someone else, but thanks to them for sorting the tickets out. I would have hated to miss out becuase some little scally wanted to steal a wallet for the sake of £20.

 

[Yorkie]

An exceptional circumstance joey jo jo.

That wasn't what the phone in caller said. He made it sound as though they were on open sale.