Got a questionaire this morning from the club. There's a few interesting points:

1. They're thinking of building a NUFC museum. No details but I imagine there will be trophies (over in a very small corner somewhere), old black'n'white photos of dodgy-looking blokes in unfeasibly long shorts, Wee Hughie's socks, that sort of thing. Any suggestions?

2. They're expanding the website and want opinions on the existing service. Hmmmmm, how many ways can you say 'average'?

3. They want to simplify away ticket allocation (for their own benefit, not ours) and are suggesting applying either once a year, once every half-season or once a month. In effect, an away season ticket. Personally, I'd be happy as I apply for all the games anyway, if I can't go then I know people who will take the ticket. But it will be inconvenient for those that want to pick and choose which away games they attend.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

Answers

Toon Museum
I thought there was one already. It's called the Strawbeery. Full of all the old relics - pitures of Wor Jackie, lace-up footballs, long shorts(?) and of course, two resident old relics Jonno and Screacher. Thought I'd better get that one in before everybody else does.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

1) Away season ticket - yep, luvvit. 2) Museum - hmm. Doesn't the club shop perform that function? 3) Could have a genuine fans' interactive bit on site.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

In reverse rder to your original posting:

3) I don't like the idea of the final bit about away season tickets. For example, being Lahndan based I tend to go to all the matches in and around these parts, so no prblem there, but I recently decided on the tuesday to go to Sheffield on the Saturday.... I would have been stuffed in this new idea.

2) As you say, there are only so many ways of saying average, although it has to be said, its a dam sight better now than it was under the 'previous' web management. The commentator on the webcasts is bliddy awful and should be chabnged before we get a reputation with him......I know someone who would be perfect for the job...his E Mail address is at the top of this posting!

1) I really hope they think very carefully about what they place in a museum.....again, the lack of anything recently tangilble heavilly promoted would/could be an embarassment. I was talking to someone at the club a couple of months ago and they said that they had suffered a break in (not widely reported) and when I asked about the cups, they said it was OK as they hadn't managed to get into the canteen.

Well, just one or two thoughts to start off

;0D

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

SCREACHER.....you also missed out Clarky and the Good Medic Man as the other two relics.

I also made an error on the commentator bit....the E mail address is at the bottom of the posting, not the top....unless Dougal is looking for a new job as well.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

Not sure about travelling season ticket - they would have to only have an amount equalling the lowest amount available at away grounds or you'd get a ticket and no seat. Sounds like a tout's dream. The best they could do would be to offer them in batches of 4 at a time or something.

Bet there will be an unusually high demand for corporate packages which forces them to reserve half of them for the highest bidders.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

Re: away season tickets....how is it not simple for them to handle it now? You get a block of tickets, you take applications, and send out the tickets. Selling any remaining to the public. Requesting another block if demand is higher. Sounds simple enough to me. Or is it that too much "hassle" for them? The complications now only seem to come when they don't take up the full allocation in the first place, or fail to announce exactly how many seats are available, resulting in supporters getting upset and bombarding the club with questions and complaints.

On the other hand, I can see some sense in a scheme allowing a limited number of ST holders to pay in advance for guaranteed away tickets. Less hassle for the ST holder certainly. But, as Softie pointed out, they can at best only guarantee the smallest allocation. So they've still got to deal with extra allocation at larger grounds.

And what does this mean for supporters that only go to certain away games...or those who do not have ST, and live away from Tyneside so only get the opportunity to see away games near to their homes(London-based supporters for example)? Are they shut out?

There's lots of pros and cons, but I don't think away ST's are going to be any less complicated for the club to handle. Just my opinion.

As for the website...am already composing(in my head) a letter on that subject to Rogan Taylor. It's probably my best shot at saying something constructive to someone willing to listen, after all this time spent moaning at my computer and my cat about it. ;-)

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

Away tickets>
I can't see it being acceptable to apply for away tickets once a season. Well, at least not for the majority of ST holders. However, I know there are a small number (for example MungoMag) who goes to almost all matches. But how much admin would that save? Precious little.
It seems that the club are looking to simplify their admin process for existing ST holders to get away tickets. So this precludes the likes of ITK and me from participating. I doubt if they would have a scheme for "non-ST holders". Far too radical a prospect that one!
In this day and age, I can't see why every potential customer couldn't have an electronic id. Call it a "Supporters Club" and charge a small subscription if they want. After all, our celebrity supporter and his chums are trying to make the internet so pervasive that everyone has access to it. Season ticket holders could apply for their ticket over the internet and have a priority over lesser beings like myself. Then, when the time was right, any allocation not taken up would become available to non-ST members. And if there were any left after that, they could open it up to Joe Public, either as a non-member on the internet or thru the current telephone system. With a bit of luck, with fewer people having to hand out tickets, they might even have somebody available to answer the bliddy phone.
Am I being too radical for the powers that be at SJP? I know of ticketing applications in the US where you can go to a booth in a supermarket and get a virtual reality tour of the stadium and before you select your preferred seat, you get a view of what the game would be like. I know NUFC have the technology to do this. As to whether they have the inclination, or perhaps more likely, the cost incentives to do so is another matter.
But if they really want to tap into this internet thing (will it ever catch on?), they have a ready-made audience to start pushing their merchandising. And I'm not talking about the "Click here to enter our online store" type of thing. A membership scheme with personal details could very easily target a specific audience. If it knew Softie was expecting a bairn in a few months, it could send a note or something to him a couple of weeks before the bairn's birthday with a "special offer" for kids replica shirts. Hell, they could even send the bairn a birthday card. If I'd got a card from Jackie Milburn when I was a lad, I'd have been hooked from day one. Only the potential opportunities for the club weren't so great then. But imagine what they could do now!
Nah - it'll never catch on.......unless of course our new sponsors/part-owners have a much bigger picture of sports-marketing. Ciara et al - what's it like in the US?

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

Hi 1st post on new BBS - anyway - re the away tickets.

At the moment you get loyalty points for the amount of away games you go to - I don't know the exact details but my mate Rog who has a ST @SJP and goes to all matches (Home & Away + Euros away) that he can, always gets one and he makes sure his is used on the rare occasion he can't get.

A new scheme would have to reward this sort of loyalty.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

re the internet in the US

Tons of potential, and companies still only just coming to grips with it. Event tickets are one of the top items purchased via the internet(travel being the other huge seller). Of course we don't have the issue of fan segregation as in English football. But a private userid could help with that. As would having some kind of registration scheme for non-ST holders(if they opened the facility to anyone after ST's had been filled). It wouldn't be any more or less secure than current methods where an away fan can get tickets in the home section. And there would be the added benefit of having a name and contact information if there is trouble.

I hope the club is seriously looking forward and will make the efforts to use this technology. Any company ignores it at their peril. Of course it's only taken me(and a senior engineer) nearly 2 years to convince my deparment(in a company that helped invent the bleedin internet!) of this. Don't expect miracles right away...the technology is far more advanced than most companies are ready to get their heads around...and more advanced than most end users' computers can handle. And that's only the people that have computers. Most of the population doesn't. yet. It's all very exciting and I'm looking forward to seeing how far this all goes.

It also means job security for people with the skills...and tons more jobs for people who are working to get the skills. Now that Britain is getting unlimited local calling, just watch it explode. :-D

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000