These rumours about us giving away tickets,can anyone actually prove it? That's FREE TICKETS not discounted for schoolkids and the like.I have been a season ticket holder since 1992 and it would piss me off big style if blokes were getting in for nowt when i fork out £400 a season at the ssol.And while we are at it,would YOU turn a ticket down if it were cheaper? Would you feel less of a fan? Surely we should be congratulated for our policies not slagged off!Oh and my answer to the first question is that i have never heard of anyone getting in for nowt at sunderland and murray saud on talksport "i have never given a ticket away in my life". So come on badgers,show me a free ticket holder and i will show you a liar,show me a cheaper ticket holder and i will show you a wise man.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

Answers

I heard only that SAFC had given cheap tickets to schoolkids for some of the cup games ( I think it was a fiver a seat). I thought it was a fine idea myself SKP. The way prices are, some kids will never get to see their team in the flesh. That can only hurt the future of the game. I know when I was a lad, ok it was a long time ago, pay at the gate was the order of every home game. Couldn't even dream of being a season ticket holder in those days. That was for rich people. I even suggested earlier in the season that perhaps we could follow your club's lead and offer schoolkids a greatly reduced price. Greedy sods at St. James' never did that to my knowledge. I have never heard of SAFC giving away free tickets, but then I am 5000 miles from home and a little out of the loop as news goes.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

There is a serious difference between philanthropy and neccessity.

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2001

In a number of reserve games at the SOL, Free entry was given, with a collection tin for charity instead of paying a nominal sum. The matches were badly attended, but what stood out was the fact that the average fan put 19p into the collection tins..... very charitable.

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2001

I know for definite that free tickets were given to kids.

My aunty (a Mackem and SAFC fan) is friends with a head of a primary school in Sunderland. The school were apparently given a packet of 50 tickets for a Sunderland home game in April (sorry about the patchy details, it was a couple of months back).

The kids could have the tickets for £5 each and all money was to be kept by the school. This is a charitable idea I reckon, but in Newcastle's case, there are enough people prepared to pay for tickets without giving them out.

Anyway, the teacher offered a couple of tickets to my aunty as they kids didn't want them all, and being the skin-flint that she is, she didn't even pay any money to the school fund.

It's not completely free tickets, but the club is giving them away to schools. I suspect that they expect to make the money from food sales from the kids at half time and pre-match.

It's a decent idea from SAFC, but surely if there is sufficient demand for full price tickets then there would be no need to have these schemes?

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2001

Haven't heard anything of free season tickets though.

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2001

IMO, SAFC have cleverly pursued a policy of capturing a goodly share of the next generation of footy fans, and who can blame them? At least they've got their marekting brains in gear which is more than can be said for our comedians.
This policy was developed when we were totally sold out, and best part of a generation of bairns will have been lost to the Toon.

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2001

Not sure it works at all. The best they can hope for is to pick up grey area supporters: people who haven't been indoctrinated by their family into one religion or the other. It doesn't matter how good the offer, my son is never setting foot in SoL without a set of keys jingling insultingly from his fingers.

If they could fill their stadium with full price punters they would. This is long term marketing in the hope of getting people used to attending matches. Contrast it with SJP which has been increased by at least 10,000 folk who didn't used to be there before. No need for freebies: the market was there. That was built on the fact that the team had been terrific for a few seasons (unless you are Sparxx of course, in which case the Keegan years were a terrible trial of adversity ;-)). Unless we get a decent product back on the pitch soon then we will need to think about freebies as well.

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2001

Not convinced Softie.
Commmitted fathers - like you and I - would never allow their sprogs to be attracted to The Dark Side. However, a great many of the potential future generation of supporters don't have this enlightened guiding influence.

My 17 year old lad has three mates who without the necessary paternal guidance have been lost to the Toon for ever because of the factors I have already outlined.
That's three too many for me.

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2001

I received this e-mail today

Being only 15 and living in Brechin (Angus, Scotland) I find it almost impossible to attend Newcastle games. It would involve me having to book having to book train tickets which are quite expensive and the rail companies don't offer any kind of discount to me. I am also a member of Club United which claims its members have priority of buying tickets over non-members. I still haven't used this but I hear it's quite good. The tickets I suppose are quite expensive to which means I am having to pay a lot for a day out to see Newcastle games. I was also quite disappointed when I heard that both the 'Fans who travel over 100 miles to home matches' and 'Fans under the age of 16' were both not included in the final groups for representation in the FLC which basically means people like me are not represented at all. While I can't really expect you do much about it, I would like to know if there is anything you can do to help.

Now there is the added complication of travel for this lad, but his comments about tickets, and prices, would be true if he lived in Fenham.

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2001

The thing is, there is never any trouble filling the stadium.

If people are prepared to pay £25 a ticket (or whatever it is for a single game) then they do. It doesn't make business sense to charge less if people will pay the higher price.

For instance, say a ticket anywhere was £25. If the club reduced this to £24, they'd lose out on at least £1m per season, which is a lot of money when you look at our recent transfer dealings.

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2001

Yes but these are allegedly successful business ment who should be able to see beyond next season, or the following one.

It has been a birthright to be able to go and see Newcastle play. Each generation is indoctrinated by the previous one, it is the only constant through the club's history. Players, managers, coaches etc come and go but the 'club is bigger than any one person'. I didn't understand what that meant when we sold Supermac but accepted it. I now understand. The club is the fans they just stay around for ever.

This used to be easy, you could take your kid, sit him on a barrier and get him sucked in without spending bucketloads of money. Then in teen years son went on his own and so it carried on.

With the current pricing arrangement the club is going out of its way to price kids out of it. It's over £12 to take a kid to a game. Either paper lads get paid an awful lot these days or there is a problem.

Looking around at the match I'd be surprised if 10% of the crowd is under 18. That means 90% of the income comes from earners. These people shoudl be subsidising the kids. I'd be happy to add £10 to an adult season ticket price if it means reducing a £90 reduction in kids prices. The books still balance, but the kids tickets have gone £240 per season to £150, or less than a tenner a game. I personally would be happy to make it £20 more for me (one cup match ticket) if it reduced kids prices even further.

The gate receipts while still significant are becoming a smaller proportion of the club income as SKY give ever more money. The fans though bring the passion that SKY are buying, no kids, no passion, no SKY.

Thoughts please

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2001

Spot on Macbeth - lack of thought for the future generation of customers will come home to roost unless we achieve genuine lasting playing success. A very high risk strategy imo - although probably one based simply on a lack of thought rather than design.

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

As long as the board can ensure that we have a certain level of success on the pitch, the rest will follow. This is where they have to put the work/money in.

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

Can't agree DeB.
That is an unecessarily high risk strategy, and not one an enlightened management would pursue.
The more sensible course of action is to put in place considered strategies to encourage the next generation of supporters, as I believe or rivals down the road are attempting to do.

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

MacBeth, there are few empty seats at St James' last season, but the 1,500 empty were in the corporate areas. This coming season there will be a few thousand around the ground. These could be filled with kids if the family enclosure had been made bigger last season. You have to push the board into enlarging this area so that we will have fans in the future.

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001