Saw you letter in S Sun. Whilst we all can be frustrated by the ticket allocation at away games, It's hard to blame the club. th e Charlton game is a fair example. You & I would say it's easy to sell an extra 800 or so tickets even if they are not sale or return but look at the facts, the club have to pay £25 for every unsold ticket, by their nature these are the last to go. It's played on Dec 1st one of the poorest attended days fixturewise. The previous Charlton "aways" have not sold out. Who is going to explain to the financial manager that the possible loss of of £2000 should be riked for a possible booking fee revenue of £400 when all the Actuarial evedence suggests we will not sell out. Given that 8 unsold tickets sends us into a loss & the ticket office staff could be selling home game tickets what would the logical response be?

I suggested to Kevin Miles that the INUSA should offer to sake the extra allocation & sell to their member whilst taking the risk themselves. Of course Fat Kev wouldn't take the riskbut felt the club should.

Of course other clubs are not as helpful as Charlton. Chelsea offer an extra block of tickets of 5000. That's a possible loss of £150000, taken over a season (where every away host had the same policy) that could be £3.15m. Given the choice of pretending to be a home fan once in a while or a new £3m creative midfielder to replace the stationary Rob Lee, i know what I'm going to vote for.

-- Anonymous, December 02, 2001

Answers

Argumentitive Pisshead.

-- Anonymous, December 02, 2001

But surely Newcastle take 10,000 to every away match.

Look at Barca.3000 tkts and 20000+ went!!

All thanks to the policy of letting 3 people in on 1 ticket.

Who can remember when Nufc fans used to claim that the directors made the home gates artifically low for tax reasons?

-- Anonymous, December 02, 2001

Yeah they made them low because they felt sorry for the makems. They wanted them to know "hey makems your crowds are now only 2000 behind Newcastles"

-- Anonymous, December 02, 2001

No,no,no.

I was talking about the pre-keegan days.

Oops sorry.You didnt know they existed did you!?

-- Anonymous, December 02, 2001

Oh and one more thing.

Since we were"reborn" in 97/98 we have always took the full allocation.

***reborn*** Nufc were reborn in 1993.WE followed later.Of that there can be no doubt.(Although I am sure someone will try to deny it)

-- Anonymous, December 02, 2001

Ok then its "hey makems we only want the world to see we have 2000 more in the ground than you lot not 4000"

-- Anonymous, December 02, 2001

Oh no!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've in-advertingley(spelling??) fired up the beamback arguement again!!

-- Anonymous, December 02, 2001

Being in the smoke I can say on our side we're forever getting home fans tickets to make the numbers up to go. At our game at Fulham we had thousands in the Putney Terrace and seats, which meant they had to tighten up the rules to get tickets from members only.

But that's a load of hogwash about the away games this season. You're in a lot better state than last year, and you can sell that allocation no problem at all this time round. Some of your exiles don't go when you're not playing well like last year, cos I have a tenant that's one of your persuasion ;o)

What was that about beamback??

-- Anonymous, December 02, 2001

Dave, the club should be encouraging as many people to go because:

1. More travelling fans provides better support for the team. Whilst it's debatable whether this makes any difference, it's no coincidence that every side in the league consistently has a better home than away record. And if it makes just one point difference over the course of the season it's a worthwhile investment.

2. People who go to away games are far more likely to remain loyal fans of the club.

3. People who go to away games buy more merchandise.

4. The club could do with a little bit of positive PR.

5. If the club got their arse in gear they wouldn't have any problem selling extra ticket allocations at least for London games as their are thousands of Geordies down there. Most of them don't bother applying unless they have season tickets as there isn't much point. I lived in London for 4 years and often had spare tickets available - never had a problem getting rid of them, and almost always to people who were extremely grateful to have the chance to go to a game.

6. IT'S NEWCASTLE UNITEd

-- Anonymous, December 02, 2001

Dave, the club should be encouraging as many people to go because:

1. More travelling fans provides better support for the team. Whilst it's debatable whether this makes any difference, it's no coincidence that every side in the league consistently has a better home than away record. And if it makes just one point difference over the course of the season it's a worthwhile investment. After all, it's not inconceivable that this season we might miss out on Europe by a point or even on goal difference.

2. People who go to away games are far more likely to remain loyal fans of the club. Encouraging people to go to away games cements that relationship and ensures the club's future popularity and (ahem) income.

3. People who go to away games buy more merchandise. How many extra shirts, hats, scarves etc etc would need to be sold to offset the costs of a proper away tickets policy?

4. The club could do with a little bit of positive PR.

5. If the club got their arse in gear they wouldn't have any problem selling extra ticket allocations at least for London games as their are thousands of Geordies down there. Most of them don't bother applying unless they have season tickets as there isn't much point. I lived in London for 4 years and often had spare tickets available - never had a problem getting rid of them, and almost always to people who were extremely grateful to have the chance to go to a game.

6. This supposed massive financial loss is being grossly overstated in most cases. Admittedly in the case of Chelsea, with their 5,000 or nothing additional tickets policy there's some kind of decision to be made, but for 7-800 tickets? We're talking some pretty small potential losses given that we can reasonably expect at least some if not all of the extra tickets to be sold.

7. IT'S THEIR BLOODY JOB!!!

-- Anonymous, December 02, 2001

This may seem strange but I didn't write to the Sunday Sun so I don't know what is in the letter !!

If it differs from what is on another thread "Charlton tickets" would someone let me know. That is the basis for the letter, I hope.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

Kev, we have always taken more fans to Barca in the Champions League than you

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

I think you'll find that the Barca record will always stand.

Fenwicks window will be seeing my arse if we ever get there.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

I thought the Xmas Display was already up? :-)

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

Oi SK! ... get you backside down to Joplings

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

Soops, I can tell you from personal experience that you're talking crap - I have three season ticket voucher books and always get away tickets on two of them but NEVER on the newer voucher book. NUFC are turning fans away. You are welcome to inpsect my collection of correspondence with the club on this.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

Just got a call from my mate who has a young lad at school in whitley bay. He has in his possession a letter stating he can have a ticket for the next Mackem game for 15quid , thats 5 for the little un and 10 for the adult , However 5 is donated back to the school so thats 10 for Adult and NOWT for the kid . I thought you could SELL all yer tickets Soup;-)

PS: hell not be taking up the offer

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

"PS: hell not be taking up the offer"

Why the heck should he?

£10 is a bliddy rip off!

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

Actually that reminds me of the time my brother went to Roker Park after his school (Southridge in Whitley Bay) were given 30 odd tickets for nowt. He went in some old wooden stand (not really familiar with Roker Park) and cheered on Reading (who won 1-0 if I remember right)

So Free Ticket Mackem is nothing new really.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

Got to tell you gang - it's all very well extracting the urine from the Free Ticket Mackems - but they are cleverly and assiduously stealing substantial numbers of future generations of Toon fans. Murray was bragging about this last week

It's great to laugh at the mackems, but frankly I don't find this funny at all - I find it staggering that NUFC aren't reciprocating, for the sake of maintaining our enduring superiority. The reason? They haven't got the sense.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

There's no money in free tickets.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

I'm with you there, Clarky and think it's a scandal that the club doesn't do more to get bairns in for cup games - there were 20,000 empty seats last week. I know someone will say that you don't have to cut prices if there's enough demand but the fact is, there isn't enough demand for Cup games.

Having said that, Bob Murray is deluding himself if he thinks that a free ticket is a guarantee of support in this day and age: once it would have been, now it isn't. If Boro won the PL tomorrow, most of the bairns in the NE would start supporting them. Fact, I'm afraid.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

Besides which, what is so galling about Murray is that he would sell them for £200 each if he could. Because he can't he dresses it up as social responsibility and gets plaudits for it. Also, he tells barefaced lies like saying Saturday was sold out: it wasn't (Before a Makem interrupts, I got that from a Makem). Having said that, he is taking people in and it's about time the Toon were as snidey.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

Look ladies - SAFC & NUFC are businesses broadly competing for the same pool of customers. If either of them could conjure up the PL trophy they wouldn't need to encourage the bairns to come and watch them.

However, the reality of this situation is that neither Club has been terribly successful in winning the Big Potato for several eons now. So, it would seem to me to be pragmatic to do something to encourage impressionable youngsters to attend a few games, and to soak in the atmosphere of a PL game at the SoL or SJP.

This is entirely within their control, and is at least a positive move that may just hook 10-20% of those who you do manage to get through the turnstiles.

The alterntive is to sit on your complacent arse and allow those bairns to become supporters of the regional opposition, or more likely these days to get involved in non- sporting activities that effectively deny them forever from enjoying the thrills of wearing their local teams colours, and of handing over their hard-earned Euros at the Ticket Office.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

Which is what makes the attitude of those currently running the club so maddening. They can't seem to see past the pound coin in their hand and look at customer service as a way to generate future revenue. Make people happy by buying up away allocations, or offering cut price tickets to cup games to fill the ground, and they're far more likely to come back for more matches and/or buy more merchandise.

Another way of looking at it is the airline philosophy. An empty seat is lost revenue. That's why airlines offer last minute tickets a deep discount, or have fluctuating blocks of cheap tickets based on potential load factor for a given flight. Once the door shuts and the plane leaves the gate, any empty seat is money lost. Better to earn a little money, than no money. Same can be said of a football ground, once the game starts (and finishes) the opportunity to earn money on an empty seat is lost forever. Multiply 5 or 10 pounds by the 20,000 seats otherwise going empty and you've got a nice chunk of change.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

Careful with your analogy Ciara. We don't want them over selling and us punters getting bumped to a different carrier. I'd hate to go for an NUFC match and end up doon the road at the SoS.

But other than that (and certain other airline connotations) I agree with you. Of course we can't expect all those Platinum tickets to go on sale at knock down prices, so some reallocation might be necessary.

Dare I suggest a little market research might indicate that no matter what potential revenue these seats might bring, unless they are covered with bums, the cash ain't gonna flow. With a bit off effort, they could probably redistribute vacant ST spaces so that the majority of the ground was full, leaving all the "on the day" tickets in a series of blocks to be sold off block by block. When (say) Thursday comes and all the tickets haven't been sold, then offer them at cut price - or offer them to schools at Mackem-level prices.

I'm in an area which is designated "supplementary" or something like that. I'd probably be happy for that area to become "on the day" if I was re-allocated to the Milburn periphery. I wouldn't expect the wining and dining that comes with those expensive seats and with a small amount of re-arranging, they could limit access to those areas for cattle-class travellers like me. Perhaps they could just pull the curtain across??

Alternatively, just flog 'em off in the odds and sods that are vacant. But do something. It's embarrasing to see the empty seats in the Milburn

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2001

Clarky, I don't know what bit of what I said disagreed with what you said.

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2001