Absolutely not, Paul !! Where the ticket office think that demand is likely to exceed supply, they will prioritise within season ticket holders e.g instead of the first tranche being P+ members, it would be ST holders with 10 away attendances in the previous season (or whatever).
I didn't hear Ange's broadcast, but there must be some misunderstanding here, somewhere along the line. We discovered at the Council meeting that it is a supsrisingly difficult concept to express clearly. The meeting itself got into some confusion over this.
Hi Malcolm
You've only got to look at the debacle with the WBA tickets today, where people have queued for hours in the rain or for hours on line, only to come away empty handed, to see how absolutely essential it is for a fair (and that's the important bit) priority system to be in place for next season.
There are examples of people who haven't been away all season who now have a ticket for West Brom, yet there are people who have been to the majority of away games this season who haven't.
This surely cannot be right can it?
Well I aren't happy no, because I've been to 13 away games this season, does that make my dick bigger? I'd say it does, and after queuing at the ground today was told I won't be going West Brom. Think I have every right to moan.
Now we have Stokies at each other throats because there isn't a fair and equitable system in place.
THIS HAS TO CHANGE.
Really Malcolm in 2014 we shouldn't have people queuing for hours in the rain with no hope of getting a ticket.
In my humble opinion the system should be based on a points system and work something like this.
1. As a season ticket holder you get (say) 380 points automatically dumped onto your account at the start of a season (the equivalent to 20 points for each home game you're going to attend) - a supporter who attends home games without a season ticket will get 20 points put onto their account for every home ticket that they purchase.
2. All supporters get additional points added to their account for home cup tickets that they purchase - say 20 points.
3. All supporters get additional points allocated for away tickets that they purchase, say 100 points for Newcastle on a mid-week game, 50 points for a London or North East game on a Saturday, and then less points for away games closer to home and depending if it's at the weekend or not.
Then when away tickets go on sale, the club will announce that during the first three or four days of sale you will need to have 'X' amount (the highest amount) of points on your account in order to purchase a ticket, then for the next three or four days, you will need to have 'Y' amount (the second highest amount) of points on your account and so on and so on, until all the tickets are sold, or they eventually get to general sale.
This way you avoid people queuing in person or on the phone unnecessarily and avoid supporters ending up at each other throats because the shutters came down on the ticket office when they were moments away from reaching the front of the queue.
Also you actively ENCOURAGE people to travel to the away games that are more difficult to get to because you REWARD them directly for doing so!
Of course all of the above is open to massive discussion and the figures I've quoted are just me pulling figures out of the air to demonstrate an example as I think on the fly on a Friday evening but I'm sure you get the fundamental POINT I'm making.
And of course it's nothing like as complicated as it sounds, we already a use very similar software to award points for purchases that we make as customers of SCFC anyway.
Cheers
Paul