Uncle Buck
Ghost Writer
- Jul 7, 2003
- 28,077
OK for all those out there that think the Albion make a hash of ticket allocations, they are not a patch on those half wits at Soho Square.
England are playing back to back qualifiers in Austria and Poland at the beginning of September. Now for the games the visiting teams are allowed something in the region of 10% of the tickets, as England gave Turkey for the game at Sunderland. However for the game in Vienna, the FA have only taken an allocation of around 2200 (round about 5%). The problem is they have had nearly 5000 applications for this game and have twice extended the deadline for applications, as people seemed incapable of sending the forms in before they went on the Super Bock trail in June. Now as the game is not that far away the majority of us have booked travel up for the game, as you want cheap flights to discover this morning that we are unlikey to get tickets via official means.
Tickets are allocated with 70% of the allocation going to those members on the highest caps and 30% going into a ballot. This is fair enough, as it gives people a chance of getting on the ladder. However, the problem is they stripped old members of previous loyalty during the last rejoining period. So somebody like myself who had been to Japan and hardly missed a game over a 5 year period, was in the same position as a new member. Throw the Liechenstein game in, where the whole thing was balloted, meaning that I did not get a ticket (via the FA) and so got pushed further down the line, it now means I am on one cap and have a small chance of getting an official ticket for the game.
To make things even more interesting. The FA are planning to allocate tickets for Austria and Poland as well as send out and process forms for the new membership period during August. The chances of it all being sorted for the games in zero as they and their mailing house would struggle to organise a shag fest in a knocking shop.
What this farce is going to create is a situation where there will be 1500+ fans travelling to the Austria and Poland games ticketless and so buying up tickets for wherever they can in the ground. For Austria this should not be too much of an issue, however for Poland, this could be lethal, as the Poles generally sell tickets via the clubs and so each club gets a block or 2 in the ground and they fight each other. Throw in England fans in each section and well you know the rest. Maybe Darren could dig out that picture from Poland in 1997 as that kind of sums the whole thing up.
Before Cardiff, people on here were banging on about touts and how wrong it is. Well it is because of the short sightedness of the FA that these guys thrive and personally if I am going to Vienna, without a ticket, I have every intention of getting into the game, legally or not.
End of rant, just thought I would put something vaguely to do with football on here.
England are playing back to back qualifiers in Austria and Poland at the beginning of September. Now for the games the visiting teams are allowed something in the region of 10% of the tickets, as England gave Turkey for the game at Sunderland. However for the game in Vienna, the FA have only taken an allocation of around 2200 (round about 5%). The problem is they have had nearly 5000 applications for this game and have twice extended the deadline for applications, as people seemed incapable of sending the forms in before they went on the Super Bock trail in June. Now as the game is not that far away the majority of us have booked travel up for the game, as you want cheap flights to discover this morning that we are unlikey to get tickets via official means.
Tickets are allocated with 70% of the allocation going to those members on the highest caps and 30% going into a ballot. This is fair enough, as it gives people a chance of getting on the ladder. However, the problem is they stripped old members of previous loyalty during the last rejoining period. So somebody like myself who had been to Japan and hardly missed a game over a 5 year period, was in the same position as a new member. Throw the Liechenstein game in, where the whole thing was balloted, meaning that I did not get a ticket (via the FA) and so got pushed further down the line, it now means I am on one cap and have a small chance of getting an official ticket for the game.
To make things even more interesting. The FA are planning to allocate tickets for Austria and Poland as well as send out and process forms for the new membership period during August. The chances of it all being sorted for the games in zero as they and their mailing house would struggle to organise a shag fest in a knocking shop.
What this farce is going to create is a situation where there will be 1500+ fans travelling to the Austria and Poland games ticketless and so buying up tickets for wherever they can in the ground. For Austria this should not be too much of an issue, however for Poland, this could be lethal, as the Poles generally sell tickets via the clubs and so each club gets a block or 2 in the ground and they fight each other. Throw in England fans in each section and well you know the rest. Maybe Darren could dig out that picture from Poland in 1997 as that kind of sums the whole thing up.
Before Cardiff, people on here were banging on about touts and how wrong it is. Well it is because of the short sightedness of the FA that these guys thrive and personally if I am going to Vienna, without a ticket, I have every intention of getting into the game, legally or not.
End of rant, just thought I would put something vaguely to do with football on here.
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