Lets SCRAP online ticket sales

[Gazwag]

I know. This isn't a thread of complaint as such - I didn't even bother trying to get a ticket for Boro, because I'm a Bad Fan who couldn't be arsed to go all the way up there for a game that might be a dead rubber.

Its more a wistful look back at how we USED to do things before the days of just sitting there on your arse and clicking. We all coped, and on reflection, peering through my rose-tinted specs, I honestly think it was a better way of doing it. Less convenient maybe, but still better.

But in the "good old days" you could get a train ticket the morning without having to purchase 6 separate journeys and carry half a tree of tickets, arrive at the ground at 14.45 and give cash to the turnstile operator to get in.

The only time I can ever remember having to purchase a ticket in advance was the two '83 cup finals and the '91 play off final. I can't remember queuing for long for the first match as it was all voucher based but queued for hours and hours on the Monday after the first cup match having caught the first train out of Bexhill that morning to get to the Goldstone.

 

[Gazwag]

This means the Albion don't get any of the ticket price and the fan doesn't get any loyalty points.

Does the club get anything for an away ticket sale, I thought they just got the booking fee to set against the costs.

 

[Brovion]

I remember going to a reserve game at the Goldstone when attending that game guaranteed you a ticket for a big cup game (can't remember which one).

It must have been arecord crown for a reserves game, thousands of people paid to get in the vast majority of whom walked straight out again without watching the game.

It was certainly done for the League Cup game against Derby.

I think Easy's idea is good. People are always banging on about how everybody should support their local club, therefore all Brighton fans can easily get to the Amex for tickets as they're all local - aren't they? If not then use his fall-back 'relative or friend' option

 

[Mackenzie]

Seriously. Why not ?

After surveying the latest BINFEST outbreak on the Boro ticket thread - doesn't all this faff just make you YEARN for the days before the internet, when you would actually have to physically go and queue for tickets ? I miss those days. Queues were fun. There was excitement, camaraderie, anticipation as you inch forward, towards the hallowed window of the ticket office. Chat and "bants" with your fellow fans in the queue, and then that prized moment when you turn away from the window, physically clutching those tickets in your hairy MIT, before you mince off down the pub and start properly planning your BDO. There was a real sense that you'd properly EARNED those tickets. You'd done the time. You'd stood there and queued outside, maybe for hours, and the process had ended in rightful triumph.

Now what. That whole experience has been replaced with sitting there in your pants in front of a screen, with the curtains drawn, hammering away at the F5 key, frantically clicking on all these little boxes, praying that the text in a little window will stop being greyed out. Then you'll either miss out, and go onto NSC to spend half the day complaining bitterly about loyalty points, web servers, internet speed, the time they went on sale, and arguing the toss with smug scrotes who say "neerrr, should've tried sooner, serves you right". That, or you get your ticket, pop onto Pornhub for a quick celebrationary hand shandy, before slumping on the sofa with a tube of Pringles and Sky Sports News.

I know what I prefer. Sure its more "convenient" to sit on your arse and click a mouse a few times. But I reckon we should scrap all that and go Old School again. Bollocks to online queues, we're british - we should go back to queues for REAL. Its what we do.

Who's with me ?

Yep.

 

[Charlies Shinpad]

I'm happy to pop down from Devon on the train and join the throngs massing outside the Amex only to get to the window as they put up the Sold Out Signs

 

[Easy 10]

I'm happy to pop down from Devon on the train and join the throngs massing outside the Amex only to get to the window as they put up the Sold Out Signs

Character building.

 

[Charlies Shinpad]

But in the "good old days" you could get a train ticket the morning without having to purchase 6 separate journeys and carry half a tree of tickets, arrive at the ground at 14.45 and give cash to the turnstile operator to get in.

The only time I can ever remember having to purchase a ticket in advance was the two '83 cup finals and the '91 play off final. I can't remember queuing for long for the first match as it was all voucher based but queued for hours and hours on the Monday after the first cup match having caught the first train out of Bexhill that morning to get to the Goldstone.

We were in the que for the Replay in 83 and bought 6 tickets each no questions asked for the game
Although you had to have proof you had been to the Final

 

[Finchley Seagull]

Speaking as a fan who lives in London, I don't miss that at all (nor the day when it was done first come, first serve by post).

 

[Giraffe]

I recall being dropped off by my dad to queue at 7am one day to queue for tickets for I think the Liverpool replay in 1991. Met some oddities in the queue that day.

 

[Gazwag]

It was certainly done for the League Cup game against Derby.

I think Easy's idea is good. People are always banging on about how everybody should support their local club, therefore all Brighton fans can easily get to the Amex for tickets as they're all local - aren't they? If not then use his fall-back 'relative or friend' option

Brighton is and has always been my local club despite living 30 miles away does that make me less entitled than you ?

 

[Wozza]

Seriously. Why not ?

After surveying the latest BINFEST outbreak on the Boro ticket thread - doesn't all this faff just make you YEARN for the days before the internet, when you would actually have to physically go and queue for tickets ? I miss those days. Queues were fun. There was excitement, camaraderie, anticipation as you inch forward, towards the hallowed window of the ticket office. Chat and "bants" with your fellow fans in the queue, and then that prized moment when you turn away from the window, physically clutching those tickets in your hairy MIT, before you mince off down the pub and start properly planning your BDO. There was a real sense that you'd properly EARNED those tickets. You'd done the time. You'd stood there and queued outside, maybe for hours, and the process had ended in rightful triumph.

Now what. That whole experience has been replaced with sitting there in your pants in front of a screen, with the curtains drawn, hammering away at the F5 key, frantically clicking on all these little boxes, praying that the text in a little window will stop being greyed out. Then you'll either miss out, and go onto NSC to spend half the day complaining bitterly about loyalty points, web servers, internet speed, the time they went on sale, and arguing the toss with smug scrotes who say "neerrr, should've tried sooner, serves you right". That, or you get your ticket, pop onto Pornhub for a quick celebrationary hand shandy, before slumping on the sofa with a tube of Pringles and Sky Sports News.

I know what I prefer. Sure its more "convenient" to sit on your arse and click a mouse a few times. But I reckon we should scrap all that and go Old School again. Bollocks to online queues, we're british - we should go back to queues for REAL. Its what we do.

Who's with me ?

You could have just linked to this: http://www.northstandchat.com/showt...pic-tickets-why-did-it-HAVE-to-be-done-online

 

[perseus]

Joined the queue five hours before the start of the reserve game (makes Brighton station queues look short) to get a ticket for the Chelsea Cup game in the sixties.

Got the ticket after three hours (well long enough) and passed the four deep queue passing well beyond Conway bus depot (two hours before the start of the reserve game) as we could not face another two hours for the reserve game to start.

Four hours travelling there and back for the Fulham last Friday game was even less.

 

[arfer guinness]

My memory's not as bad as I thought it was, as I was posting I was thinking it was a game against Notts County but I didn't say so in case I was wrong. I'm pretty sure it was Notts County now you've mentioned it. And it would make sense that the cup game was Chelsea, that was a big game in those days, our biggest for some years.

I seem to remember we we drew at the Goldstone and lost the replay? 4 - 0 is ringing a bell?

What I definitely do remember was taking a girlfriend to Stamford Bridge and she was wearing a bright orange trouser suit!

That's the one. I think it was John Boyle sent off in the first game which we drew 2-2 and lost the replay 4-0. The official attendance at the Goldstone that day was the capacity 35,000 which I believe has not been broken since for a home game. Another silly thing I remember was the jackpot ticket first prize was £100 for the first time.

 

[Easy 10]

You could have just linked to this: http://www.northstandchat.com/showt...pic-tickets-why-did-it-HAVE-to-be-done-online

I know I have form. Its one of my bugbears whenever there's on online ticketing binfest.

Mind you, I had completely forgotten that thread. A lot can happen to a brain in 5 years.

 

[Wozza]

I know I have form. Its one of my bugbears whenever there's on online ticketing binfest.

Mind you, I had completely forgotten that thread. A lot can happen to a brain in 5 years.

I remembered it because I liked it.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

And someone can START a false RUMOUR that tickets have all been SOLD resulting in CARNAGE

... I got a phone call from Martin Perry asking me to post a message on NSC to the effect that there was no chance that the Albion's allocation of tickets for the Cardiff Play-Off Final would EVER sell out. And they didn't.

 

[El Presidente]

And someone can START a false RUMOUR that tickets have all been SOLD resulting in CARNAGE

WHOEVER would do something like that? It's never happened before has it?

 

[Gwylan]

I think it was John Boyle sent off in the first game which we drew 2-2 and lost the replay 4-0.

1-1. And yes, Boyle was sent off for kicking Wally Gould

 

[Ernest]

... I got a phone call from Martin Perry asking me to post a message on NSC to the effect that there was no chance that the Albion's allocation of tickets for the Cardiff Play-Off Final would EVER sell out. And they didn't.

Still caused CARNAGE though. For the life of me I can't REMEMBER who started that rumour though

 

[perseus]

Join the train queues at Brighton station for an authenticold style fans (will I get to see the game?) experience!

Never really thought I would miss out* except for the Rochdale match arriving at six. Rochdale was more crowded than the Chlesea match by quite a lot. So tightly packed it was impossible to clap in the NE (where the queues were shortest). We could see the queues to the Sackville on KO for that game (more than Brighton station v Fulham). I think fans must have been locked out for Rochdale?

(*Spurs away was close though in the late seventies.)