Points of Blue Meeting

I feel your pain mate. I’d estimate that I’ve averaged about 10 away games a season (plus at least 1 European trip a year for the last decade) for the last 35 years, and whilst I know there’s many Blues out there with far superior records to that, I still find it faintly ridiculous that I haven’t managed to get within 500 points of qualifying for a single away ticket this season, and instead on 5 occasions have been reliant on friends or the OSC to get me in.
Not having a dig at you but the irony of your last sentence is I hope not lost on you. Assuming your mates / OSC have the points to start with they are moving further away from you despite you being the person attending the match. I also have had the same problem relying on spares etc. They get the points we attend the games. Maybe if they didn't but the tickets then the points criteria will drop to lower points meaning we can catch up. That said so many more tickets are, I am sure, being siphoned off then we may never catch up
 
Platinum is not the issue. I’ve been on it since the scheme was introduced, I’ve got 15000 points, and yet I get further and further away from the away ticket qualifying criteria every season. This season I’ve been to Bournemouth, Watford, Chelsea and West Brom, but not one of them via the points system. The club siphon off more away tickets every season for ‘selected partners’ and it pisses me right off
Its a closed shop at the top end of the points system. The odd few may catch up and thats only if someone gives their seasoncard up, which lets be honest is highely unlikely. Even someone popping their clogs a relative will take it over, I know two people who have done this very thing. They will continue to edge away from those who try to get closer. Tbh theres not much you can do. I still think its probably abt right how its done.
 
Not having a dig at you but the irony of your last sentence is I hope not lost on you. Assuming your mates / OSC have the points to start with they are moving further away from you despite you being the person attending the match. I also have had the same problem relying on spares etc. They get the points we attend the games. Maybe if they didn't but the tickets then the points criteria will drop to lower points meaning we can catch up. That said so many more tickets are, I am sure, being siphoned off then we may never catch up

The irony's not lost on me at all, but I don't intend to castigate those at the top of the points chain for doing what they do. That'd be like blaming the dog for stealing the sausages after you've starved him for a week and then left the fridge door open. The club is almost entirely responsible for the current farce (albeit that the £30 away ticket cap and City playing beautiful football have played their part). In siphoning off the amount of tickets that they clearly do, they are piling untold pressure on the system that remains. Those at the top of the points chain get mithered by mates (like me) who used to qualify in their own right, but have now been squeezed out, and they feel obligated to help them......which as you say widens the gap between them and you, even though you're the one actually attending often as not.

It also has an adverse effect on the OSC's as well. I've been paying my dues to the London Branch, the largest in the country outside of Manchester, for 25 years, but the allocations we now get are risible more often than not. We received the grand total of 2 tickets for Huddersfield, and that in itself creates problems as you have members getting increasingly disgruntled at never getting a ticket for games and who have started setting up their own fringe branches instead (West Bucks Blues, North Downs & Weald Blues, that sort of thing - NB: I made those names up by the way) with barely a dozen members and the aim of that new branch then getting an allocation of some description, however miniscule......which of course inevitably comes at the expense of those in the parent branches, who were (rightly) above them in the pecking order. Personally I can see a time in the not too distant future when the OSC's outside of Manchester start to fold, because going to matches is a fundamental part of the glue that holds them together.

I understand that the club needs to flog City as a global brand. You have to strike while the iron's hot in that regard, and we are never going to be hotter than when we're gunning for the title with Pep Guardiola in charge. Once you have those new 'fans' on the hook in their hundreds of thousands then you can take your foot off the pedal a bit and coast. After all the dippers have won fuck all of note (bar that 'famous night in Istanbul') for nearly 30 years, yet they are still arguably the best supported team in Asia and certainly on the sub-continent. What was it Goebbels said? 'Give me a child and he'll be mine for life'. Something like that. So by all means give the odd tour group or chosen sponsor a small allocation, just not in the numbers we are currently seeing (and particularly not for away games in London, when half the fucking allocation seems to go to agencies and honoured guests, who couldn't point to Edgeley Park or Sixfields or any of the rest of the shit holes we all used to go to, on a map). Better yet, give them home tickets. There's nearly always clear gaps in the Family Stand for starters, unless we've got the rags or the dippers in town. What I do believe is that treating your customers with contempt, which is what the club is doing currently, is never a good idea in the long term.
 
What I do believe is that treating your customers with contempt, which is what the club is doing currently, is never a good idea in the long term.

I agree with all that you say. But what isn't discussed much is who exactly the club's "customers" are. We look at it from the perspective of those who have "put in the hard yards" and suffered, my God we've suffered, in supporting the club through thick and thin. That is the perspective of a "customer" who is now part of a dwindling and ageing core.

What about the 19 year old who has a lifetime of (financial) supporting in front of him. How does he get to an away match ? What about the much derided corporate ? His financial commitment is huge. Would the club be sensible in looking at the situation through the same lens as us in terms of its log-term planning ?
 
Swansea City on open sale, anyone on the database can get one

Good point.

I bet those sneaks on 21k plus have bought tickets to attend though, also very sneaky those not missing a game for 17 years on 24k. Nothing to do with first time season ticket holders in Joes, corporates, and all the staff taking their share, especially the staff who go and get selfies at OT with LVG but don't bother going any other aways.
 
I agree with all that you say. But what isn't discussed much is who exactly the club's "customers" are. We look at it from the perspective of those who have "put in the hard yards" and suffered, my God we've suffered, in supporting the club through thick and thin. That is the perspective of a "customer" who is now part of a dwindling and ageing core.

What about the 19 year old who has a lifetime of (financial) supporting in front of him. How does he get to an away match ? What about the much derided corporate ? His financial commitment is huge. Would the club be sensible in looking at the situation through the same lens as us in terms of its log-term planning ?

All true, but as long as the game gets played in a stadium, and particularly one in the none too rich surrounds of East Manchester, they need to pay some sort of heed to the rank and file whose affinity for the club goes beyond novelty or a desire to associate themselves with a successful brand. At the moment I think the club is falling some way short of that. Agree of course about the next generation. As you will be aware the eldest boy has had a season ticket since he was 7, and he’s 22 next week. For his trouble he has a paltry 11000 points and absolutely no chance of getting an away ticket other than via the same sources I use. He’s managed 3 this season, with a 4th lined up......and he’s better off than most. I did note at West Brom a couple of weeks ago that the demographic of City’s away following increasingly resembles a Saga holiday
 
All true, but as long as the game gets played in a stadium, and particularly one in the none too rich surrounds of East Manchester, they need to pay some sort of heed to the rank and file whose affinity for the club goes beyond novelty or a desire to associate themselves with a successful brand. At the moment I think the club is falling some way short of that. Agree of course about the next generation. As you will be aware the eldest boy has had a season ticket since he was 7, and he’s 22 next week. For his trouble he has a paltry 11000 points and absolutely no chance of getting an away ticket other than via the same sources I use. He’s managed 3 this season, with a 4th lined up......and he’s better off than most. I did note at West Brom a couple of weeks ago that the demographic of City’s away following increasingly resembles a Saga holiday

Is he going to Swansea?
 

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