Away fans / tourists in home sections

[paulchapo]

Yeah, one of the lads who got lifted, a regular poster on here, DM'd me this morning. Bailed to appear in Court 22 May, for basically just being in the vicinity of the incident. He was held in Pendlebury nick until 3am this morning. GMP have told him he will not be able to use, transfer or exchange his seat with immediate effect. They have also told him that he cannot attend any game across the UK, including England games. Sounds very much like a Football Banning Order to me, so without a Court decision GMP are handing down FBO's. I question the legality of that.

Being in the vicinity of the incident??? What the fuck was he supposed to do, teleport himself somewhere else??

 

[jrb]

My post was a bit tongue in cheek but I was getting the message across the club can't have it all ways. They're rapidly alienating legacy fans and I think it's being done deliberately to get rid of them and replace them with tourists. They can't then throw them a few crumbs of cheaper tickets, against lower league opposition, at a shit kick off time and the game being shown live on tv and expect the fans to suddenly feel valued and loyal supporters again and snap up the tickets. See how many the agencies they deal with shift for this one.

Exactly.

I’m going to enjoy the FA Cup this season as I won’t be in any of the cup schemes next season. I’ll pick and choose the cup games next season, if I go to any at all?

 

[Big Joe Corrigan]

Because they’ve been alienated and got out of the habit becauseof those twats in the boardroom .The whole city match day experience is a laughable , the Etihad is Disneyland.

I agree with that mate, but I’ll still be there on Saturday cheering the lads on.

 

[Wilmslow Road]

How do you know who (if anyone) he supports? Sure he's wearing an Arsenal shirt but that could merely be a souvenir of his visit to the Emirates.
Has anyone from City Matters (if they still exist?) took this issue up with the club?

Join Solid Citizens on FB and you will find out what Fans are attempting to do. (One Fan in Particular).

 

[Wilmslow Road]

How would we feel about designating an area specifically for tourists? If they were all on one level or all in one big block in the stand, and every other seat was a season ticket or regular match going blue with ticket pricing to match, would that be more acceptable to everyone - club still makes its tourist money, we have a chance of building atmosphere etc back in...

When we go abroad and do the reverse (ie become a tourist in a European city), you always know which part of the ground to go to, and which bits to avoid - the curvas in Italy for instance. Same could happen here - a block or blocks all with agency fans left to annoy each other.

There will be an area for Tourists and away fans in the new stand. It will be a corporate area linked to the Hotel and City will sell match packages. These Tourists will get prime seats on the front row of the stand. Therefore diluting the atmosphere.

 

[I'm not really here]

Real question, how many on here would consider switching to Maine Road FC......it's getting bloody tempting, if enough did it, I would switch in a heartbeat. A club that you would actually feel valued as fan.

At the minute it doesn't feel like a case of abandoning our club, but the club has abandoned us.

 

[mancityvstoke]

Exactly.

I’m going to enjoy the FA Cup this season as I won’t be in any of the cup schemes next season. I’ll pick and choose the cup games next season, if I go to any at all?

east level 2 will put you on his "shit supporter" list....you're for it now pal.

 

[mancityvstoke]

Real question, how many on here would consider switching to Maine Road FC......it's getting bloody tempting, if enough did it, I would switch in a heartbeat. A club that you would actually feel valued as fan.

The City council would ban parking around their ground and start selling tourist packages

 

[Stelea]

This basically describes just about every CL game I've ever been to at The Etihad.

I've sat in the same seat in Block 239 since 2003 - am always on all the Cup schemes with my son & daughter, and tbh since the dawn of the CL era at our place in 2011 I've lost count of the number of times random people are sat in our seats. Whenever you point out they are in the wrong one, without fail they look at their tickets and they are in the wrong row, wrong block or wrong seat numbers - or a combination of the 3; it's a miracle these people find the ground tbh.

We've regularly had PSG fans, Real fans, Celtic fans, Feyenoord Fans, Barca fans etc sat in/around us - or the dreaded half/half scarf tourists with selfie sticks, or blokes/women with iPads filming the entire game.

Sadly it's a penalty for being successful. Good teams/clubs attract the tourist fans or the Johnny Come Latelys - add this to the clubs complete lack of giving one iota of a shit about its own fanbase, and bingo....we have what we have.

I'm old enough to remember the days of that mad Super League breakaway when the likes of loyal blues were termed "legacy" fans, the swift reverse from it and the grovelling statements about how important the fans are and we will put them first etc etc, which we know is absolute bollocks.

Many of our loyal fans, who were the first to put their hands in their pockets when the club was up shit creek, got priced/shunted out of the 2nd tier in the East & West Stands and shoved into the 3rd Tier of the South Stand to pave the way for even more corporate seats. At that point all bets were off on the club giving even a passing concern to the fans best interests.

I live within 8 miles of the ground; I don't buy a programme, never visit the club shop on a Matchday and prefer to booze pre/post match in my local boozer or one outside the ground. In short, I'm not the type of fan the club wants anymore.

Amazes me how idiots end up in the wrong seats.
How hard is it to simply follow the Block, Row and Seat number?
Wonder if they have the same problem when they board a plane?
Probably the same pricks who board at the front of the plane when their seats are at the rear.

 

[Corky]

I know mate. The club have a right to ban whoever they want when they want. What I was trying to say is that it seems clear that @Dodge wasn't made aware that the club would get involved

Apparently these changed for the 2022/23 season in effect. The s.14 banning order used to be applied for after most football related convictions, now they are by default with a duty on the court to impose them unless there is a good reason not too, and also the police can apply for a banning order without proving a crime. It only has to go to the magistrates court and the defendant doesn't have to be there.

Seems like some Judge Dredd stuff to me, and they asked @Dodge to accept a 3 year plus ban on the spot, with an interim ban. Draco's Code has its renaissance.

 

[mexico1970]

Amazes me how idiots end up in the wrong seats.
How hard is it to simply follow the Block, Row and Seat number?
Wonder if they have the same problem when they board a plane?
Probably the same pricks who board at the front of the plane when their seats are at the rear.

I have to say even though I sit in the same seat at every game I sometimes find myself in the wrong seat, usually it's when the people around me haven't populated their seat yet and it confuses my inbuilt radar :)

 

[chris85mcfc]

I have to be honest here mate when the scouse scored yesterday there were probably a full 2 rows of tourists screaming at the goal with their phones out hugging their friends, my main concern apart from them being cunts is how they got the tickets in the first place furthermore how did they get them together?

They are cunts because they are genuinely showing no respect to footballing culture in this country, and I suspect they know it.

Well that's a different story then, as that's complete disrespect, and if they don't realise that then they need their heads caving in.

You're right though, that the security team should be reporting back to the Ops team and do some fact finding into how they got those tickets.

As always, the club are likely to think along the lines of accepting the fact that there will be a bit of bother, as overall what they actually gain completely outweighs it. Not saying I agree, but that'll be the thinking from a business POV, I'd of thought.

 

[jrb]

east level 2 will put you on his "shit supporter" list....you're for it now pal.

I’m already classed and an ungrateful moaning bastard by some follow BM posters. :-(

 

[mexico1970]

Well that's a different story then, as that's complete disrespect, and if they don't realise that then they need their heads caving in.

You're right though, that the security team should be reporting back to the Ops team and do some fact finding into how they got those tickets.

As always, the club are likely to think along the lines of accepting the fact that there will be a bit of bother, as overall what they actually gain completely outweighs it. Not saying I agree, but that'll be the thinking from a business POV, I'd of thought.

To get so many tickets together the club has to be complaint in it surely, my guess (Fuck me I could be wrong on so many levels I usually am) is that the club is just selling tickets in bulk to their resellers and these resellers are selling to bunches of friends with no affiliation to the club.

But that's just a wild crazy guess mate :)

 

[rowarta]

Brother in law was at a recent CL game with his lad. 2 hours before kick off, he was helping a friend with tickets, and on the official club site all seats were sold out.

Game kicked off and all around him there were groups of 5 seats empty. Then over the next 25 minutes, these groups of people started turning up. All from the same demographic, which you can probably guess. They didn't know how to find their seats, so people had to move or stand up for them to check the seat numbers, before the steward helped them. It is 25 minutes into the match, and a whole row is standing up to let them in. They sit down for about five mins, then they are up again an off down onto the concourse, then they come back 10 minutes later with drinks and snacks, they are taking selfies in the aisle, again a whole row stands up to let them in. Half time comes and they disappear completely, and don't return at all for the second half.

What is the point of this? Just for a selfie, or a tick box exercise to say that you did something when you were in Manchester? Block buying seats and then disrespecting all the match going fans. And bizarrely, they probably paid an arm and a leg to not even watch a match.

I think the club should put "instagram" seating section in the ground to put people who just want to take selfies, sit there watching the game on their phone whilst videoing the game, wearing their half/half scarves. Maybe I'm getting old, but this season has been a nightmare as your posted describes.

Maybe the "instagram" seating should be in the Joie CFA Stadium :-)

 

[mexico1970]

Well that's a different story then, as that's complete disrespect, and if they don't realise that then they need their heads caving in.

You're right though, that the security team should be reporting back to the Ops team and do some fact finding into how they got those tickets.

As always, the club are likely to think along the lines of accepting the fact that there will be a bit of bother, as overall what they actually gain completely outweighs it. Not saying I agree, but that'll be the thinking from a business POV, I'd of thought.

And on a different note I sat next to a Red Star fan in a CL game and he was brilliant, he enjoyed the game (An American with links to Belgrade through his dad) no problem with him at all he was fantastic.

 

[.db.]

The lad who sat next to me for 20+ years gave his season ticket up at the end of the 2022-23 season due to the price increase. I’ve had a different foreign visitor next to me or an empty seat for pretty much every game since.

They’ve ranged from the empty seat (I’d say ⅓ of the time), to a female PSG fan who just came for the weekend who spoke very broken English and was fit as fuck who said she paid about €240 for it, to East Asian City fans getting massively excited about City attacks and goals and smiling when songs get going, to boring fuckers who spend all their time messaging people on their phones barely looking up at the game and not celebrating our goals, to people who are clearly either a fan of the opposition or opposition player.

A mate of mine has tried to get that seat about a dozen times for a game and it’s never listed on the City website. Even when it’s gone empty.

Only once (Praha at home earlier this season) has the ticket been taken up by anyone from Britain. He was a Rangers fan from Glasgow who came down to support City.

I always try and chat to them, make them feel welcome, unless they are clearly not a City fan. Most of the time they don’t understand a word I’m saying but at least I mean well.

Thankfully, I haven’t had an opposition-goal-celebrating **** next to me. But I am very active in making them feel that wouldn’t be tolerated because as soon as I clock they’re a fan of the opposition or opposition player, I smash out all the expletives I aggressively can towards the opposition, opposition player in question or ‘Scouse/Cockney wankers’ towards the away fans… and it tends to keep them schtum and probably think twice. Some have moved away from me to find a spare seat somewhere else because of that. One lad outed himself because he was miserable as fuck about our goals and was clearly not a City fan so I told him to fuck off and he didn’t come back for the second half.

But these sort of visitors are all over the fucking place around the stadium now. While I have mates doing ‘all round to mine for the game on Saturday’ armchair get togethers because they won’t pay the prices City charge anymore.

This isn’t what I ever envisioned would happen at City. I don’t like it, it should be City fans in the City ends. If the club can’t guarantee that those buying tickets are City fans, then maybe it’s time to - cringeworthy as it is - create a new ‘tourist section’ like we have an ‘away section’ and put them all in there together, get them all the fuck away from me and others who can’t abide this shit… keep the rest of the City stands for City fans?

After the end of the game yesterday, one lad who sits behind me said it’d be best I left the stadium before I got myself into trouble because there were loads of these fuckers walking over to the away section filming Liverpool fans singing with beeming smiles on their faces, taking pictures with the away end behind them holding the Lpool bit of their half’n’half scarf up. One lad I confronted even started taking the piss, claiming innocence that he wasn’t a Lpool fan but said ‘your fans no sing, they sing, I film’… I told him to get fucked and just left it and left the ground in disgust at what our club has become.

 

[Whether or not]

Real question, how many on here would consider switching to Maine Road FC......it's getting bloody tempting, if enough did it, I would switch in a heartbeat. A club that you would actually feel valued as fan.

At the minute it doesn't feel like a case of abandoning our club, but the club has abandoned us.

Not a chance, it would feel too much like the whole FC Utd thing. It is City or nothing for me, but I understand the sentiment.

 

[jrb]

 

[Norbert D]

And on a different note I sat next to a Red Star fan in a CL game and he was brilliant, he enjoyed the game (An American with links to Belgrade through his dad) no problem with him at all he was fantastic.

Before we started winning things I sat with away fans all over when I couldn’t get an away ticket, including all our rivals. Never any bother.