To be fair to the club, I think they took the season ticket survey responses as being reflective of fans as a whole, and responded accordingly. However, the questions were weighted in such a way that they gave a misleading picture, and were never wholly representative.
Thus they acknowledged that some people wanted cheaper season tickets (hence the £250 cheap seats), some wanted a bigger, genuinely family oriented Family Stand, and some were willing to pay extra for a more "exclusive" matchday experience (hence the changes to East and West Level 2 starting in 2011/12).
However, they failed spectacularly in really understanding what the majority of fans want, and leapt somewhat blindly into what can only be described as an incredibly ill thought change to their ticketing policy.
Virtually everyone at the announcement tonight voiced their disapproval at various aspects of it, and I expressed my concerns personally to senior staff afterwards. I genuinely don't think they realised quite how unpopular these moves would be (although I told them they would find out tomorrow).
I don't believe this is a conscious move to price out ordinary fans as some have suggested, I just think they have monumentally misread what fans want, basing every decision they made on a fairly unrepresentative, officially conducted survey (which by their very nature don't give a true portrayal - no one I go the game with completed it). As I said to them tonight, it feels like they have rushed major decisions without really thinking them through, and I don't think they realised the consequences.
I'm convinced they don't want to alienate the traditional, hard core fans, as every experience I have with them suggests otherwise. The onus is now on them to react accordingly. Do they proceed with something that is clearly so unpopular, or rethink their strategy and acknowledge that they really are listening to the fans?
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Either way, it's going to be a fairly major PR own goal by the club. Why they don't run these ideas by the forums first I don't know, it's essentially free market research for them.
