Return of Supporters

[GortonBlue62]

Sorry that question was directed at @Prestwich_Blue

 

[blueparrot]

A ballot is unfair by its very nature.

But from what you say, that's what the club wanted?

Sounds like it's definitely waht the club wanted, I the more I read about the points it sounds like the points for tickets isn't ideal either, sounds like the loyalty points are fairly discredited as they stand.
As a one off I think the ballot was a good way of doing this. I'm sure the C/L will go back to those with high points taking them all up. Fair enough.

 

[Corky]

Sounds like it's definitely waht the club wanted, I the more I read about the points it sounds like the points for tickets isn't ideal either, sounds like the loyalty points are fairly discredited as they stand.
As a one off I think the ballot was a good way of doing this. I'm sure the C/L will go back to those with high points taking them all up. Fair enough.

Only tends to be for high demand games with few tickets - which is exactly what they are for. No one with low points complains at the low demand games, and tend not to buy tickets either.

 

[blueparrot]

Only tends to be for high demand games with few tickets - which is exactly what they are for. No one with low points complains at the low demand games, and tend not to buy tickets either.

Probably, I don't know enough to have a proper opinion. I just go off seeing plenty complaining that some of those on high points are because they've bought platinum, or bought tickets but , not attended themselves. As I say don't know enough myself. It also doesn't seem to take into account those that attended a lot pre 2000, or back in the 70s 80s, but not quite so much since the points were introduced.
Just my obsevations from looking in on the arguments from outside of it.

 

[Tbilisi]

Anyone know anything about this health form we need to do before Everton?

Is it one you do on line and then prove you have done it... with ticket and ID inspections thats going to be fun.

 

[GortonBlue62]

Sounds like it's definitely waht the club wanted, I the more I read about the points it sounds like the points for tickets isn't ideal either, sounds like the loyalty points are fairly discredited as they stand.
As a one off I think the ballot was a good way of doing this. I'm sure the C/L will go back to those with high points taking them all up. Fair enough.

The loyalty points system isn't discredited. It isn't perfect but by and large it's a reasonable indication of how much time and effort a fan has put into supporting the club over the last 20 years.

I don't mind missing out on a ticket to Bournemouth because I didn't have enough points. That's only fair. Plenty of games go to low points... I've suddenly lost the will to engage in this debate anymore :-)

 

[blueparrot]

The loyalty points system isn't discredited. It isn't perfect but by and large it's a reasonable indication of how much time and effort a fan has put into supporting the club over the last 20 years.

I don't mind missing out on a ticket to Bournemouth because I didn't have enough points. That's only fair. Plenty of games go to low points... I've suddenly lost the will to engage in this debate anymore :-)

I think the last 20 years is the issue. Speaking for myself, I was a season ticket holder from 73- 89, regular away games then since then have been going to about 6- 10 games a season. Some will have much more than that in their history, yet maybe for whateve circumstances, health family, financial over the last 20 years don't have as many points as some that have less games to their names, just happen to have them in the right time period.

 

[paulchapo]

Anyone know anything about this health form we need to do before Everton?

Is it one you do on line and then prove you have done it... with ticket and ID inspections thats going to be fun.

I think they send it by e mail to you at some point. There are that many things to get your head around, wallets to put tickets in on your phone, a track and trace thing I'm still not sure if this is an extra thing, I thought as the club have all 10,000 people's records who are attending that would suffice, who knows?

 

[threespires]

This is entirely on the club not City Matters.

The club chose a ballot instead of choosing to make use of the loyalty points system.

If there were only 2000 allowed to attend and I missed out to people on 22000 points I'd be disappointed but would understand. But missing out to people with less claim than myself (I have a mere 21610 points) is what's killing me. I know one **** that plays fucking badminton on Wednesday evenings so he doesn't bother with Champions League, League Cup or midweek games. He'll be there on Sunday I won't. The last home game I missed was in February 1976 before that twat was even born.

This clearly unfair and I don't share your opinion that it's just the way 'the mop flops'. The club have chosen to ignore the unique contribution of City fans of a certain age; the ones that stood by the club during the lowest point in our history. No other club has experienced the extreme lows and highs that we have and that's what makes us special.

End of rant. All academic now. I'm sure when it comes time to renew my season ticket I will have regained some sense of perspective but at the moment I'm still incandescent with rage.

As a lurker, this is my first (and probably) last post. Having followed this thread and the Porto one I have been saddened to see (a) the frustration of loyal blues who feel let down by the club (b) a bit of blue on blue anger.

What I would say to those who are understandably upset and are saying they are done with the club, based on personal experience either find a way to let it go or take the leap and change your relationship with the club. Either way do not stay in an angry limbo.

In 14/15 I found myself, at renewal time, having tests to see if I was seriously ill. I asked the club for a (tiny) bit of flexibility during the renewal process and got nowhere. As a long-term season ticket holder I was raging that there didn’t seem to be even a bit of reciprocation for my loyalty. To GortonBlue62's point, why wouldn’t the club look after a fanbase who had kept them relevant in the dark times with a show of loyalty that most clubs could only dream about?

Then the light bulb came on…when we were crap the only thing special about the club was the fans. But now the club were becoming exceptional in other ways, special fans really didn’t need to be part of the equation anymore. Broadly speaking pretty much any old fan or customer would do. In despair I sacked off my SC and vowed never to give City a penny ever again, but I remained upset and angry for a while.

Fast forward a few years and frankly the quality of my life has improved as a result of my choice. My investment in the club has diminished and this has been a net positive. Despite my vow, I still support the club and get enjoyment from it, but I don’t consider myself a loyal fan. I am a customer and sometimes the club gets my custom and sometimes it doesn’t. I occasionally get nostalgic and feel sad about that changed relationship but overall I’m good with it. I don’t feel like I’m being exploited, and City doesn’t dominate my life the way it once did. I have lost touch with a few people, but I spend more quality time with my family, I do more stuff in my local community because my time is more my own again and I would argue I have a much better perspective. I look back at the fact I nearly lost my job because I flew to a big meeting the day after 93.20 still so pissed that I mispronounced my own name during the introductions, and I realise that was not the behaviour of a rational person. At a more mundane level, a few years ago Atwell’s shitshow last night would have wound me up for days but by the time I went to bed last night I just thought ‘meh’.

Point of this ramble? Huge sympathy to loyal blues who are missing out, I think it is down to the circumstances we find ourselves in and the choices the club made. It is not worth turning on each other and if this has broken people's relationship with the club either a little or a lot I hope you find a way through that. Don’t stay angry, decide positively what, if anything, you want to do about that and make your peace with that choice. (However, it is perfectly ok to perpetually despise the kind of knobhead who would choose badminton over football).

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Sorry that question was directed at @Prestwich_Blue

It is what the club wanted and, at the end of the day, they have the final say. We agreed, as a committee, that this was a reasonable position, as we don't solely represent seasoncard holders but all sections of the support.

But I'd stress again that their initial position saw a higher percentage of Cityzens members getting tickets and we had to argue quite strongly to reallocate some of those tickets to seasoncard holders. Again, we'd agreed prior to Xmas to allocate tickets via a ballot. Ideally, we would have liked a weighted ballot for various points ranges, as some have suggested, but the club didn't want to do that.