Ticket Points Sales Tracking

[wolfie1988]

For every away match, their are roughly 1500 people getting tickets who also don't qualify but they don't seem to come under the same scrutiny ,from within the club as the loyalty point holders.
Colin,just out of interest how did the club the club gather the information as to the amount of tickets being used by different people rather than the owner for away matches?

They made stuff up which City Matters lapped up. It's pathetic.

 

[johnnytapia]

If we accept this as being the case then why aren't tickets being sold at lower points now. The fans that apparently bought the tickets to gain the points but didn't want to attend the games no longer have the need to buy them which in turn should mean that those lower down the points ladder should be able to attend. What we have now is tickets being sold for three figures via ticket agencies with hundreds of tickets being siphoned off by the club.
By all means scrap the points for away games and keep them in place for purchasing SC, being in cup schemes but the issue is that these fans are being pushed to one side by the club. Why on earth are pointless vloggers with no affiliation to the club ending up in our end at away games. Why are united fans wearing their colours ending up in our end at away games. Why are fans of the home club ending up in our end at away games. Why are people who don't even follow the club but just want to say they have attended a PL game ended up in our end at big away games. This is what the club needs to sort out. The biggest abusers of the system are the club itself yet the regular match going fan, young and old are the ones being affected.

Because he’s talking bollocks.

 

[Millwallawayveteran1988]

If we accept this as being the case then why aren't tickets being sold at lower points now. The fans that apparently bought the tickets to gain the points but didn't want to attend the games no longer have the need to buy them which in turn should mean that those lower down the points ladder should be able to attend. What we have now is tickets being sold for three figures via ticket agencies with hundreds of tickets being siphoned off by the club.
By all means scrap the points for away games and keep them in place for purchasing SC, being in cup schemes but the issue is that these fans are being pushed to one side by the club. Why on earth are pointless vloggers with no affiliation to the club ending up in our end at away games. Why are united fans wearing their colours ending up in our end at away games. Why are fans of the home club ending up in our end at away games. Why are people who don't even follow the club but just want to say they have attended a PL game ended up in our end at big away games. This is what the club needs to sort out. The biggest abusers of the system are the club itself yet the regular match going fan, young and old are the ones being affected.

The club don’t give a fuck. That is very clear.

 

[Quinny851]

I'm not going to be polite to people who impugn my integrity and that of my CM colleagues, or accuses us of acting purely in self-interest. That's far more abusive than a name or two. If you want to have an intelligent discussion then I'll have one but if you just throw out unfounded insults then that's what you'll get back.

We had the evidence from the club and ALL the City Matters group agreed it was the right thing to do. It was the right decision and nothing or no one will ever convince me otherwise. And I think all nine of my colleagues when we took that decision would agree.

But I do agree the points system is a load of shite, and we tried to get the club to change it. They're still talking about it as far as I know. And while I completely agree with the 'fuck united fans and their club' comment, at least they're trying to protect the integrity of their ticket allocations, whereby people allocated tickets use them, rather than arguing for an unfair system where people got points when they had no intention of attending a game by giving tickets to people who wouldn't have qualified.

I'm not talking about your colleagues at CM and their roles at the time, I'm talking specifically about you. You were appointed to represent us, the season ticket holders, yet we saw no sign of any representation. You never asked our opinion, you never listened to our feedback, you never took this feedback to the club, there was absolutely no transparency. To the point that a small group of supporters actually tried to set up an individual supporters trust due to your inaction.

This is why Alex has been a breath of fresh air and stands out. He listens, he engages and he takes our opinions and presents them to the club. Now, we might not like the response and the decisions the club makes but at least he's actually representing us and every step he takes is transparent. You only have to look at what he's achieved so far in such a short space of time to back this opinion up.

What evidence could the club possibly have showed you that proved supporters were buying tickets with the sole intention of not attending the fixture? All you did was pave the way for the club to introduce digital tickets, making it easier for the club to restrict the sale to genuine supporters and instead, push these tickets to 3rd party sites and corporates.

And again, I'm not the only person who holds this opinion about you and the job you did of representing us.

So who's actually the dickhead?

 

[TheGhost]

Has anyone who’s been watching City for years not been able to get a ticket for any match that they really wanted to attend?

Even if that means going in the home end, begging on a forum or socials, paying a tout or over the odds, climbing in at Blackburn in 2000, asking people route to the ground or even as a last resort standing outside the away end asking for spares on the day of the match.

You do what you need if you really want to go.

 

[liamctid]

We had the evidence from the club and ALL the City Matters group agreed it was the right thing to do. It was the right decision and nothing or no one will ever convince me otherwise. And I think all nine of my colleagues when we took that decision would agree.

Colin, you and I have clashed over this before and I am not asking this to ruffle your feathers or anything, just a genuine question around this: was there ever a discussion around punishing those that the club had evidence of them passing tickets on against instead of stopping points?

 

[Quinny851]

Has anyone who’s been watching City for years not been able to get a ticket for any match that they really wanted to attend?

Even if that means going in the home end, begging on a forum or socials, paying a tout or over the odds, climbing in at Blackburn in 2000, asking people route to the ground or even as a last resort standing outside the away end asking for spares on the day of the match.

You do what you need if you really want to go.

I agree but even this is getting harder to do. With the points threshold increasing every year, what chance have younger supporters got of catching up? My lad is 11, he's been a season ticket holder for 4 years, we pay for platinum and are on all the cup schemes. The most points we can accumulate in one season is 1,340 and that's assuming that we get to the final of every competition and assuming we get drawn at home in every round of the League Cup & FA Cup.

So for him to get to 25k points it'll take over 20 years and that's assuming that no one else continues to accumulate points. The system needs a overhaul, the corporate allocation needs to be reviewed and the club needs to stop selling tickets to 3rd party sites.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Colin, you and I have clashed over this before and I am not asking this to ruffle your feathers or anything, just a genuine question around this: was there ever a discussion around punishing those that the club had evidence of them passing tickets on against instead of stopping points?

There was Liam. In fact we discussed it a lot. I don't want to say too much but I can say there was general agreement that there had to be sanctions but there could also be genuine reasons why people passed tickets on. Obviously lockdown got in the way and I'm not involved in CM any more. But I do know that some of the most vocal opponents of ticket collection, including one on here, were regularly passing tickets on, including to non-season ticket holders.

 

[WesthoughtonJohn]

I agree but even this is getting harder to do. With the points threshold increasing every year, what chance have younger supporters got of catching up? My lad is 11, he's been a season ticket holder for 4 years, we pay for platinum and are on all the cup schemes. The most points we can accumulate in one season is 1,340 and that's assuming that we get to the final of every competition and assuming we get drawn at home in every round of the League Cup & FA Cup.

So for him to get to 25k points it'll take over 20 years and that's assuming that no one else continues to accumulate points. The system needs a overhaul, the corporate allocation needs to be reviewed and the club needs to stop selling tickets to 3rd party sites.

Unfortunately the points in your last paragraph have been doing the rounds for 10 years - coincidentally not long after we started winning stuff and became a draw (before that you had a pretty good chance if you'd attended 50% of away games). It sounds like it's getting worse, but I'm not sure it is - I think it's simply static.
I don't have a solution - the 3rd party sites aside.
The arguments still hold water - alot of people put in a lot of hard yards when we were shite, some of them may be fortunate to be able to afford corporate these days.
Tracking who uses a ticket is almost impossible for away trips - aside from ticket on collection (that's a ball ache trust me), or getting away stewards to police it (yeah right)
I don't care these days as I stopped qualifying a while ago, couldn't be arsed points chasing and no longer have a season card.
So in summary - bring in a ballot evenly split

 

[Tim of the Oak]

I'm not talking about your colleagues at CM and their roles at the time, I'm talking specifically about you. You were appointed to represent us, the season ticket holders, yet we saw no sign of any representation. You never asked our opinion, you never listened to our feedback, you never took this feedback to the club, there was absolutely no transparency. To the point that a small group of supporters actually tried to set up an individual supporters trust due to your inaction.

This is why Alex has been a breath of fresh air and stands out. He listens, he engages and he takes our opinions and presents them to the club. Now, we might not like the response and the decisions the club makes but at least he's actually representing us and every step he takes is transparent. You only have to look at what he's achieved so far in such a short space of time to back this opinion up.

What evidence could the club possibly have showed you that proved supporters were buying tickets with the sole intention of not attending the fixture? All you did was pave the way for the club to introduce digital tickets, making it easier for the club to restrict the sale to genuine supporters and instead, push these tickets to 3rd party sites and corporates.

And again, I'm not the only person who holds this opinion about you and the job you did of representing us.

So who's actually the dickhead?

Did you go to the last game at Upton Park mate? It was evident that the people who actually owned the season cards turned up that day because I didn’t recognise the vast majority of our end (and I very rarely missed a game).

I won’t be going to Liverpool Away and I think it’s a shithole. We’ve had a run of 4 away games when Blues using their nounce could get into all 4 games, with very few ticket points.

I’m not really in favour or against the removal of away ticket points. It hasn’t had much affect given the removal of ID. If a fixture doesn’t reach my points I don’t go but I respect Blues who use their initiative to source tickets. When I went to every game, I would work my sox off to source tickets.

I think the Club are taking the piss with the points allocation for the “big” games. They should deliver on the agreed ticket quotas.