WHAT PRICE LOYALTY?

That derby win on Sunday was mental, wasn’t it? … celebrating that Brobbey winner with your mates, going nuts at full-time, and watching the crazy scenes in the away end on TV. But for around 60 of our fans that joy was tempered with the feeling of, ‘hang on, I should be in there, right amongst that lot’. And they should – they had the points and they’d done the miles.

These people had qualified for tickets, many in phase one (70+ points). Those tickets were purchased and assigned to their SAFC ticket account within 24 hours of going on sale... right until the club then unceremoniously removed them without notice or reasoning given.

It’s worth revisiting that again. Some of our most hardcore fans, who’ve acquired points by attending a high number of aways (in some case every away match) across the preceding three seasons and likely before, had their tickets, for our first visit to the landfill in ten years, removed from their accounts without explanation. The club responded to the understandable complaints by saying they were ‘investigating widespread misuse’ of the away ticketing system. No timescale or further explanation was offered, they weren’t told if they themselves were being accused of ‘misuse’, or why the club felt it appropriate to give out such a draconian punishment.

They were told (perversely) that they could apply again for the same tickets when they went back on sale! Unsurprisingly, only two fans were able to achieve that. The club could have undertaken this investigation after the Mags game with four weeks till the next away game. Doing it just seven days before the derby smacks of proving a point at the expense of these fans.

Some will read this and the mention of away tickets will already have them on their haunches, ready to pile in. Away tickets in the PL have been like rocking horse shit for almost every match. General sale never happens and those with a relatively small no of BCP’s are not even getting close.

If you’re well down the loyalty list, with little chance of stepping up it, you’ll feel it’s an unfair system, and it’s not difficult to see why. If you then find out people have passed tickets to their mates, whilst also retaining their own loyalty point, it’s not going to make you feel any better about it.

No system is ever perfect and it’s entirely reasonable that the club should try and make it fair and equitable for all. However, it’s likely that whatever approach the club takes when it comes their away ticketing process, they will get derision by those on the wrong side of it. And here’s the other unfortunate truth, fans will always pass tickets onto fellow fans. It might be their mates or family, but sometimes, if circumstances demand, they’ll sell on at face value to a fan they’ve never met before. I’ve benefited from it myself, and so have many thousands more… standing outside away ends on a wing and a prayer, hoping to catch lucky from someone who made a promise that you hope they’ll come good on.

I hadn’t qualified for tickets for those games because I wasn’t a season ticket holder at the time. It didn’t matter that I had been one, at both Roker Park and the SoL, or that I’d been to a substantial number of homes and away games since 1975. I knew the rules, understood them, resented them… but struggled to see a better approach. I had to look towards fellow fans, and keep my fingers crossed. That optimism has sometimes paid me back, and I’ve always ensured I’ve made the same gesture back when circumstances dictated.

This season the club had warned fans against passing tickets onto others and checks had been put in place, which was fair warning. If I’ve been informed correctly, three of such transgressions were discovered at Leeds and they all came from the same supporters’ branch, so the branch secretary was asked to explain. The response from the club to his honest response was him being given a ban from away matches across three seasons and home matches for the rest of this season; whilst the 60+ others were then (presumably) considered guilty by association.

However, this hardline, some would say brutal, position the club has taken actually creates more questions than it answers, and I can’t imagine there’s a single supporter who won’t be questioning what it now means to them, for both away and home fixtures. Under what circumstances can you pass a ticket on? What happens if, at last minute (as happened to me last season), you have a family crisis and you can’t make the game. You’re likely gutted, out of pocket because of travel, etc. and the real kick in the balls is if you can’t get a penny back on the ticket, even if there’s a long queue of potential purchasers desperate to see the club they love and snap your hand off.

Will similar sanctions be taken in every instance? If you do cross that line, whatever your logic and reasoning, will you suddenly find out that a ticket purchased legitimately has been removed without notice? Or will you face a much-longer ban? What’s more, if the current system is deemed to be unfair to those wanting to do more aways in future, but who do not have the necessary points, what are club doing about it? Will they run a ballot for those with not enough points in phase1 and if they do, which segment of fans are most likely to miss out?

Perhaps even more importantly is why now, and how does it affect fans relationship with the club going forward, particularly in relation to our Supporters Branches? Is this the club’s doing entirely, or are the PL standing over us? Let’s remember, digital tickets and tightening up on who is attending, and on what basis, is now becoming the norm in the PL. Man City are installing cameras at all turnstiles with a view to introducing a facial recognition system as you see at airports.

Another thing seen at other PL clubs is the disregard for Supporters Branches. They are seen by some as archaic and full of fans who’ve done the away trips by coach with their mates for many years, but ask awkward questions at liaison meetings, and spend more money on pints than merchandising. The Glazers were quick to target even long-standing supporter’s clubs as an unnecessary irritant when they purchased Man United and it’s taken a long battle to establish a Supporters Trust with over 200k members.

In the case of this particular supporter’s branch, they don’t run coaches. They organise train travel, to the point where they are (well, were) LNER’s biggest non-business customer and as such were able to negotiate discounted tickets, significantly lowering the cost for those making long trips across the country. What’s in it for LNER? Well, they’ve got one block booking, all in 1 or 2 carriages. No worries about railcards or the general public complaining about the lads with the cans arguing over the merits of 4-3-3.

British Transport Police also like this arrangement as this large group of fans are entering and existing stations en-masse, at the same time. Speaking of the police, isn’t our fans base one of the best behaved in the country? You rarely see bother, no matter how many aways fans we meet on our journeys... so we must be doing something right.

It’s very easy for a business the size of SAFC to take the corporate approach, point at the T&Cs and decide it’s necessary to take a hammer to crack a nut when those pesky fans haven’t followed the rules.

But our ticket office haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory in the past, and I‘d argue that sometimes the DIY approach of our fans in moving tickets on is done by necessity as much as anything else. It is ridiculously difficult to get a call answered, whilst emails (or the frequent waste of time that is the ‘ask.SAFC’ function) are often ignored. Getting the paying punter in through the door should the priority task for any business but they make it unnecessarily difficult for people simply wanting to come and watch the team.

The whole saga described above must have been damaging to the club. Many fans, even if not affected directly, cannot believe how they have removed such sought-after tickets, from clearly the loyalist fand on a whim and without any meaningful rationale offered. They’re even more appalled when they realise the sanction taken against that one particular supporter - who is not only one of the nicest, easy-going men you’ll ever meet - but who has single-handedly ensured hundreds of our fans have been able to get to games over many years, as well as supporting them in numerous other ways.

And never for personal gain (worth highlighting here that is absolutely zero suggestion anywhere of anyone profiting from other fans, cos it doesn’t happen) - but always because it’s what he’s done for such a long time (he’s also, absurdly, assisted the club often in getting tickets sold at short notice when they’ve cocked up, or finding a spare for them when a photo opportunity cropped up with an overseas supporter).

We’ve all been enthused by marketing teams work in the last few years… ‘community’… ‘connection’… ‘we’re nothing without our fans’… ‘fans are the lifeblood of the club’… our players praising the vocal away support, etc. But the marketing-speak means nothing unless it’s backed-up day-to-day interactions with match-going fans. Showing distain and disregard for fans at any point is never a good look, whatever league you’re in.

The issue of fairness when demand far outstrips supply isn’t unique to SAFC. There’s no magic fix and there will always be winners and losers. The club are 100% right in closely monitoring where and how away tickets are used, but they also need to be pragmatic, have processes that are fair, understandable and consistent - and if sanctions are taken, to ensure they are appropriate and proportionate.

Those 60 fans will never get the moments they missed on Sunday back. The day has been and gone and future memories of will also have the postscript of ‘oh yeah, I wasn’t there because the club took an unreasonable, over-zealous action to unfairly ban me’

If the powers that be at SAFC are serious about fairness and connection, they need to get hold of this quickly. The dismay of many will have been tempered by the result but the bigger picture can’t be ignored. They need to ensure the fine words in the words from on-high, match the actions taken in the day-to-day fundamentals. The fan who has been banned needs bringing back into the fold and the club need to ensure the ridiculous action taken against the others is never repeated.

And most importantly they need a proper review of the away tickets process, where supporters’ branches fit into that equation, and to sort their own internal processes out into the bargain. Contact with the club needs to be much easier and supporters queries should be responded to much quicker. They need to consider how to move the bottlenecks and obstacles for all fans in obtaining tickets, home and away, not as a nice-to-have but because it’s good business sense.

Perhaps they need to think of a better ‘membership’ scheme than we currently have, goodness knows how many unused membership numbers there are out there. The only way this debacle can be a good thing is if the club works with fans to ensure such nonsense never happens again, and that future actions are consistent with the values and culture it wishes to engender.

Over to you, KLD and all before more of our most loyal fans are ostracised.