In the 33 years that I have been following the Addicks, I have never failed to get tickets for any match I have wanted to be at. I have been a season ticket for all of those years bar the Selhurst seasons and have also qualified highly in terms of away game ticket stubs, VIP and Valley Gold etc. That proud record ended this afternoon when I got away from work and down to the Valley to be told we had sold out our allocation for Swindon. A little over 2,000 tickets sold in less than five hours.
I'm severally hacked off by this. All it needed was some priorisation over who could buy initially and on each day this week. Instead, in their wisdom, some Bright Spark decided that we just needed to sell them as quickly as possible so opened the eligibility up to the 11,000 season tickets holders we have who have managed to go to an away match this season - that's probably half of them. That turned it into a straightforward race to get down there this morning or spend the time re-dialling and holding until you got through. I suspect there will be fans who have been to every match this season or near as damn it, who will be missing out on this. As it is, I think I am comfortably into the top-2000 whose support this season should have been acknowledged by a more sensitive management of ticket sales. No doubt, they will be telling us we can watch it on the box instead. Sad.
If Charlton was a normal business, I would react to this by cancelling my Valley Gold memberships in disgust, but we are not a normal business are we?
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In actual fact Dave it was a little less selective than you say. You needed to be a season ticket holder (no away games required) or a Red Card holder (no season ticket required) who had been to at least one away game this season.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes it worse is that everyone (according to Charlton Life) knew the club had made a mistake yesterday and that many wanting tickets would miss out.
In the club's defence they did have a lot of tickets to sell this week when you take into account that we also had c. 18,000 seats available for the home leg to shift.
Still, it shows again that there is little loyalty in football, particularly at Charlton.
Put your name on the tickets wanted list on Char Life and you may get a couple as I have heard a few floating about. There are a lot of very upset people about.
ReplyDeleteFeel bad for you mate ... I spent over 2 hours and almost 100 calls and struck lucky ... today has been deplorable and a bad reflection on the club ... hope you get a ticket somehow
ReplyDeleteI made the honest decision not to go 'sick' this morning and pitch up at the Valley to queue.
ReplyDeleteI have a few meetings late Friday afternoon and it would have been extremely tight to get down to Swindon.
I already knew I wouldn't be going and felt annoyed today but without that safety net I'd have been gutted too.
I feel your pain Dave & wish you well in securing a ticket.
I don't think Swindon will sell out so perhaps a journey west might still be worth it?
I'm genuinely sorry to hear your disapointment. It should be a time of unified excitement, but I can see this poor error of judgement on the part of the club overshadowing this. I am one of the fortunate few, although I did make a choice not to buy the two tickets offered to me as I my proposed companion for the Swindon game wasn't an Addick. No consolation I know, but hopefully the result will make up in part for the disapointment
ReplyDeleteThe sad thing is Dave, there are people a lot more worthy than you who have missed, people who have been to every single game this season etc.
ReplyDeleteIts a joke, and those of us who tried to point this out over the weekend and forecast exactly what was going to happen got accused of 'always moaning'.
We hope that with our CL list we can try and help out as many deserving ones as we can, so don't give up hope mate
AFKA - there is no-one more deserving than me!
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