‘A Block Ultras’

[Redinthehead]

48 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

If there was a mass effort to duplicate tickets, then someone obviously organised that...

It’s not explained in the post from the club but I’d assume that they were using a duplicated E34 ticket to get into that stand rather than using a duplicate ticket to enter the ground. I imagine they had valid tickets just not for that block.

49 minutes ago, Bris Red said:

 

How many actual season ticket holders are being ‘turfed out’?..It can’t have been many looking at what seats are available. 

 

I’m not sure the volume matters that much other than meaning that if this is all done properly in future there is a chance they can be located elsewhere if they agree. 

[Galley is our king]

20 minutes ago, Colombo Robin said:

Im not saying they should be forced to move, but offered the option to if they want

Where do you sit? Would you like it? What about those who sit with family or friends?

Sit Where your ticket says, after all, YOU CHOSE IT!!!!!

[Galley is our king]

17 minutes ago, CrackingCheeseGromit said:

"If they want" they can just sit wherever in the stadium they like. It's really easy.  

Ridiculous...

[A Horse With No Name]

21 minutes ago, Galley is our king said:

Ridiculous...

But true.

[Mr Popodopolous]

On the duplicate tickets point it's only fair to point out that they have rightly said to do it correctly.

Edited January 16, 2023 by Mr Popodopolous

[pongo88]

I don’t think this will end well. It sounds as though there are plans for those that moved into A block last Saturday to do the same this week, and continue to stand up. This will result in confrontation between those standing and the stewards, and hence the club. If so, the club will not back down. It would be very easy to stop any future happenings - just stop selling tickets for A block and only allow current season ticket holders access. As there are very few sell-out games it would have minimal affect on finances. Something like this would cause bad feelings and not help  any future discussions about standing 

[RedM]

2 hours ago, Slack said:

Not that I care but wouldn't that damage how many away fans we can hold? Thus impacting how many tickets the club gets for our travels? 

Why don't we put away fans top of Lansdown, move the family section to a different part and put the ultras in atyeo... 

Would love to see the away fans try and get an atmosphere going all the way up there

It would seriously impact on how many away tickets I would think, but not on how many we are given when away.

For example our home game against Burnley at the end of April could be a nothing game for us but it might be the game they clinch promotion/go up as Champions. They will bring loads, so £££'s for us. If we severely limit their numbers so we can potentially put a couple of hundred singers besides them it will cost us £££'s

[Colombo Robin]

26 minutes ago, Galley is our king said:

Where do you sit? Would you like it? What about those who sit with family or friends?

Sit Where your ticket says, after all, YOU CHOSE IT!!!!!

If i had a season ticket in block A and now wasnt enjoy it there I'd honestly think fair play to the club for offering an alternative. 

[LondonRobin]

Think this needs to be organised properly in the summer as fully understand the argument for some season ticket holders who bought their ticket at start of season not expecting to be standing and with kids/elderly. That being said I bet some st holders welcome it and there aren’t many there anyway in the e 34 see image. I estimate less than 10% of the block is season tickets. (Image from Blackpool home game coming up presumably nearly all tickets unavailable are sts as game so far away)

My fear from the statement the club put today they don’t want this because of the perceived “trouble” / police costs . Arsenal spurs yesterday there was only a line of stewards between away fans. They’re in a different stand here so don’t see the issue and makes the atmosphere 100x better

 

Edited January 16, 2023 by LondonRobin

[StGeorge]

Quote

They also copied tickets and tried to enter the ground for free. 

Don't think thats the case. I think a lot were season ticket holders from S82, just used the copied ticket to get into A Block

[RedM]

2 minutes ago, StGeorge said:

Don't think thats the case. I think a lot were season ticket holders from S82, just used the copied ticket to get into A Block

Correct

[Galley is our king]

15 minutes ago, CrackingCheeseGromit said:

But true.

Oh well in which case I choose to sit in a corporate box, get free food and drinks all afternoon.

The ONLY time you can pick where you sit at the football, cinema, theatre, boxing match or anywhere that a ticket is required for entry is when you actually buy that ticket!!

How would you feel if someone was sat in your seat? Maybe leaving no room for friends or family?

Pathetic to think you can just sit where you want.....

[Super]

16 minutes ago, Colombo Robin said:

If i had a season ticket in block A and now wasnt enjoy it there I'd honestly think fair play to the club for offering an alternative. 

Talk about missing the point.

[Colombo Robin]

2 minutes ago, Super said:

Talk about missing the point.

Indeed you are

Edited January 16, 2023 by Colombo Robin

[LondonRobin]

15 minutes ago, pongo88 said:

I don’t think this will end well. It sounds as though there are plans for those that moved into A block last Saturday to do the same this week, and continue to stand up. This will result in confrontation between those standing and the stewards, and hence the club. If so, the club will not back down. It would be very easy to stop any future happenings - just stop selling tickets for A block and only allow current season ticket holders access. As there are very few sell-out games it would have minimal affect on finances. Something like this would cause bad feelings and not help  any future discussions about standing 

Problem is the club statement hasn’t expressed any positivity towards the move in the long term/ that they are open for discussion. So the people moving to block to improve atmosphere are therefore taking matters into their own hands. The club could say look we fully appreciate the desire to improve atmosphere by moving to this block and we can have discussions in summer when st holders are fully aware that they will be buying tickets for the singing/standing section, but for now play by the rules and treat current st holders in there with respect

[italian dave]

24 minutes ago, Colombo Robin said:

If i had a season ticket in block A and now wasnt enjoy it there I'd honestly think fair play to the club for offering an alternative. 

And presumably if someone came round your house and smashed all your windows your only thought would be of profound gratitude to the glazier for coming quickly to board them up?

Edited January 16, 2023 by italian dave

[semblar]

6 minutes ago, LondonRobin said:

Problem is the club statement hasn’t expressed any positivity towards the move in the long term/ that they are open for discussion. So the people moving to block to improve atmosphere are therefore taking matters into their own hands. The club could say look we fully appreciate the desire to improve atmosphere by moving to this block and we can have discussions in summer when st holders are fully aware that they will be buying tickets for the singing/standing section, but for now play by the rules and treat current st holders in there with respect

Perhaps they don't want to be seen (by the SAG etc.) as encouraging a group likely to be persistent standers to move to an area of the ground where they had not put time and money into mitigating the risk from standing, even if the players and manager enjoyed the atmosphere generated? The kids I bring loved it from E2, it isn't often we can hear the far corner due to the AG acoustics - so I hope a way can be found to have this continue so long as some consideration for the existing ST holders in the area can be forthcoming... so perhaps the organisers could actually contact the club themselves?

Edited January 16, 2023 by semblar

[W-S-M Seagull]

7 minutes ago, LondonRobin said:

Problem is the club statement hasn’t expressed any positivity towards the move in the long term/ that they are open for discussion. So the people moving to block to improve atmosphere are therefore taking matters into their own hands. The club could say look we fully appreciate the desire to improve atmosphere by moving to this block and we can have discussions in summer when st holders are fully aware that they will be buying tickets for the singing/standing section, but for now play by the rules and treat current st holders in there with respect

From my knowledge I don't think this group attempted to have any discussions with the club prior to this so why should the club now bend over backwards for them? 

[Phileas Fogg]

1 minute ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

From my knowledge I don't think this group attempted to have any discussions with the club prior to this so why should the club now bend over backwards for them? 

It’s not “bending over backwards” it’s trying to do these things in the right way.

It’s fairly obvious the people behind the movement are young, you can tell from their social media posts. Perhaps they simply didn’t know how to go about organising it with the club.

[spudski]

9 minutes ago, Phileas Fogg said:

It’s not “bending over backwards” it’s trying to do these things in the right way.

It’s fairly obvious the people behind the movement are young, you can tell from their social media posts. Perhaps they simply didn’t know how to go about organising it with the club.

Perhaps they need to speak to some Boomers on how to go about it...

[Mr Popodopolous]

15 minutes ago, Percy Pig said:

Got to find a balance here. Too much at stake to fight against fans trying to create an atmosphere. Work with them, encourage them. None of this police state nonsense of throwing unqualified and untrained stewards into a situation and ending up with a group of fans who want to contribute something positive becoming disillusioned or worse angry with the club. 

 

 

Out of interest, what would you suggest on this at least short term, immediate point.

Agree needs to be handled delicately but I'm unsure what the club can suggest just yet- have to do be seen to be doing the correct or technically correct thing.

[pongo88]

3 hours ago, Slack said:? 

Why don't we put away fans top of Lansdown, move the family section to a different part and put the ultras in atyeo... 

Would love to see the away fans try and get an atmosphere going all the way up there

Let’s look at this logically. First, moving a large number of people from the family section. Where are they going to go? There’s nowhere in the ground that can accommodate that many people as a group. Second, put away fans in the upper Lansdown. The only access to this is from the concourse that leads to the lower Lansdown, so there would be no segregation between home and away supporters. Neither of these two options are remotely feasible. When the ground was redeveloped there was an opportunity to build in a section that could accommodate standing without blocking the view of those standing. Unfortunately, that opportunity was missed. 

[Phileas Fogg]

34 minutes ago, spudski said:

Perhaps they need to speak to some Boomers on how to go about it...

Talking to some older fans, perhaps those who campaigned to reopen the EE, is a good idea.

[Phileas Fogg]

17 minutes ago, pongo88 said:

Let’s look at this logically. First, moving a large number of people from the family section. Where are they going to go? There’s nowhere in the ground that can accommodate that many people as a group. Second, put away fans in the upper Lansdown. The only access to this is from the concourse that leads to the lower Lansdown, so there would be no segregation between home and away supporters. Neither of these two options are remotely feasible. When the ground was redeveloped there was an opportunity to build in a section that could accommodate standing without blocking the view of those standing. Unfortunately, that opportunity was missed. 

And in failing to provide an adequate solution, the club have made a rod for their own back.

The redevelopment was a golden opportunity to get it right, and they didn’t. Now they’re paying the price.

[Slack]

27 minutes ago, pongo88 said:

Let’s look at this logically. First, moving a large number of people from the family section. Where are they going to go? There’s nowhere in the ground that can accommodate that many people as a group. Second, put away fans in the upper Lansdown. The only access to this is from the concourse that leads to the lower Lansdown, so there would be no segregation between home and away supporters. Neither of these two options are remotely feasible. When the ground was redeveloped there was an opportunity to build in a section that could accommodate standing without blocking the view of those standing. Unfortunately, that opportunity was missed. 

I genuinely wasn't being logical with this just a funny idea, sorry sarcasm doesn't come across on message just thought it would be funny and odd to see away fans up their 

[Bristol Rob]

9 minutes ago, Phileas Fogg said:

And in failing to provide an adequate solution, the club have made a rod for their own back.

The redevelopment was a golden opportunity to get it right, and they didn’t. Now they’re paying the price.

I'd like to play devils advocate here as suggest that the club took the option to consider that with rugby and football being staged at the stadium, and with each club possibly having 20,000 fans using the facility 2 or 3 times each a month, they adopted the redevelopment view of trying to keep 120,000 ticket holders largely comfortable without really needing to keep a small, but vocal percentage of thar group as an area of concern.

Safe standing was a request and that was adopted, it just also happened to have been installed in one of the less expensive areas of the stadium meaning people aren't priced out.

Maybe next season, if they allow those in the existing safe standing area to move to a seated area, others will move to S82 and 2 singing areas are established if the demand is there.

[Slack]

Surely the answer for this is deal with the corner section for time being, take a few more megaphones, drums, sing a bit louder etc and on the run up to the end of the season request a conversation with the supporters trust and do it the correct way. I don't remember anyone discussing this at the live Q and A.. which the club do to listen to the fans? If someone did apologies for missing it. But impeading a current season ticket holders view, seat and simply asking them to move ... Isn't this what you are protesting.. so what happens when the relocated people from A block then steal the seats back in protest??

[OliOTIB]

3 hours ago, ExiledAjax said:

£10 admin fee plus pay the difference between your current seat and the new one (assuming you are moving to a more expensive seat) on a pro rata basis. 

Surely then it would stop the ticketing issue as then people would be sat (or rather stood, but thats a whole different matter) in seats which are actually allocated to themselves. 

[Mr Popodopolous]

21 minutes ago, Slack said:

Surely the answer for this is deal with the corner section for time being, take a few more megaphones, drums, sing a bit louder etc and on the run up to the end of the season request a conversation with the supporters trust and do it the correct way. I don't remember anyone discussing this at the live Q and A.. which the club do to listen to the fans? If someone did apologies for missing it. But impeading a current season ticket holders view, seat and simply asking them to move ... Isn't this what you are protesting.. so what happens when the relocated people from A block then steal the seats back in protest??

This seems to have been grassroots and spontaneous, a lack of consultation but this wasn't even on the radar in the Autumn. People involved feel free to correct me!

Vs Swansea in the Cup there were a group who brought tickets in E34, Lower perhaps and at half time for reasons that I don't know, stewards moved them on to Upper E34. Old A Block basically (on a point of nerdy accuracy only half of E34 is the A Block, the top half- the bottom half was H Block).

They then clearly thought it was fun, word got out and we saw a fair few more v Birmingham. Some did the move by the book, some seem not to have done.

Enhanced stewarding we are at this point- presumably enhanced ticket checks...if those in seats then persistently stand that presumably will create further issues?

Edited January 16, 2023 by Mr Popodopolous

[W-S-M Seagull]

1 hour ago, Percy Pig said:

Late to this. 

On one hand, God this club love an own goal. Honestly, what a way to put a dampener on a great win and a renewed enthusiasm for supporting the team vociferously.

On the other, standing in someone else's seat is a dick move and I can't imagine the requests to shift it were met with a polite apology...

 

Got to find a balance here. Too much at stake to fight against fans trying to create an atmosphere. Work with them, encourage them. None of this police state nonsense of throwing unqualified and untrained stewards into a situation and ending up with a group of fans who want to contribute something positive becoming disillusioned or worse angry with the club. 

 

 

I don't think their main motivation is to make a better atmosphere. I think thr main motivation is to have it out with the away fans. I'm not quite sure that's what supporting your club is about. 

From the clubs perspective, they have provided an area and encouraged it.