I can't even imagine how toxic the atmosphere could be for that game. If we get little from the reading and Boro games, and go behind against the blunts with a big away following.... Well, it wouldn't be fair on the players, but I can appreciate the angst and venom.
Personally think your over thinking it, this move is pure and simply down to money rather than any grudge and revenge you feel they may have
I am one of those people you mention, I thought I would have a more relaxed view on this as the days passed by. I threw a tantrum and decided a refund would be required when the West Stand closure was announced but have not yet done anything apart from rant & rave. This may have just made my mind up, all this after being a West Stand season ticket holder since before it was all seating. Conway out!!
I'm slow on the uptake. The North Stand holds 6/6500 - so why the reluctance to sell out ? - steward numbers ? So we shut the West Stand to allow stewards to manage the away fans ? Is that the premise ? How many stewards watched the west stand? Did supporters have 1 each ?
It's certainly appearing that way. It is coming across to me as a very bad business decision that has been rumbled quite easily by fans and has become a total disaster.
Away capacity was restricted to just under 2,000 due to the stewarding issues. Forest sold out their allocation, which is the same as Sheff Utd were originally given. By sheer coincidence, we've just closed a stand and simultaneously doubled the away allocation for Sheff Utd. It's almost as if the two events were connected in some way, but that can't be correct as the club told us otherwise about the West Stand.
It defies belief that a rational person (persons) would wilfully seek to antagonise 10% of its regular customer base in order to fix a temporary problem. However, nothing is surprising me at the moment. If that is indeed the case they need running out of town. Whatever the reason not much is making sense currently.
Forest sold out a few days before the game so maybe would have brought another say 500 if more tickets and POTD had been available. Birmingham sold out 2k and might as well have sold twice as many if they had been available. The stewarding problem from those two fixtures alone will have cost us a six figure sum.
So they’ve suspended sales to our own fans and risked the support of others to let an extra 2k away fans in ? By my reckoning that’s a loss of at least 2k of our own fans ? I’m failing to see your business plan theory tbh.
I’m also slow on the uptake too, if this generates an extra £70k for the one game, by the time you take refunds etc out there can’t be much left surely? Say £200 each season ticket only needs 350 to ask for a refund and the extra £70k has gone. Unlikely that many would ask for it but even a hundred makes a big dent in the £70k. Only thing that would make sense in this thought process would be if they have massively underestimated the response. Personally my money is still on it being strategic politics over the ownership.
I don't think it has been done with just one fixture in mind, and I think they will have assumed West Stand ST holders would buy into this lie that it wasn't safe and cut them some slack. It has backfired massively.
What I'd really like to know is how many extra stewards will be needed for that one game (and for future games they could surely find a few more stewards), and at what cost? Surely we could have got Sheff Utd to bring some stewards of their own and kept the west open. I think there's a lot more to this though, and either way the fans who sit in the west have been screwed over royally, the fans who attend as pay on the day have been screwed over royally.. basically, the only ones to benefit are Sheff Utd and our beloved consortium: cash in the back pocket and no doubt a vociferous away following. Well played Conners. Can't wait for the sugar coating at the next staff engagement forum, hopefully it will be more than well attended by those that love our club.
Yeah as I say maybe they did just underestimate it. I just think even for the rest of the season the numbers don’t stack up enough to make it worthwhile.