Bolton away (if we get them)

While I understand the drift of what some are posting, I can't agree. If numbers of away support was crucial to the result then Derby / Bolton would have finished above us They didn't because our team/style is better than theirs. Portsmouth would probably have finished above us in the league also. But they didn't because we have been better than all three I mentioned despite an (understandably) patchy start we finished well ahead of them all and I trust Michael Duff and the team, backed by 13,000+ Reds fans to "do the business" at Oakwell. There haven't been many games where more than 2,000 Reds fans have attended away this srason but we still have an impressive away record. I trust the lads to deliver even if we can only take 2,000 to Bolton....

 

Bolton need to find an extra c. 11,000 to fill their ground for the first leg over and above their average home league attendances but they're evidently prepared to give it a go!

Why is it cutting our nose off to spite our face - the potential finances of say 4,500 Bolton fans at Oakwell over 2,000 are tiny, £50k revenue even if they are all full price adult tickets which they won't be as some will be concessions, less associated costs? Cast that against the money from a trip to Wembley and the £7-8m cost of not going up. No, £20-£30k is not to be sniffed at but these aren't 'losses' as we'd never have set our budgets for the year based on getting into the play-offs. It's a business no-brainer to me that we should be doing every last little thing in our power to give us the best chance of going through given the monumentally differential gains.

Bolton clearly think that having 25,000 v 4,000 fans is not enough of an advantage and so are going for 27,000 v 2,000 at their place so why we'd think an advantage of just 2.5 to 1 at Oakwell is going to be the same as over 6 to 1 at Bolton, especially when their fans at Oakwell will be pitch side and we'll be in the Gods at Bolton, is beyond me. Duff has been crystal clear in how important he thinks partisan crowds are.

And nobody would be sh!tting on common football fans or p!ss!ng them off - for the latest figures I can find, Bolton's away following over the first half of the season averaged c. 1,600 and so if we did give them 2,000 all of their common football fans who go to away games regularly would be able to come anyway. Why give another load to, at best, part-time Bolton away fans?

Moreover, the play-off is a great opportunity to attract new Reds fans in who could stay with us for donkey's years - as little as just an extra 15 folk attracted who got the bug and bought a season ticket for the next ten years would knock even the upper end of 2,500 more tickets for Bolton at Oakwell into a cocked hat.

Imo it's total sporting and business sense to only give them the minimum, just like they are going to do to us, if we play them.

 

Mike drop.

As the kids say.

 

Give them 2k. Segregate say 500 seats down the middle. Rest to reds fans to offset the noise by away fans. As said many times, 1000fans in that end sounds like 5000 in most stands due to acoustics.

 

Surely our qualification for away leg tickets needs to be revisited now that our allocation is likely to be reduced. I’ve 140+ pts but my lad only 136. How can it be fair that he’ll be in the same category as someone with 100pts who hasn’t been to an away game all season?

 

That's not really true. We very quickly sell out the two fit for purpose home stands. It's just the antiquated relic that struggles to sell. If we put 2000 seats for sale in the modern away end and 2000 seats for sale in the relic I know which would sell out quicker. Considerably quicker too.

What's limiting our attendances for big games isn't the fans, it's the west stand

 

I'm not convinced that the number of away fans in attendance has the significance attributed to it by many people. There were plenty of Derby fans at Oakwell to witness their 4-1 hammering and plenty of Wednesday fans there to see us end their 23 game unbeaten run.

 

We can all give various matches where there's 5k plus away fans and we win but I'm pretty sure over the years defeats far outweigh the victories.

How many Wednesday fans seen them batter us at Oakwell?

 

#givethemfuckalltickets campaign.

 

I thought first refusal would have been the usual 130+ points. Not sure why it's been changed. The big gap in points between day 1 and 2 could result in people who have been regularly missing out to some who have been far less or not at all.

As it's an away game they supply have done STH with history on Eticketing of however many away games.

 

IF Bolton don't fill their stadium, and our fans are sat in a half empty stand, that looks bad on them too.

I hate the term "part time" fan. So what if your away following doubles for a big game? Our fans are no different, so let's not pretend they are. Cutting the allocation by half to try and gain an advantage is sh!tting on the common football fan. It just is. It's 3,000 fans missing out on a memorable game. And it works both ways. Bolton are doing the same, if they can't fill their stadium.

 

5-2 at home v Leeds. 4-1 at home v Leeds, both when we gave them half of the West Stand too. We also beat Sunderland when they brought 6000 and drew with Newcastle when they brought a similar number. We lost to Ipswich recently, but they are a better team than we are.

 

Im in the same boat. My son has 138 points! He’s been to plenty of away games so if we miss out to folk who don’t go away we’ll be pretty miffed.

I agree this needs to be looked at again. They probably thought they’d get over 3k whoever we ended up playing so far less of a drama. And I appreciate it’s a short turnaround. We don’t want a repeat of the Liverpool FA Cup game!

 

Surely priority goes to anyone able to produce a ticket stub from the league cup match at Bolton under Schopp in ‘21?


Joke btw

 

No those of us who went to this classic.

https://www.skysports.com/football/scunthorpe-vs-barnsley/247904

 

Does the top tier at Bolton only hold 2000? Surprised at that, thought it would be at least 2.5/3000

 

I’d say it holds at least 2.5k. Pretty sure we took 1.7k or so for the league game and weren’t close to filling it.

 

Is there a correlation between the number of away fans and our results at Oakwell? If there was then I could understand why everyone seems so intent on limiting the number of away tickets we offer. But of the four losses we suffered at Oakwell this season, three were against teams whose away following could have travelled together in a van. We beat most teams with a good away following, the exception being Ipswich and we lost to them because they're bloody good, not because of how many fans they had in the North Stand.

If the proposal is to split the North Stand and sell tickets to Barnsley fans then I'm on board with that. I think we should do that every week. It's a cracking view from that end. But I don't see any advantage to simply limiting the number of tickets for away fans.

 

How many does the west stand hold ?

would giving them half of it be sufficient to hit 2k

 

Of course there is an advantage to having 5500 there rather than 2000….