The minority spoil it for the majority – only season ticket holders to go to away games

Posted on July 20th, 2011 | 38 Comments |

...and this is the clubs justification.
...and this is the clubs justification.
Today we have a rather startling and a little bit of a confusing decision made by the club. In order to go to away games, you must be a club member or a season ticket holder.

The justification for all of this is the events that took place at the Darlington friendly which we can all agree made a mockery of our club and it’s fans. It was quite simply disgraceful to see the events unfold and even worse to see fans saying “they hope it happens again” – if that’s what you go to a football game for, do something else with your time instead of ruining it for the rest of us.

That, of course, is exactly what has happened today. The minority has ruined it for the majority and if you want to go to an away game, you had better fork out £20-£25 a year for membership or upwards of £300 for a season ticket.

A club statement today had this to say:

In order to combat any possible trouble at future away fixtures, a new policy will be implemented by the club which will see ticket sales restricted to Season Ticket Holders and Members only. As such the buyer will be held accountable for any trouble associated with the purchase/use of a ticket.

Supporters attending the forthcoming game at Leeds will be reminded in advance of the game of their responsibilities to the club, fellow supporters, and the game of football as a whole.

Newcastle United sincerely hopes that this incident is a one-off never to be repeated again and that as the 2011/12 season unfolds, the good name, fervour and loyalty of its fans will once again be to the fore up and down the country.

I can understand why this is a good move in the event this happens again as it will make each ticket holder more accountable for his or her actions when playing away from home however it is incredibly disappointing to see such a lack of faith in the supporters who have stuck by the club through hell, high water and Dennis Wise. (Although after seeing Dennis Wise at the club, ‘high water’ seems like quite a good deal.)

Is it purely political reasons between the police, the club and the FA? Or is it the extra money the club are wanting? All funds received from the membership does get put into the academy, after all. Perhaps it’s a mixture of both, who knows? All I really care about is the fans who face the very real possibility that they may not be able to attend away games as a result of this decision.

Of course, season ticket holders and members can buy more tickets but if memory serves correct there’s a limit to how many they can buy at once – not being either of those, I would rather refrain from comment.

It’s an unfortunate day for Newcastle United fans as this decision will ultimately leave a lot of fans in the dark when it comes to away days – the participation of which, many believe, is the mark of a true supporter.

This is undoubtedly a terrible decision by the club and we can only hope that this doesn’t bite us over what may already prove to be a vital season.

NUFCBlog Author: Thump Some say his bones are black and white but that is yet to be medically proven. Currently writes for a few different publications and likes to assert his imaginary authority on nobody in particular. Beware: eats children. Thump has written 36 articles on this blog.

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38 Responses

  1. Really annoying for me – I live in Kent so obviously don’t get tpp go up to Newcastle much and I was hoping to catch an away game at one of the London clubs this season. I guess I’ll have to become a meber then although £25 is a lot when I’m already paying £50 for a new shirt every season. It only cost me £1 to join the Labour Party, and we actually get to vote for our leader.

  2. Is it a stupid overeaction by the club to a reltively minor event? Or is it a pretext by the club to sell more season tickets and club memberships?

  3. Yeh same here. Working down in London so was hoping to catch a couple of London games. Guess I’ll have to sign up!!

  4. what difference does this make? im a non season ticket holder yet ive been to many many away games, im sure alot of other are the same, you ring up and quote a season ticket number and the ticket is yours, how do they think this is going to pin point any trouble to certain season ticket holders. unless they have pictures on season tickets i think its just a silly conclusion to it all. what i would LOVE to see is fans running onto the pitch and up the stand to smash fat ashleys face in, now that would be worth getting arrested and banned for!

  5. Although I can see that it could cause inconvenience and/or greater expense for non season ticket holders, I think it is probably a sensible decision. We can’t afford a bunch of to$$ers who don’t go to matches regularly and were probably there for the pi$$ up as much as the game to be allowed to besmirch the name of the club like that and this would appear to be the only way to stop it. Those who caused the trouble the other night were almost certainly not season ticket holder or members so they had nothing to lose.

  6. It was all Sammy Ameobi’s fault for scoring. He started it and should be promptly fired.

  7. Ludicrous. Typical laziness these days – punish the majority along with the minority of idiots who cause trouble.

    Nice little earner for the club though.

  8. I’ve always managed to buy tickets for me and any m8s through the the home club. OK you’re not necessarily in with the rest of the supporters but you can get near enough.

    In my experience Chelski, Wet Spam and Spuds all sell tickets to anybody who wants them ! So you dont need to buy a membership if you dont want to.

  9. “what i would LOVE to see is fans running onto the pitch and up the stand to smash fat ashleys face in, now that would be worth getting arrested and banned for!”

    Shame on you Adam, I’d pay your fine though :)

  10. support this 100%
    was disgusted at what i saw at darlo everyone knows the crack at the games so why get on the pitch!

    it made world news as there isnt much else to report on with english footy at the min and showed us up as a bunch of drunken knobheads!

    hopefully it might make some of the brain dead in the geordie flock think twice when causing trouble next time!

  11. It’s obviously an attempt by the club to show they are doing something about it to try & ward off sanctions.

    Don’t see why the majority have to pay though.

  12. It was a bit of daft that a couple of darlo’s took umbridge with & made it look worse than it was.
    Divs!

  13. I agree with you about clamping down on the pitch invaders but, for the last 8 years i have been posted nr brighton for my job and there is no way i would bother getting a season ticket just to get some away tickets. it’s punishing the majority because of a few mindless idiots

  14. Money money money…

    Anyway Worky, check your mail. Hopefully you can get the post up before closing time.

    :-)

  15. CLiNT FLiCK says:
    July 20, 2011 at 6:20 pm

    “It’s obviously an attempt by the club to show they are doing something about it to try & ward off sanctions.”

    It’s obviously an attempt by the club to exploit the sitution by squeezing a further £20 out of supporters who live out of Toon Clint. Ashley’s a huckster through and through.

  16. Don’t comment much on the blogs but this is something that’s really would me up. Like some of the others have posted, I’m down in Essex and was hoping to make it to a few away games around London plus a home fan or two. Can’t belive the club are allowed to get away with doing something like this, it completely alienates the casual fans out there. While I’d love to be able to make it to more games it’s just not possible atthe moment.

  17. Was at the Darlo match and the initial pitch invasion, albeit against the rules, was good natured – the fighting started when 6 Darlo idiots came back with the crowd into the Toon fans and then kicked off – I live in Darlo and know of two of them as they’ve been bragging all about it

    Typical news reporters manage to cobble together “fighting broke out as hundreds of Newcastle fans invade the pitch”, but if you look at the coverage, the fighting clearly starts once everyone is back in the stands

    Slow news day and The Club have overacted to tar everyone with the same brush

  18. worky,
    i still think the club need to be showing they’re doing something about because of the way it’s been blown outta all proportion as per usual by the media.

    As one of the American lads was saying on an earlier blog: there was trouble at Columbus Crew last year when manusa played there, but we heard nowt about it over here.
    We get jumped on at every turn.

  19. CLiNT FLiCK says:
    July 20, 2011 at 7:00 pm

    “because of the way it’s been blown outta all proportion as per usual by the media.”

    Has it?

  20. I can understand this decision tbh and I can’t say I’m suprised at all. I was at Darlington and as a group of supporters we were disgraced by a minority of p###ed up teenagers and people who should know better. Those who ran on to the pitch should all have received short term bans if identified by camera and the ones who started or became involved in the violence should recieve long-term bans and fines. Get these idiots out of football and if it means more powers to the clubs and police then I welcome it. There was a woman infront of me with a group of kids aged between about 5 and 10.

  21. I have a feeling the reason why you need to be a member from what I have read above that by buying a ticket with the season ticket or members card that each ticket will be barcoded and if you cause trouble then the person who got you the tickets on the season card will get the flack I dnt no how but owwell

  22. Perhaps NUFC will drop the membership charge.

    They’d still be able to track individuals via their registrations and it wouldn’t impose a fine on those who don’t live close to Newcastle.

    Yeah, right!

  23. Fook em.
    Bring back the proper 80’s casuals…best company,lemon,l’alpina……get some proper scraps going.
    Pussies.

  24. It’s a sad decision by a sad man, I’m not suprised they take us supporters for granted because they know we ll turn up home and away whatever. It’s like taking away level 7 at St James which was belting, that was like an away day atmosphere at a home. I’m not paying as I’m lucky enough to have mates with season tickets to get mine but it’s a shitty decision

  25. Says on the football rumours app for iphone/pod that we’re ready to offer a player-plus-cash offer with Liverpool that would see alberto aquilani exchange for Jose Enrique? Personally think its 100% bullsh!t.

  26. although you can see the clubs point of view,regarding cracking down on hooliganism,but there can be no justification for marginalizing of the fans as a whole.the whole premise of this is ill conceived,to say the least.so you punish the cross section of fans,for the sake of a few idiots.all this will do is promote a kind of elite within the fan structure,the way football is now,a lot of fans cannot afford season tickets.there are also fans who do not live in the newcastle area,who like to go to the away games,as it might be their only chance to to see the team in action.
    is this further evidence of mike ashley trying to weed out so called dissidents from the club?.he’s already closed the singing section,which does look suspiciously like an attempt to stop the chants against him.have this mindless minority played into ashley’s hands,in helping him rid himself of the type of fan,who is vocal in their opposition,when things are not going right.on the whole it’s another kick in the teeth by ashley,it’s also “classic stupidity” on his part,as all it’s really achieving,is ailenating more fans.at this rate you will have to be a member of “gattica”,to see a game.

  27. TROJAN 69 says:
    July 20, 2011 at 8:18 pm

    “is this further evidence of mike ashley trying to weed out so called dissidents from the club?.”

    I don’t think so Trojan, many of militant factions are Season Ticket holders anyway. I think it’s more likely that they saw an opportunity to squeeze an extra £20 out of we mugs who support the club and live far away from Newcastle. I think that the breaking up of the singing section could well have been to stop the ‘FCB’ songs mind!

  28. look lads weather we agree or not the fact of the matter is our section went onto the pitch good natured or not prevoked or not everyone on the pitch knew they shouldn’t be there. the club has acted and like one of the fellas said they will probably drop the charge latter but there has to be some sort of ramifications

    im based in the states and it was headline news on the fox, espn and skysports news our reputation abroad has been tarnished and most of the yanks out here already think english football is still in the 80’s! warren barton is one of the main commentators and he was defending the toon fans on the headlines! (i know its weired seeing him) they dont get that it wasnt the worst pitch invasion in the world!

    so im afraid sign up if you dont own your ticket this should keep the FA quite on the matter also

    on a lighter note got some geordies from here up in kansas and they have had a full afternoon watching training and meeting the players for autographs and photos! the boys are reporting back that theres a really good atmosphere amongst the players and they are all mixing and having some banter with the public even pardew and the coach’s have been giving seminars on training and the such and there is a ton of interest from all over the states for us so a bit of positive news for a change however the heat is major cause for concern so wouldn’t expect to much from tonight’s exercise as the states is going though a big heatwave at the moment and the humidity is nasty!

  29. geordiedug says:
    July 20, 2011 at 8:41 pm

    “like one of the fellas said they will probably drop the charge latter”

    I very much doubt that geordiedug.

  30. well even if they dont worky something had to be done and if your a member then you cant just walk in off the street and act like a complete t@#t and spoil it for everyone!

  31. Its unbelievable what lengths these hucksters will go to generate a few bob more.
    Fact is it penalises fans living outside of the Newcastle area, nothing more, cheap mothertrucker !
    Now thats a valid reason for the white sheet brigades, to protest, bring it to the publics attention that contrary to doing anything to prevent pitch invasions or hooliganism as claimed it’s simply a ruse to extract a few bob more from the allready put upon fans by this cheap creep.

  32. Geordie Doug
    Get off the soap box, you working for NUFC or just an Ashley apologist, you are attempting to make a mountain out of a molehill, give it a rest !