away ticket policy

[blue_army_wokingham]

I would like the club to reconsider its policy of awarding away tickets to those who have the most royalty points. i myself have an away season ticket and haven't missed a game all year. nearly every game i've been to there has been a fantastic atmosphere with lots of hardcore support.

However, saturdays trip to arsenal showed one of the worst atmoshperes from number 13 all season. The reason for this is that boring non singing fans that sit in the west upper at madejski, decide they want to go and see a nice new stadium. Now i dont want to take anything away from these fans as they obviously have accumalted their 600+ loyalty points from follwoing reading at home for a long time. But if youre not going to support the team when you go to away games then i think you shouldnt go, and let somebody that wants to sing their hearts out go instead.

my suggestion to the club would be as follows - all away tickets go out to away season ticket holders straight away. the remaining should go out to fans that have been to the most away games that season.

e.g those that made the pain in the ar$e trips to man city, man utd, middlesbrough, etc should get preference on a ticket for the arsenal game instead of those that havent been to an away game all season and suddenly decide to go to arsenal (with their kids in arsenal kits) as its easier to get to.

if these fans that dont want to sing sit together with prawn sandwiches in the west stand at home then thats fine as theres plenty of other fans to bring the noise up. but at arsenal i saw about 1000 new faces to away games that werent making any effort to get behind the team. and it caused the atmosphere to suffer which couldnt have done anything to help the players on the pitch.

disucss.....

[fridays child]

Let's just sell tickets based on best/loudest singers.

[TFF]

If I wanted to enter singing competitions I'd join a choir.

[Hahnemann's Hairdresser]

A lot to read so I skimmed through most of that, but the idea of using only away royalty points as a measure, I think, is a brilliant idea. Not only would it put an end to things like the Feyernord and Darlington games being 20 points and being the difference between the first band and second band of points, but as mentioned above would reward fans who travel to the more difficult places to get to.

[Wax Jacket]

A lot to read so I skimmed through most of that, but the idea of using only away royalty points as a measure, I think, is a brilliant idea. Not only would it put an end to things like the Feyernord and Darlington games being 20 points and being the difference between the first band and second band of points, but as mentioned above would reward fans who travel to the more difficult places to get to.

...and would reward fans who spend money at other clubs, rather than in the Mad Stad.

[Huntley & Palmer]

If RFC were to do it properly, then you would have an Away Club Membership. Away game tickets are only taken into consideration for whether you get a ticket or not, not if you go to Home games. People with the most away visits in that season get first dibs, broken down by home many then have been to. This scales down until you have an amount left for people that have not been, these are then placed into a ballot where people put their member card number forwards. It changes season upon season so everyone gets a clean slate, first away game goes to complete ballot. Second away game is offered to those that went to the first, then ballot etc.

This way would give both Reading folk and exiles a level playing field every season. It works for all the other clubs it is in place with.

The problem is that it would be unworkable now, as the membership scheme was only ever brought in to reward those that went to home games.

[Hahnemann's Hairdresser]

A lot to read so I skimmed through most of that, but the idea of using only away royalty points as a measure, I think, is a brilliant idea. Not only would it put an end to things like the Feyernord and Darlington games being 20 points and being the difference between the first band and second band of points, but as mentioned above would reward fans who travel to the more difficult places to get to.

...and would reward fans who spend money at other clubs, rather than in the Mad Stad.

So someone who travels to say Middlesborough, but didn't go to a pre season friendly or league cup game both at home, ends up with 35 less royalty points and as such, may miss out on going to Arsenal but its ok because his 500 mile round trip meant spending money at another club?

[bobby1413]

Saturday's experience was what kind of made me really appreciate the trip to West Ham, Fulham, Sheffield United.

All fantastic atmosphere's, with (what it seemed like) the most hardcore supporters.

Unfortunately, this will always happen. The club are not going to go out of their way to change their system. They don't care as long as their 3000 tickets are sold. Whether there is a good atmosphere or not is simply irrelevant.

[Dirk Gently]

A lot to read so I skimmed through most of that, but the idea of using only away royalty points as a measure, I think, is a brilliant idea. Not only would it put an end to things like the Feyernord and Darlington games being 20 points and being the difference between the first band and second band of points, but as mentioned above would reward fans who travel to the more difficult places to get to.

...and would reward fans who spend money at other clubs, rather than in the Mad Stad.

So someone who travels to say Middlesborough, but didn't go to a pre season friendly or league cup game both at home, ends up with 35 less royalty points and as such, may miss out on going to Arsenal but its ok because his 500 mile round trip meant spending money at another club?

What if he lives in Middlesborough - should he get no points for that?
And should someone who goes to the Middlesborough match but who lives in Devon get more points to someone who goes but lives in Reading?
How about someone who flies in from Sydney to go to a match? Does he get enough points for effort to go to the top of the priority list?

[Hahnemann's Hairdresser]

...and would reward fans who spend money at other clubs, rather than in the Mad Stad.

So someone who travels to say Middlesborough, but didn't go to a pre season friendly or league cup game both at home, ends up with 35 less royalty points and as such, may miss out on going to Arsenal but its ok because his 500 mile round trip meant spending money at another club?

What if he lives in Middlesborough - should he get no points for that?
And should someone who goes to the Middlesborough match but who lives in Devon get more points to someone who goes but lives in Reading?
How about someone who flies in from Sydney to go to a match? Does he get enough points for effort to go to the top of the priority list?

Implementing an away points system would mean that as they were at an away game, their away royalty points are increased by 5, regardless of where they've come from. This then means that he/she has not missed out if they didn't see the Reserves play Darlington. You could spend in excess of £350 following Reading to away games yet still only earn the same points as someone who has spent £15 to see a freindly game.

[Harps stay sharp]

Ok we lost to Arsenal.

It was Arsenal, the only team to do the double over us this season. There's no use in trying to blame it on the lack of vocal support from Reading fans, our team wasn't as good as Arsenal's.

Also our 3000 fans only made up 5% of the crowd so it's going to have to take something spectacular from the team on the pitch for our fans to have made an impact.

Upton Park (small ground), Fulham (small ground) were brilliant because a, We won and b, our 3000 fans seemed more together because in both cases we took over most of one stand rather than being tucked at the bottom of a huge 3 tier stand.

From where I was sat on Saturday I could see that the Arsenal fans in the opposite corner were standing and singing, but couldn't hear them.

So get over yourself, we lost the match but it had nothing to do with the people we had supporting the team, thank you very much!!

[TFF]

You could spend in excess of £350 following Reading to away games yet still only earn the same points as someone who has spent £15 to see a freindly game.

So, in hindsight, anyone in that position who didn't make the £15 investment was pretty oxf*rd stupid.

Another marketing win for RFC. Now that the value of these cheap points is fully realised I predict a much better attendance at the next pre-season friendly and early cup matches.

[coyrls]

I don't think it's possible to have more than 600 points from only going to home games

[shadesrwrf]

Why don't they sell them by auction?

[rabidbee]

A lot to read so I skimmed through most of that, but the idea of using only away royalty points as a measure, I think, is a brilliant idea. Not only would it put an end to things like the Feyernord and Darlington games being 20 points and being the difference between the first band and second band of points, but as mentioned above would reward fans who travel to the more difficult places to get to.

Which is why the club wouldn't do it, because then they would shift hardly any tickets for those kinds of matches.

[T.R.O.L.I.]

A lot to read so I skimmed through most of that, but the idea of using only away royalty points as a measure, I think, is a brilliant idea. Not only would it put an end to things like the Feyernord and Darlington games being 20 points and being the difference between the first band and second band of points, but as mentioned above would reward fans who travel to the more difficult places to get to.

Which is why the club wouldn't do it, because then they would shift hardly any tickets for those kinds of matches.

They would as there is still the mad scramble for Man Utd / Chelsea / Arsenal at home.

[rabidbee]

A lot to read so I skimmed through most of that, but the idea of using only away royalty points as a measure, I think, is a brilliant idea. Not only would it put an end to things like the Feyernord and Darlington games being 20 points and being the difference between the first band and second band of points, but as mentioned above would reward fans who travel to the more difficult places to get to.

Which is why the club wouldn't do it, because then they would shift hardly any tickets for those kinds of matches.

They would as there is still the mad scramble for Man Utd / Chelsea / Arsenal at home.

Depends how many STHs we have next season. That would have been 18,000 fans this season who stood to see no benefit from going to these unattractive matches, to begin with.

As it's been pointed out many a time before, the Royalty Points are essentially a marketing tool. And not just in these one-off games, like the Feyenoord match. The points make it more desirable for fans to attend all home league matches, in the hope that they will get the tickets for big cup matches, play-off finals in past seasons, &c.

[Woodcote Royal]

I would like the club to reconsider its policy of awarding away tickets to those who have the most royalty points. i myself have an away season ticket and haven't missed a game all year. nearly every game i've been to there has been a fantastic atmosphere with lots of hardcore support.

However, saturdays trip to arsenal showed one of the worst atmoshperes from number 13 all season. The reason for this is that boring non singing fans that sit in the west upper at madejski, decide they want to go and see a nice new stadium. Now i dont want to take anything away from these fans as they obviously have accumalted their 600+ loyalty points from follwoing reading at home for a long time. But if youre not going to support the team when you go to away games then i think you shouldnt go, and let somebody that wants to sing their hearts out go instead.

.

So, anyone who doesn't want to sing shouldn't go to an away game?

What we really need are less idiots like you.

[Dirk Gently]

I would like the club to reconsider its policy of awarding away tickets to those who have the most royalty points. i myself have an away season ticket and haven't missed a game all year. nearly every game i've been to there has been a fantastic atmosphere with lots of hardcore support.

However, saturdays trip to arsenal showed one of the worst atmoshperes from number 13 all season. The reason for this is that boring non singing fans that sit in the west upper at madejski, decide they want to go and see a nice new stadium. Now i dont want to take anything away from these fans as they obviously have accumalted their 600+ loyalty points from follwoing reading at home for a long time. But if youre not going to support the team when you go to away games then i think you shouldnt go, and let somebody that wants to sing their hearts out go instead.

.

So, anyone who doesn't want to sing shouldn't go to an away game?

What we really need are less idiots like you.

<pedant mode> fewer idiots </pedant mode>

Apart from that, spot on!

[Royal Monk]

They could monitor the fans inside the stadium (at away games) and at half time kick out the ones that dont sing .... There could be a few hundred fans who do sing waiting outside who could replace the silent ones

Just because you dont sing it doesnt make you a bad fan !!!!