Man City Tickets

[jonboy29red]

if this game goes to a replay can we turn the tables on city and sell half the south stand to reading fans and give them the small alocation?

[ellpryjon]

In a nutshell, if we had more of an away following, league or cup, we would have more tickets.........

Tough.

[Svlad Cjelli]

if this game goes to a replay can we turn the tables on city and sell half the south stand to reading fans and give them the small alocation?

No, just like we were, Man City would be entitled to am allocation of 15% of the stadium.

And we, just like Man City, would be entitled to make them pay for every ticket, whether they managed to sell it or not.

[yappy]

From a selfish point of view, the free coaches have helped me out massively. Running pretty low on funds, and train ticket prices looked massive (and throw in the fact getting back on a Sunday evening may have meant getting stuck at a station until the early morning). I've got over 1,800 royalty points, but without the free coaches I probably would've had to give it a miss.

[RoyalBlue]

If it came down to a choice it should have been a complete no-brainer.

You want to reward the fans' loyalty. Well the best way of doing that is by ensuring that as many of them as possible can get in to see one of the biggest games the club has been involved in for a long time.

[SLAMMED]

In a nutshell, if we had more of an away following, league or cup, we would have more tickets.........

Tough.

Let me guess, you got a ticket?

[West Stand Man]

What a pointless poll. It isn't as if these two events are mutually exclusive or even related. You might as well ask

A free sumer holiday in the sunshine, or a burger for tea?

[Svlad Cjelli]

Errrm, neither is going to happen, so it's purely hypothetical.

You might as well be asking "what would you prefer, a shag from Kelly Brook or a blow job from Heidi Klum?"

[Svlad Cjelli]

FTR and apropos not very much, there are 247 Loyal Royals at Portman Road tonight.

[Hoop Blah]

...

[Hoop Blah]

Background to our allocation
Clubs have to make their initial indication for ticket allocations when the draw for the relevant round is made, which in this case was back on 20th February, when neither ourselves nor Manchester City had been confirmed in this stage of the competition; we had to face Everton nine days later and they faced Aston Villa ten days later.

It really doesn't matter who was confirmed in the next rounds, you should make your assessment of the demand based on us being there and the two teams being there, otherwise you may as well say 'don't bother giving us any tickets as we'll lose to Everton'!

At that stage, we indicated to both Villa and City that circa 2,800 would be our preferred allocation, taking into full consideration that the game is live on television, takes place on a Sunday evening, and after analysing our away attendances at previous games of a similar nature.

I can understand the Sunday night aspect, but not the TV, and we haven't had a similar away game of this nature so they're just guessing.

In the last three seasons we have taken more than 3,000 to an away game on just one occasion, Southampton away in late 2008, and for example we took 775 and 1,059 supporters to our replays at Liverpool and West Brom respectively last season, and 1,577 travelled to the north west for our play-off semi final at Burnley on a Saturday evening in May 2009.

Those games just aren't really comparable. The closest is the play off semi but even then it was only the first half of the tie and so isn't really close to visiting the current City side in only our second quarter-final in living memory. I see they don't mention the sell out away attendence for the Arsenal league cup tie at Highbury a few years back.

When the deadline came to finalise our allocation on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after our win at Everton, free coach travel had naturally not been discussed and could not have an impact on our decision at that time.

Naturally? Why? Does nobody plan these things in advance and the some joined up thinking take place? It's obviously a reactive thing that someone came up with on the spur of the moment, or just as likely from reading the suggestion on here!

Furthermore, if the allocation had to be confirmed on Wednesday then the first paragraph about indications of allocation is totally blown out of the water!

As a result of the free travel offer, there has been a higher than normal level of demand and our supporters could have bought more tickets, perhaps an extra few hundred, if they were available.

I don't buy that the travel offer has increased the demand by more than a couple of hundred at the very most. Yes there may a lot of people taking the club up on the offer but that doesn't mean they wouldn't have made the effort to go without it.

City took the decision to quickly go on sale and made seats available in surrounding areas immediately after their own match with Aston Villa, closing the top tiers on the sides of the ground and unable to reopen them for Reading fans on safety advice, despite our supporters' desire for more seats.

If that bit is true then either the club should've taken a bigger allocation, made representations to City to wait or, if they're not allowed to do that get the FA involved to correct it. It sounds like City were perfectly within their rights to do so once Reading had only asked for the smaller allocation.

Had we received a larger allocation, the club would of course have paid for free travel for those extra supporters going to the game. As it stands, with 2,836 vocal, loyal supporters behind us, we are giving the team fantastic backing and a great chance of success. The offer of free coach travel is a reward for our loyal fans and we look forward to those fans at the game creating a great atmosphere in Manchester.

It would've been much better to take a potential hit on a 1,000 or so unsold tickets to give as many loyal Reading fans the chance to go to the game. Even better it would've been nice to see the club accept their error in misjudging the demand has caused this situation.

I also note there isn't any mention of the poorly set points thresholds for the selling period once they knew that City had started selling the potential overflow area to their own fans (Wednesday night if the above is correct, leaving RFC plenty of time to figure out that they'd only get the original 2,800). They're squirming and hiding behind a series of weak excuses for letting their fans, sorry customers, down.

[Thames]

Very good points Hoop Blah - especially the 7,000 odd we took to Highbury on a cold midweek night.

I'll be in the away end getting behind the team on Sunday and I'm still angry at the club. I dread to think what those who have missed out our thinking.

I think we should also spare a thought for those who were unable to get tickets online in the early hours (perhaps the elderly or less computer literate people) who would have jumped straight on the phone at 9am or worse still arrived at the ticket office.

We should've know something like this was going to happen. Further evidence that Madejski is a great businessman but not the man you want running your football club! Move on John.

[Jerry St Clair]

FWIW : (if it's not already been posted) : http://wp.me/p1i3kq-P

The absolute crux of that being: Were Reading offered 2,800 or 15% with nothing in between on a pay-up-front basis? If so, then I actually think RFC made the correct decision. But in the absence of any conformation of this, we have to conclude that they had other options, which they failed to take, and are therefore incompetent chumps.

[Hoop Blah]

FWIW : (if it's not already been posted) : http://wp.me/p1i3kq-P

The absolute crux of that being: Were Reading offered 2,800 or 15% with nothing in between on a pay-up-front basis? If so, then I actually think RFC made the correct decision. But in the absence of any conformation of this, we have to conclude that they had other options, which they failed to take, and are therefore incompetent chumps.

According to the clubs statement though they had two opportunities to influence the number of tickets we received. How many City would've been able to provide us with, safely, is a little unclear but it seems the club still cocked it up which ever way you look at it.

[TFF]

FWIW : (if it's not already been posted) : http://wp.me/p1i3kq-P

The absolute crux of that being: Were Reading offered 2,800 or 15% with nothing in between on a pay-up-front basis? If so, then I actually think RFC made the correct decision. But in the absence of any conformation of this, we have to conclude that they had other options, which they failed to take, and are therefore incompetent chumps.

Given that the cup run has freed up enough cash to book 43 (?) coaches 6000 tickets (2-3000 unsold?) wouldn't have been that much of a stretch.

[West Stand Man]

Very good points Hoop Blah - especially the 7,000 odd we took to Highbury on a cold midweek night.

I'll be in the away end getting behind the team on Sunday and I'm still angry at the club. I dread to think what those who have missed out our thinking.

I think we should also spare a thought for those who were unable to get tickets online in the early hours (perhaps the elderly or less computer literate people) who would have jumped straight on the phone at 9am or worse still arrived at the ticket office.

We should've know something like this was going to happen. Further evidence that Madejski is a great businessman but not the man you want running your football club! Move on John.

That wouldn't be a different Highbury to the one that is much closer than anything in Manchester then would it?

[royal-biscuit-man]

How about showing the game on the big screen at the madejski as a nice gesture for those who are unable to go.

[EPR]

How about showing the game on the big screen at the madejski as a nice gesture for those who are unable to go.

It'll probably be on in the Jazz Cafe.

[Para Handy]

FTR and apropos not very much, there are 247 Loyal Royals at Portman Road tonight.

Agreed Dirk. It's apropos of not very much. I'm not at Portman Road and neither will I be at City. However, having been a Season ticket holder ever since we've been at Madejski and a fan for much longer than that (although I realise that's not really relevant) I would have liked the "reasonable" opportunity to buy a ticket for the Cup game over fans that have not been so loyal. The last two seasons tickets have yielded what.. around 510 points. You wouldn't have had to be a fan for too long to accumulate 600 points. I don't think banding at 1600 to 600 is fair. I'm kind of tired of repeating it though.

To address TFF's points as well. I'd agree that Royalty points system is not fantastic. However, it's the system in place at the moment. Whilst I can see that it may benefit you personally to be able to buy in a wider band, I'd be very pissed off to be one of the fans queuing at the Stadium this morning with more points than your family only to find out that they sold out. FWIW I agree with your point about the 5 year cutoff tho.

I'm guessing that those die hards at Ipswich will all have had the opportunity to buy a ticket and for that I wish them well. No quibbles at all about that.

[Hoop Blah]

That wouldn't be a different Highbury to the one that is much closer than anything in Manchester then would it?

It was also midweek in the League Cup against pretty much a reserve team from Arsenal. It was also the best part of 7,000 as opposed to the 5,500 odd that we could probably have sold for the City game.

The only thing going for that Arsenal game was that it was going to be the last chance to watch Reading at Highbury.