I am writing to the club to express my extreme disappointment at the method for allocation of match tickets for the Rochdale game. This is an away match, not a home one. Season ticket holders do not necessarily attend the same number of away matches as, for instance, supporters who are exiled from the town. Availability should not be based on attendance at home games in this instance. There will now be season ticket holders attending the game in place of other, and in a lot of cases more loyal supporters who attend every home and away game but who do not have season tickets. There needs to be another set of criteria laid down for allocation of tickets for away matches. Giving priority to season ticket holders is not the way to do it at all. Also many fans will have discarded their Accrington stubs, believing that if we were promoted automatically there would be no need to keep them.I have purchased six train tickets already, so what happens if I don't manage to get a match ticket now? Will HUFC reimburse me? I would be extremely angry if somebody makes a last-minute decision to go on Monday or Tuesday and I can't get match tickets when they are on general sale. I could produce proof of all the away matches I've been to this season but it would count for nothing. I am not happy about this at all - it should be first come,first served in this instance.

Name and address is in the e-mail but not put on the bottom of this post!!!!!!

Well said but do you think they will take a blind bit of notice????

The ticketing system at Pools has been a shambles for the last 7/8 years and they never learn!!!!

I hope the admin at Pools are reading this board to see EXACTLY how people feel about this.

In fact, I'm going down for a confrontation with someone later today.

Well don't try and tackle the lady from the shop....even you would come second!!!!

I wish I could join you! but I'm 250 miles away. I'd love to hear the explanation about why I shouldn't get a ticket to an away game when I've been to 15 away this season like.

PIEL

Go on MM

P.S. I'm in for mine monday

parmo - I don't agree with all your points. I am not a season ticket holder but at least by allowing season ticket holders priority you are getting a lot of the loyalist fans the chance of getting a ticket.

I know it must be frustrating for exiles but if there was a free for all and no criteria then you would get all of the glory hunters out in force getting tickets and even more loyal fans missing out......

I agree that season ticket holders should get some priority. Give them till Monday 5:00 pm to get their tickets or apply by post (sureley most would prefer this route to avoid a two hour queue). Then make tickets available for general sale from Tuesday. That would give time to get tickets out by post to exiles and those who don't have a coupl of hours to stand in a queue.

Yup, Cant disagree with that!

Oi, You! JONNY - GENERAL SALE ON THE DAY BEFORE THE MATCH IS A DISGRACE - GO ON - DEFEND THAT.

LOSING MY RAG HERE BIG STYLE - Muttley has convinced me not to go down to the ground after all in case I end up getting barred!!!! I'll have to start knocking about with Lawrence!!!!!

We have a little under 2000 season ticket holders, there will be about 4000 people who will have 2 stubs (not including those who have chucked theres). Why do the season ticket holders get 2 days but those with 2 stubs only get one day? Totally mental if you ask me

I gave the poor lass on the phone a blasting about all of this!!!!! Sorry to her, but I can't keep this bottled up!!!!! They aren't looking into the database to see if you've previously bought a ticket - it's stubs only

Apart from that, are you in a good mood?!

I have just taken my Accy stub from the bin, it's absolutely soaked in fried egg yolk, brown sauce and bean juice, and can just about be made out to be what it is. I look forward to redeeming it!

bean juice?!!

curried beans or normal ones? You could suck on the ticket while you're queuing up if you're feeling peckish!!!!

I've been informed by our kid that he's found the stubbs from the Accrington game!!!!

I never went due to work but one of the lads who's still got a stubb isn't going to Rochdale and is passing it onto our kid for me!!!!

Still a shambles like!!!!

Maybe you all should make your stubs like Bresslaws and get a bit of satisfaction when you redeem them

Our lass had one stub in her purse, the other one was on the table at the bottom of the stairs!!! Can't find the bairn's one though!!!!!

That's were we're going to be struggling aswell....our Kid's youngun'!!!!

It does seem a little silly but what are suggesting is also daft and you know it.......

bollocks!!!! How can the club not have staff working this Saturday and Sunday (even only till 12pm) to sell tickets?? Then it wouldn't get anywhere NEAR to Friday!!!!!!
PS I've got a few irons in the fire in case it goes wrong for me.

[quote="parmopooly"]bollocks!!!! How can the club not have staff working this Saturday and Sunday (even only till 12pm) to sell tickets?? Then it wouldn't get anywhere NEAR to Friday!!!!!!
PS I've got a few irons in the fire in case it goes wrong for me.[/quote]

please dont use a hot iron to attack anyone in the ticket office parmo or you definitely will miss the rochdale game

On HUFC's staffing situation you'd have to ask them. Sometimes I get asked to work saturdays but I quite often decline, maybe the staff at HUFC have said they prefer not to work sundays.....

A lot of people would prefer not to work on a weekend but you would think when needs must they would offer their services and for the Pools staff this would probably be the only Sunday they will work all year

But its not always that simple, people have families and children to look after or may have made arrangements for the weekend long time ago...

Like the arrangements we've already made for the Rochdale game....ie.buying Train tickets!!!!

Don't worry Mutley.

You will get in man

I know its frustrating Mutley but you'll get a ticket if you really want one. If I had paid for train tickets then I'd make sure I got a match ticket even if it did mean getting out of my scratcher at about 5 to go and queue.

As they are away tickets do Pools make any money from selling them? Are Rochdale giving Pools a percentage of gate reciepts?

I know its not the full point - but maybe Big Ken begrudges paying someone and opening up to make another club money.....

If this is the reason then it would be truly shocking and sum up the state of football these days.

A thousand people down the Vic that wouldn't normally be there, open the shop up too. It's not rocket science to see the club would make a few quid that they'd be paying out in wages

There's loads of reasons why they could of decided not to open on sunday, you should know that nothing is simple with Pools but I honestly think that a lot of things have improved over the years......

I totally agree....but sorting tickets out isn't one of them!!!!

so Pools would rather not open up and sell tickets to make sure they had as many fans there as poss, to give themselves the best chance of winning the match, to give themselves the best chance of winning the league and the first prize money pot of £100k - ok that seems logical............

Parmo - I was just speculating with the reasons why Pools may not be open on Sunday.

And maybe this is too boring and sensible but you can't complain about your fear of not getting a ticket one minute and then say they should open on Sunday to make sure they sell out the next.

Anyone who really wants to go badly enough will get there........ Good Luck....

...alternatively, applying a bit of common sense and knowledge reveals that Rochdale have a huge away end for the size of club and that the chances of it being all-ticket should be non-existent - hence arrangements can be made.

Pools can't do anything about the all-ticket thing, but they could have worked something out a bit better for their distribution. Had my folks not offered to go and stand in a queue next Wednesday and then send the ticket on registered post, I would be faced with having to wait until the day before the match and then hoping like anything that they're not so busy that they don't answer the phone (experience, mine and others, shows that if there's a queue at the office they tend not to), buying on the plastic and then going to Rochdale at least an hour earlier than I would otherwise need to in order to collect the ticket. By your logic, I should also hold off arranging the babysitter for my two year old (wife's working that Saturday) until I know for definate that I've got a ticket.

If my folks weren't so understanding and had stubs they were prepared to give up, I would have given up hope of going to one of the closest games to where I live yesterday. Despite the fact that we'll be doing exceptionally well if we shift two thirds of the tickets we're getting. What's wrong with that picture?

If you think that only two thirds of the tickets will be sold then I really don't understand how you think that you would end up going without one.

All you're doing is talking about your own ndividual struggles to get a ticket, if there was a free for all then more than one or two loyal fans would be kicking off if they missed out wouldn't they?

Ah, but I can't be sure it won't sell out, can I? Isn't that the point you made earlier - that I shouldn't be making plans before I know? As far as I was concerned, I was facing the prospect of getting someone else to give up their Saturday afternoon on an off-chance that a ticket *might* be available, and that a way *might* be found for me to get it in time (judging from other comments, I wasn't alone in believing that the tickets were to be posted out, fortunately not now the case). That person is a friend, and I'd have been mucking that friend about something rotten by not being able to confirm until the day before whether they were needed - because damn sure if I couldn't go I'd have preferred to spend the time with my son.

My "Individual" struggles seem to be shared by a number of other people who happen to live far enough away that a season ticket isn't a sensible proposition - and therefore cannot be there in person to collect a ticket before Friday. Now we may be relatively few in number, but that doesn't mean we are any less loyal or committed to Pools than any other. (Incidentally, although you probably don't mean it that way it looks in some of your posts that you're effectively saying that if the timing thing makes it totally impractical for an exile to get to the game then they're not committed as they'd "find a way" if they really wanted to....)

If nothing else this is turning into a PR disaster for the club and that as much as anything should highlight that there's a problem. No, they couldn't have predicted that Rochdale, capable of hosting 3500 or more away fans, would be an all-ticket game, but leaving the general sale to the day before the match is farcical - particularly when any number of people have probably chucked their Accrington stubs. Even if they can't start until Monday, why not have one day for ST holders, the next for a stub from Accrington or Notts County, and then General Sale?

Ticketing has been the club's downfall for years now. Other clubs don't seem to end up in such daft situations (not always of Pools making, but often exacerbated by them) so why is it still happening at the Vic?

I have said several times that I think the Accrington stub idea is a non starter for this case. I have misplaced or chucked out my own Accrington Stub so like many others I will be waiting till late in the week and trying to blag time off work or risking getting a bollocking for spending half a day in a Q.

However I believe that season ticket holders followed by stub holders is generally as fair as you will get. There should be more days available for general sale and what you suggest is probably a bit more sensible than what the club has done BUT my main point was that season ticket holders deserve priority - something that some people disagee with.

I'm not dissing exiles far from it, I don't buy a season ticket and i go to all the home games so I certainly don't expect anyone to buy one if they can't make all of the games.

finally the point I was making regarding train tickets being bought bofore hand is that it is unfortinute thats all, when the plod announce it is all ticket at almost the 11th hour what can be done.? In the summer for example I am getting a flight to ibiza, I really want to go to cream on the thursday but tickets will be in high demand as someone like Paul Oakenfold or Paul Van Dyke will be on. Just because I have a flight to ibiza it does not guarentee me a ticket to cream. I will be unfortinute if I don't get one but just because I've got a flight there months before the event it does not guarentee that I will get in the club.

Different thing though. You are knowingly taking a chance that you may not get a ticket for Cream, and presumably knew that when you booked the ticket; there are also other clubs on the island that you can go to, even if they're not your top choice. If you were told that Cream is always well below capacity on a Thursday, no tickets ever needed, and booked your flight purely to go to Cream and then suddenly the week before they said you had to get one from London the day before your flight from Manchester how would you feel?

Plenty of people have made plans on the entirely reasonable assumption (backed up by Pools!) that the game was going to be pay on the day. Greater Manchester Police have a lot to answer for on that front, but then they're not renowned for being accomodating to Football Fans, just ask Wigan! That in itself can't be pinned on Pools. I can understand also why ST holders get priority - I even considered getting one myself the season after we played Blackpool in the Playoff Semi, to make sure I could go if the situation repeated and while I was unhappy to have missed out on that game I recognised that priority for ST was a reasonable position to take. It's the timing of the sale that can be laid at Pools door though, and they have not handled it well. As I said, the Ticketing is really letting Pools down at the moment - in these 21st Century days, it seems to have hardly moved on since the 1950s; no online sales, phone sales only when there's no-one in the queue, it seems that unless you can go and stand in a queue for the ticket window and have your name on something one rung up the technology ladder from a cardfile it's all on a wing and a prayer....

I only hope that his 'cockney accent' is better than his dad's!

I was coming round to your way of thinking there Mr.Jonny until you mentioned going to Ibizia and 'watching' someone put records on!!!!

Nobody booked transport befar any decisions were made,the club had already told us there were no advance tickets & it was pay at the gate only.
Then that decision was chaged.

Fancy popping round to Mr.Glasses' house tonight to watch him put some records on????

£75 to get in like!!!!

I bet his records will be better than those feckers in Ibiza too

Don't knock it 'til you've been the one they're staring at. I bought a house on the back of it!!

I am surprised at you Mutley - you don't normally come across as an old fart, you know you'd love the party island really if you let your hair down. And ADG I know conkers, fiddlesticks, hopscotch and Glenn Miller were considered awesome in your day but times move on........