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Comments
My 'selfish' comment referred to the fact that they were asked not to persistently stand, and warned of the consequences, yet chose to ignore the warnings.
As a result, 3 000 less fans get tickets for Bournemouth.
I stick by the view that
I'll do what I want, and no one tells me otherwise
is a selfish attitude.
'It's not illegal' is an irrelevant argument. It is against the stadium regulations, and that is all that matters. If the stadium owners and the local council insist upon fans not persistently standing, then that is what will have to happen.
Perhaps those who will not tolerate being told not to persistently stand could negotiate with the club for a refund of their STs?
We have, in the past, had away allocation cut as a result of standing.
Don't really understand the logic of that.
Permission to make the capacity 60 000 was given before we ever had a game there.
The capacity should have been 60 000, it is now 57 000 - that's a reduction, not an increase.
Time will tell, but I think those used to standing have yet to grasp that it is not the club pushing this, but the stadium operators, and I can't think of any reason why they would relax their stance on this issue.
Ah, the creation of a false dichotomy.
No-one is saying you have to sit down all the time and eat popcorn. It isn't an either/or. Others will know more about this than I do - but hasn't the club explored this and found it a non-starter?
And even if they haven't, isn't it too late now to do anything about it? ;hmm
(And as an aside, why would it be thought a good idea for the club to push ahead with things that will cut our budget ... how is that going to help, exactly?)
As a non-season ticket holder my only chance of seeing West Ham is to wait each game to see what tickets are left. I have very little choice in terms of where I can get a seat as I always take my two children and need three together. Fortunately for them (and me) they are now old enough and just about tall enough to cope with standing for long periods if necessary. This is exactly what happened when we saw the game against Domzale, as the 5 or 6 rows in front of us were standing giving us no alternative other than to stand (or watch the back of someone).
The notion that I (and others) may have had an idea of where to buy tickets to sit (and not stand) based on the fact that at the Boleyn there were standing areas that were going to be similar at the new stadium seem wrong to me. It is a new stadium, we took our chances, we had to stand and we dealt with it. Unfortunately others found it harder; smaller children for example.
It is not right that people may be put off from going to a game because they fear they may spend money only to have an obscured view as people are standing. It's bad enough when you have a 6ft 6 someone in front of you anyway.
I hope this can be sorted. I expect that over time 'natural standing areas' may appear as people swap season tickets etc. although it does seem that at the present time standing is deemed unsafe and possibly illegal anyway, and anyone not following guidance may well be removed.
Here's hoping that a solution can be achieved where those non-season ticket holders get a chance to have a seat wher they know they can see the game they paid for and not have to stand or be surprised they have to stand once the whistle has blown to start the game.
Furthermore, as long as the licence is capped at 57,000 (and not raised to 60,000 as planned) that is 3,000 ticket sales every single game that the club is missing out on. (And potentially 6,000 ticket sales per match, if the cap is lowered again to the old 54,000, not to mention any other financial penalties they may incur for breach of licence conditions - I don't know if there is anything in the contract about that).
As you say, time will tell.
But I think it is you who will turn out to be wrong. ;biggrin
I'm sure the folks who have paid out their hard earned money for tickets, travel etc, and end up not being able to see, will be massively consoled by being able to blame the club. ;wink
I was hoping with the extra capacity, I might get to see more games at the new stadium. I am not so sure now.
The reasons why people might or might not have been regular attenders in recent years are many and varied. And perhaps totally outside their control.
Some folks who might not have attended in recent years may actually have clocked up many more attendances than you. I think it is a bit off, what you said, tbh.
As BBB has pointed out we are in a different stadium where local rules are being more rigorously applied. The punishment is a reduction in capacity.
I don't understand why for the time being at least folks can just sit down.
No matter how the club had done it differently, persistent standing would still not be allowed in the new ground. The requirement for the persistent standers to change their expectations and behaviour would be identical to what it is now even if they were more 'grouped'.
The only difference possibly that is that the (now) standing wouldn't have annoyed quite so many other fans.
imo
The fact that the club mostly ignored standing at Upton Park suggests that Sullivan, Gold and Brady don't really care whether we stand or not as long as they sell as many tickets as possible.
Not every fan, especially in bands 3 and 4 got the comparable seat in the new stadium.
Why?
Because the +2 scheme within bands 1 & 2 had already displaced some of them (unknown to them until they got to the RC) Either they had to pay more to go up a band, or move back, say with their mates, to stay together. The aggressive selling by the reps at the RC, telling fans "buy another couple, only kids prices initially, then if you don't bring the kids you can always upgrade later match by match if you want (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) didn't help either.
Another thing that in all this was the clubs decision to not have a family seating area, now there are plenty of parents/kids in area's that have "generally been known" to stand and will be obviously frustrated.
The fact of the matter for me, the club's number 1 priority in all this was selling 52K season tickets, then came your comparable seat, the families, the standing (well actually I'm not sure that even registered).
The club have helped cause this to some degree due to the method they chose for the seat selection process and the +2 scheme, this is turn was driven by the need to sell as many ST's as possible.
And nobody will ever change my mind.
;ok
The situation is as it is and has to be dealt with.
It is also my firm view (as I explained) that no matter what the club had done (eg, to have more tickets on general sale, or to have fans 'grouped' in like areas to the Boleyn areas) the issue would still have arisen because persistent standing will not be allowed.
YES THEY DID.
Every ST Holder got first dibs on their comparable seat in the new stadium BEFORE it was offered to a +2.
'My BML seat' now has another bottom on it but that bottom didn't get to buy it until after I said I didn't want it.
She's trying to rule with a heavy hand. They're now applying the pressure by suggesting that if "everyone" doesn't sit, or actually everyone doesn't sit when they've got objectionable (and quite right too) person or persons behind them, you'll be chucked out and this in turn won't help the club as they won't get the other 3,000 tickets, denying many other claret members for the foreseeable.
They are going to have their work cut out making thousands sit in the BML and STL if there are still people there who want/need/must sit.
If this was all that bad (and I'm not playing down the complaints from people sitting and getting frustrated - at all), then why did they increase it from 54,000 to 57,000?
I mean, if the standing problem is THAT bad at 54,000 then why increase it at all, cap it now and tell everyone to conform before it goes any higher, to even 57,000 let alone 60,000.
How do another 3,000 tickets get added on when you've admitted the standing problem has stopped it from having the full 6,000 added to the capacity?
I'd say at a guess, because they know they'd have a problem, 52,000 ST only leaves 2,000 tickets at 54K not even enough to allocate away fans, let alone the thousands that were promised a ballot by being Claret Members......
So they've conveniently added 3,000 phew that gets out of a tight corner doesn't it
;wink
the rules that apply now. It's like a road that had a speed limit of 40mph and now
it has changed to 30mph.
The first time you exceed the speed of 30mph you get a fine and 3 pts on your license.
The second time you exceed the speed limit of 30mph you get a bigger fine and another 3 pts on your license.
The third time you exceed the speed limit of 30mph you get an even bigger fine plus a ban for driving.
If the rules at the London stadium are that there will be no standing, then that is
the rules, and it is irrelevant what happened at Upton Park.
Ignore the rules and you should be evicted from the ground, shouldn't take long
before fans sit on there seats instead of standing and then all can see the game
without having to stand up.
Perhaps the club should've thought about all this when selling the +2's?
;whistle