Getting a ticket for home matches - let's make sure it's not all down to who you know.

A few weeks ago not many Pompey fans would have expected access to home match tickets to be a major issue this season. Indeed any discussions about ticket allocation policy were usually focused on how we would get hold of tickets for away matches at the much smaller grounds Pompey will be visiting.

Two things have happened to change that. Firstly the approach adopted to allocating tickets for the home match against Oxford United on 3rd August. Secondly the extraordinary sales of those tickets raising the serious prospect of many matches being sell outs especially if Pompey have a good season.

My view is that the ticket allocation policy currently being used is flawed and this blog tries to explain why.

Articles like this often prompt accusations that the writer is trying to undermine or criticise the club and or the Pompey Trust. That is not my intention. The work of the club's new regime since April has been fantastic, and I was delighted by the wonderful achievement of the Pompey Trust (of which I have been a member since it was created) in taking the club into fan ownership.  Rather this piece is intended as a constructive input into the debate about how a community club should operate.

So what is the issue? Well put simply the club is giving ticket priority for home matches to season ticket holders so they can buy tickets for friends and family. For the Oxford match there was a two day window during which only ST holders could get tickets.  This was questioned by a number of fans and as a result the club has said it will consult on the issue. I welcome that and hope those consulted (presumably not just season ticket holders?) will find this blog helpful in coming to an informed view.

Who benefits?
The club has argued that giving season ticket holders first dibs for tickets for friends and family is a benefit to season ticket holders and nobody else. But in my book the real beneficiaries are those who get a ticket they may not have got their hands on otherwise. The important thing about a ticket allocation policy is, after all, who ends up getting to park their bum on a seat and watch Pompey.

So who are these friends and family of ST holders who benefit from the existing policy?  Well first and foremost they are people who have decided NOT to buy a season ticket for themselves. They may be passionate, dedicated fans who go to lots of matches home and away. They may spend a fortune on club merchandise.  But then again they may not.  In fact it matters not a jot whether they are committed fans or not (or indeed whether they are Pompey fans at all).  They will be at the front of the queue for home tickets not because of what they have done or spent in support of Pompey but simply because they know a season ticket holder.  It's a case of who you know not what you've done (or spent).

Let's imagine the scenario later in the season if promotion is in sight.  Tickets are at a premium.  There will be no priority for the fan of many decades whose work commitments or illness no longer allow regular attendance.  No priority for the shareholder without a ST who put a grand into saving the club.  No priority for the exile without a ST who has attended all or most away games. But the fan who last visited Fratton Park when Man Utd or Arsenal were playing and happens to be drinking buddies with an obliging ST holder - that'll do nicely, Sir.

There is no perfect ticket allocation policy and whatever you do will make somebody unhappy.  But if there is to be a policy it has to be based on fans getting access to seats and watching Pompey because of what they have done for the club, in terms of attending matches and spending money.  It should not be based on who they happen to know. 

A longstanding benefit which ST holders have come to expect?
It has been claimed that this approach to allocating tickets has existed for eons, at least for several years.  As a result it can't be changed, at least without full consultation, because it would take away a benefit ST holders value and have come to expect.

It is difficult to check this claim because the new Club website doesn't include an archive of old ticket news items. I am, however, personally doubtful that it is as well established as has been stated.  Yes this was the approach taken for some games last season but it certainly wasn't done for all or most games in 2011/12.  I know for a fact that season ticket holders did not have priority for extra tickets for the home match against Southampton in 2011/12 or for other matches towards the end of that season.  I am also pretty certain it was not commonly applied, if at all, in the Premier League years.  'Members' did have priority then, a privilege they paid for, and season ticket holders did have priority for away and cup games but priority for friends and family to attend home games, I'm not so sure.  It would help if the Club could provide some definitive information on this.

Interestingly when this approach wasn't used for the aforementioned Southampton match there was, if I remember correctly, hardly a murmur of reaction. I'm an avid reader of message boards so would have noticed if there had been one.  If this is a benefit season ticket holders have enjoyed for a long time and truly value you would have thought they would complain when it was taken away for the biggest match of the season!  That they didn't is, surely, quite telling.

Impact on club finances.
This can cut both ways.  On the one hand the club may sell more season ticket holders because ST holders value being able to buy extra tickets for friends and family. Is it not strange, though, that this benefit has never been publicised in PFC ST marketing campaigns?

Perhaps more match day tickets are sold as a result.  But do we really think that people will only attend a match if their ST-holding friend buys the ticket for them?  And if that is the case are these the people we should be giving priority access to Fratton Park seats?

Conversely of course some fans may not bother buying STs because they know somebody who already has one and who can, because of the policy, pretty much guarantee getting hem tickets for the matches they do fancy attending. 

I suspect none of the above are very significant and the impact of ditching the policy would have very little effect on club season ticket or match day sales either way.  

Why am I picking on season ticket holders?
I'm not.  ST holders are the lifeblood of the club.  They deserve to receive benefits.  By putting money upfront they help the club enormously.  They do, however, already get wonderful benefits in the form of guaranteed seats, reduced prices and free tickets - as the ongoing ST marketing campaign has been telling us.  They also get priority on cup tickets, discounts on future ST prices, and I am sure will be among the priority groups for away ticket allocation.  That is as it should be. But priority for their friends and family? I don't think so. They can always, after all, buy their own season ticket, or join the queue for tickets on an equal footing with the rest of us.

One more thought
This issue is probably more important in terms of the tone it sets for the future of Pompey as a community club than for any other reason.  The club needs to reward and value fans for what they do and what they invest in the club.  Once you start giving benefits to people just because of who they know you are in danger of sliding down a very slippery slope. Let's not risk doing that.

And what's my interest in this?
I'm a fan of more than 4 decades who is a shareholder and member of the Trust. Based in the Midlands I attend more away games than home. I am not a season ticket holder but five of my close relatives are and will happily get me tickets if I ask them.  If the policy stays I will almost certainly take advantage of that.  But that doesn't make it right and I hope the club abandons it as soon as possible.