bobbydazzla

As you know I think our membership scheme is shite. But it's not actually a raffle as there's a group of us who've got tickets for every game, every season. You have to be savvy, you probably need a desk job where you manage your own diary and at times it can be relentlessly dull repetitive effort (my F5 key still hates me after last season) I've never failed to get a ticket for every game and also helped loads of other people to get tickets, that's not luck, there's been a process to it. But it's best suited to people who have acute Fear of Failure syndrome and can ADHD hyperfocus

NUFC can dress it up however they want, but our membership is just a one-off fee that gives you access to the possibility of buying a ticket and some retail discounts that no-one is that arsed about

Fine print is here https://www.chelseafc.com/en/loyalty-points You definitely don't have to go Away to maintain a season ticket, my pal has had a Chelsea ST for 30+ years and hardly ever goes away edit: from what I've just read, to apply for a new Season Ticket you just have to have the minimum number of loyalty points and you're in the mix. How you've accumulated those points doesn't matter. But you get more points for travelling further to less attractive fixtures

If the glue sniffers in our Ticketing Team had the gumption to build a similar scheme based on what appears to be Chelsea's fair and sensible approach and then they announced it to the fans, I'd think I was the one who'd huffed a load of Bostik and was trippin my tits off

As much as I despise Man Utd with every fibre of my being, I’ll begrudgingly say fair play to them, in 2023 they just turned up for the game, won it, celebrated, went home happy. Clinical, if you want to call it that Whereas we celebrated for 24 hrs pre-match, didn’t turn up for the game either in the stands or on the pitch, then went home hungover and gutted. The occasion seemed to a bigger focus than winning the cup Understandable as we win nowt and they win loads, but I’d rather we don’t get overexcited until the game and instead just turn up to Wembley, go ballistic and win it this time

Elements of Man City’s crowd are absolutely tragic Last night they’d lost to a last gasp Madrid goal and just after the ball hit the onion bag, the telly camera panned in on a Man City fan who had his phone up, nonchalantly filming Madrid players celebrating And the ridiculous fucking LED’s are so big most people in the ground are dazzled into blindness and can’t even see what’s happening on the pitch

Did I just watch a Man City fan stand nonchalantly and film the Madrid players celebrating Or am I trippin cos my bedtime mug of Horlicks got spiked

Recent membership history is... Season 21-22 (post-takeover): bit hazy memory, but I think very soon after takeover they they closed off memberships. I know for that season I got tickets via a pal with an ST who could buy an extra Season 22-23: they closed off memberships without warning people they were going to do it, locking out anyone who hadn't already signed up Season 23-24: unlimited memberships, sold all season Season 24-25: Mags+ has just been closed off, normal memberships still available at 50% discount from Feb 25 1000 x ST's were put on sale in the summer of 22, other than that there's been nowt I reckon I've spent £3-4,000 on tickets since 21-22, I've bought tickets for every game I've been able to go to (90% I reckon), I've spent untold hours battling a shit IT system. And I've got precisely nothing to show for my commitment to attending games A punter who has applied for 1 x ballot and might never have actually been to a single game in their life has the same level of priority as me, in the clubs eyes

And I totally get the logic of this, but if you're not going to release any ST's then at least provide some form of tiering for members to earn a level of priority via attendance Yesterday's announcement just emphasised that we've got a massively segregated system based on someone's willingness to hold onto their ST under Ashley If you've got an ST the club see you as a valued customer, but without an ST they don't give a fuck, you're stuck at the bottom of the pile with no way of raising your status

Anything that leads to some open discussion with the club about the frustration of memberships is worthy of having. We've currently got a group of fans who are pouring substantial amounts of money, time and effort into getting to home games and they get nothing in the way of recognition for this. The club won't give us a chance of buying ST's or even getting on an ST waiting list. They won't give us any form of priority over members who attend from time to time. And in this latest instance we've been completely cut out of the reckoning for Wembley tickets I've said this in another thread, but there'd be hell on if the lads & lasses with ST's who travel the millions of miles to follow us home and away, were put on the same level of priority as a ST holder who didn't even go to a single cup game. It's quite right that the ST holders who put the most effort in are recognised by the club and get the most back. Why can't we have the same for members ?

It’s not pot luck this season, there’s 3 x official ways to get a ticket - ballot - member general sale - ST resale And connected Friends & Family can buy tickets for each other, so people can help each other out I’ve never failed to get a ticket for pretty much every game since the takeover. And this season has been much easier than last season. If we had some sort of Member Loyalty scheme in place, people who put in the effort to secure home tickets would have a better chance of a cup final ticket than someone who just clicks the ballot from time to time and hopes for the best

Given that new season tickets don’t exist and there’s no waiting list etc I can’t see how it remains fair to keep prioritising season ticket holders without creating some sort of scheme to allow members to build up a better chance of a final or away game ticket We’ve basically just got the same 30 odd thousand people who held onto their tickets during Ashley having an opportunity to elevate their chances of getting a ticket by attending certain games. They’re not all viewed as one group and to some extent they can move between groups Whereas the rest of us are just lumped into one massive group, regardless of how little or often we go to games If ST holders were told today that it was one pot for all ST’s, the lads & lasses trekking billions of miles to follow us home and away would quite rightly be furious about that. But the equivalent scenario is what’s just happened to any members who attend all games

Gonna pull a shitload of strings in an attempt get a ticket, cos I’ve got no chance via the fucking allocation system If all fails then I’m flying to Berlin for the weekend and I’ll watch it with some fellow NE29’ers over there

Correct You’d have to get very creative to source an away end ticket, you couldn’t buy one through legit means and it’d be risky for someone to buy one then pass it on to you

Yep, no ST, no away games Can’t even borrow an away ticket off someone with an ST as there’s a chance you get your collar felt for ID at the turnstile and then the ST holder is in a world of pain from the powers that be

Tindall bowling about like a pure menace in a WHAM jumper singing Beat Me Up Before You Go-Go

I might stop going to any games, apply for 1 x cup game via the ballot and I’ll still have the same chance of a cup final ticket as I’ve got for going to every home game in league and cup I can then spend the £1000+ I’ll save per season on high quality grumble mags from Sven Adult Books Instead of a Mags+ member, I’ll be a XXXMags member

The ticketing department smoke a lot of pot

It does feel like the club don't give a flying fuck about the members who go to all / most games We're each paying thousands of quids for tickets every season but get absolutely no recognition for that The only practical difference between someone like me who by hook or by crook manages to buy a ticket for every game versus someone with an ST, is that they were willing to keep going under Ashley and I wasn't And for clarity, I have no beef with the ST holders, it's the club I'm pissed off with

One of the most galling things about membership is that there's no way to elevate your status as a reward for going to or applying to go to games You can't get an ST so there's zero chance of giving yourself a better likelihood of getting into cup finals or away games We've got a completely segregated system and that segregation is based on people's willingness to keep paying for an ST to watch an Ashley owned NUFC And there's no attempt at all to recognise punters like me and many others, who since the ownership changed are forking out a fortune and dedicating loads of effort to get ourselves to games I don't think we should be at the top of the tree, but I also feel very pissed off that 3 years and thousands of pounds later we're still stuck at the very bottom in the weeds and moss

I strolled in via a quiet turnstile on an OAP ticket, and there's no way the checky could have thought I was an OAP

No point in dressing this up. I think the ticketing team are FUCKING DAFT CUNTS AND I HATE THEM So if you're a member that gets to every game, chases down tickets, works your fucking arse off in the face of a shambolic system, all to ensure you can secure a ticket get to every match, you're actually: a) a 2nd class citizen compared to anyone with an ST, whether they've gone to a cup game or not b) on exactly the same footing as a member who has put in 1 x ballot application all season These arseholes who divvy out tickets can GET TO FUCK

That's true, it was a total fuck up I do wish sometimes that the ST holders could see the rigmarole that members have to go through just to get a home ticket And then multiply that by 20+ games Same as someone like me who lives a few miles from from SJP, I probably don't fully appreciate the amount of travel some people have to put in to get to 20+ home games As fellow comrades we should all be more aware of each others trials and tribulations

It's definitely a tough one, because we've essentially got 4 tiers of regular match goers: - ST holders with plenty of away points - ST holders trying to build their away points - ST holders who don't want to go to away games - Members who go to all league & cup home games but can't get an ST and therefore can't ever go away even if they want to In your circumstances it'd be harsh to miss out if you're at away cup games, but had to miss 1 x home cup game. But on the flip side, I'm a member who goes to every game but couldn't get to the Chelsea cup game due to holidays, so to cover my arse I still bought a ticket and sold it to a friend. Someone is always going to be pissed off with the way cup final tickets are dished out. But given the current ST lock out, it feels unfair to continue to skew everything towards ST holders when there's thousands of people who are at every home game but can't get an ST, can't join a Cup Scheme and are blocked from ever going to away games too.