Wallsendmag

I was doing the same. Spent quite a few hours in total for the 72 hours prevous to both the Liverpool and PSG games just constantly pressing F5 but other than some 14-17 year old tickets in Level 7, nowt. Got 1 for Man Utd in resale in the Gallowgate corner after a few days of trying. Finally managed to get one at 4pm on the day of the game, quickly got myself ready to head over to the Five Swans then realised my phone only had 22% battery so had to wait around till it was sufficiently charged before I could leave the house.

I was unsuccessful in the ballot for Liverpool and PSG and no amount of trying got me a ticket on resale for either of those so it's certainly anything but guaranteed. Getting 2 together for me and the bairn using resale would be nigh on impossible I'd imagine.

The people who wanted to get in most last season, generally got in though. They either got in quick for a membership or bagged one of the 500 that went on general sale. Nowadays it's a complete free for all where somebody with a membership for 10+ years has exactly the same chance as an away fan signing up a few weeks before the match and applying. That can't be right and we've seen an increase in away fans sat in home areas this season as well. That's on top of not being able to select a preferred stand to sit in anymore and the dangerous situation that's occurring at away games when NUFC fans are being made to walk all the way around to the other side of the stadium, through crowds of home fans, some who won't be particularly friendly, to pick up a new ticket at the home teams ticket office because their own ticket was purposely designed to fail. No, I can't think of any way that this seasons ticketing arrangements have been an improvement on last seasons.

There weren't too many ticketing complaints last season despite the same problems existing with demand far outstripping supply so I'd say that the ballot and randomly being allocated a seat in a stand has been pretty much a disaster for the majority. And that's before we even go into how much the atmosphere has suffered this season because of it.

You are right STH did pay for memberships without choice. At the time we also got massively discounted ticket prices thanks to price freezes stretching for longer than a Decade, compared to what members had to pay game by game. Also had the usual perks like our seats guaranteed as well as first dibs on away tickets (plus things like discount on food/drinks in Shearer's) so I don't think the deal was as raw as you make out. Still doesn't change my opinion that every supporter should only be allowed to buy 1 seat. If you have a season ticket you already have your seat, and shouldn't be allowed to buy an additional one to give to someone else. Agree there should definitely have been STH present at the workshop but attendance wise I think it probably should have been weighed more towards members, but that's just my opinion.

I think when demand is as high as it is it should be strictly 1 ticket per supporter. Not fair on members paying £37 a year just to get a chance of entering ballots if supporters who already have their seats guaranteed are allowed to buy further tickets imo. Pretty sure the likes of Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea etc don't allow STH the chance to purchase additional tickets for home games, which is only right.

Excuse my ignorance here but surely as a ST holders, you already have your ticket/place guaranteed for every home match anyway?

Or that the food options are particularly appealing for that matter!

It's important to get the balance right though. We aren't a Region swimming in cash. No point in having a great football team if its supporters can't afford to come and watch it.

We'd have been on the same buses many times mate. Done well over 100 of my away games with Barrett. Visited towns and villages all over the country that I never knew existed!

Whilst our cheapest season tickets are really cheap (level 7) our average prices are on a par with Liverpools and dearer than Man Utd. Man Utd is £570 in the Stretford End, which is their equivalent of the Gallowgate and our East Stand season tickets (standard price £811) are dearer than their equivalent seats. Man City's season tickets are quite a bit cheaper than ours. Then we have the Platinum Club and 1892 at around £1k a season. Where Man Utd and Liverpool really pull away from us is having 1000s of tourists from all over the planet visiting every home game spending an absolute arm and a leg on merchandise and an enhanced matchday experience. They deliberately cap season ticket numbers at well below capacity to facilitate this, with Liverpool having around 28k ST holders and Man Utd 55k. There's still much more they can do with the Milburn Stand. We did a tour not so long ago and there's still loads of unused space on all levels and you'd also think a revamped East Stand would be prime for some hospitality.

He's a well known twitter WUM mate. Not even sure he's a Newcastle fan.

Tbf that's all Liverpool have done with Anfield. Extended 2 stands, which is exactly the same as what we need to do. Even just extending the Gallowgate moves us more or less level with Anfields capacity and that's before we touch the East Stand. Surely bringing the Gallowgate up to the heights of the Leazes/Milburn and maybe cantilevering the East stand/giving it a steeper rake, should get us up to 65k which puts SJP back into 2nd place behind Old Trafford.

Tbh you speak like someone who's never been to an away game before. It's always been about much more than the football. I've been to 150+ aways and looking back at my fondest/funniest memories, they are all from what happened away from the ground.

That's something I've said for a while now. They should keep 10% of our away allocation exclusively for supporters aged 21 or under. Think Man City do something similar for U18s. Gives them a chance to build their loyalty points. Anyone older than that has had a chance to build points up so if they chose not to go when we were hopeless that's on them.

It only became a problem because a lot of people suddenly decided they fancied away games now we had a good team and they were more likely to see a win. People never complained about being unable to obtain away tickets when we were shite! I'd rather have kept it the same and allowed the lads and lasses who'd been filling away ends all over the Country when we've been worse than shite to enjoy the better times as it's them who deserve it, not the JCLs. Away games have always been more Ad hoc. 70s and 80s it would often be decided in a pub on theFriday night and groups of lads would pile into Transit vans the next day to wherever we were playing. Then the 90s came and games became all ticket so ways were found around that by ticket sharing, a mate sorting you, or a mate of a mate etc. It's basically what our away support has been built on. Just a real shame that so many people, people who made our away support famous throughout the county and further afield for their noise and passion, now aren't allowed to go.

Valentines Day today. That can only mean one thing. Happy Birthday to the King!

Do NUFC actually get a record off the home club that the ticket has been attempted to be scanned? I've heard they don't off someone who was refused entry at a match earlier in the season (Sheff Utd). They ended up missing the match but the original ticket holder was never contacted.

From what I'm hearing this is exactly it. The risk of getting caught is very low and even if your ticket doesn't work it's just a case of sitting in the nearest pub whilst the match on which people are happy to do. If you don't turn up to collect your ticket and the club flag it up you can just say your car broke down or something came up at the last minute and you couldn't go. For games like Blackburn for example, a 7,500 allocation means that you are extremely unlucky to get picked out whereas the likes of Luton away with only 1,100 meant people were less likely to risk it. All about weighing up the odds really, and if they're in your favour people more likely to risk it. Certainly Blackburn and Man Utd in the cup appear to be the 2 games where ticket sharing is happening the most.

Used to do it 20 odd years ago at Northumbria Uni at Coach Lane. Piles and piles of them just to help yourself to. A lad I used to know would grab fist fulls of them and hoy them straight in the bin outside. They'd still have been counted in the attendance though

Results help but Sheff Utd was quite muted and we won that one 8-0! The last 3 away games have been great from the off with the scorelines at 0-0. Apparently ticket sharing is rife again which may explain it.

Added to the 9,000 £60 season tickets they've sold. There's clubs in the Championship getting 20 odd thousand every week who are taking in more at the gate than Sunderland.

Their attendances are their only real boasting point. The rest of the club is pretty much farcical. If they gave out the true figures they'd be below Leeds and just ahead of Leicester and Southampton so no bragging rights. You've seen how obsessed RTG are with crowds numbers, doing trackers to see how many tickets have been sold, with accompanying charts and graphs. It's obviously something that just runs through the club.

Still remember that FA Cup replay against these in the 91/92 season. I was at the first game that got abandoned due to heavy fog during the 1st half and they let everyone in for half price for the rearranged game which saw a crowd of over 25,000 turn up, our average being 18,000 at the time. Lost on pens, still remember Alan Thompson getting sent off rightvon front of us, and I'm pretty sure that was Ardiles last home game in charge.

Sunderlands home atmosphere has been non existent since they moved the away fans. Problem when you make the tickets too cheap/too easily accessible you get a lot of people turning up just for the sake of it. A mackem on twitter earlier berating the fact that there was only 10k left in the ground at full time yesterday.