SteV

It’s the ‘stick man’ icon that used to appear on your screen when you were queuing to get tickets last season.

Summary of what NUST want to raise at the Ballot Workshop:

Ashworth is widely considered to be the best, yet until this season didn’t have any experience of European competition. The fact is we know very little of how each individual in this kind of role operates, and it’s very difficult to judge who is ‘better’ than who.

They’ll never budge on unlimited membership. That’s here forever now. As far as I can tell, every other major European team has it, so we’re not going to deviate from it. Using history to create some form of tiered membership, that’s definitely a goer though. I’ve mentioned before how I suspect the data from the Ashley era was probably shite, not unusable, but probably with a lot holes in it. They’ve rectified that now, so I would expect us to do something along those lines going forward.

This shouldn’t really be beyond the capabilities of a multi-million pound business.

I’ve said this before, but if keeping the current system, I can’t see how it’s possible to have any kind of post-ballot slot to pick your seat, for the simple reason that they won’t be able to then guarantee groups (3,4,5) that were successful, sitting together. Those groups could well be parents with kids, so you can imagine there’d be no end of hassle if they get split up. So if they are going to do something which allows people to pick a seat, or at least a more specific area, it’ll have to be done pre-ballot. So instead of this Category 1, 2 or 3, you pick a certain block. They could also release the available number of ‘ballot seats’ available for each block, so you could make an informed decision, ‘I only want to get in the Strawberry Corner, so I don’t care if there’s only 20 seats available’, or ‘I just want any to be in the ground somewhere, so I’ll go for that area of Level 7 that has 200 seats’.

He’s shit, and it was a ridiculous appointment - but they thought he was the right route to go down a few weeks ago, what has he actually done that changes their minds on that? Results have been mixed, not really good enough, but at the same time nowhere near disastrous enough to have to sack someone who’s just walked in. This continuous flip-flopping on the direction they want to go in is ridiculous. They haven’t got a clue.

Dan Ratworth

If true, evidence they have absolutely no idea what they’re doing.

Think the record for most goals conceded in a 38 game season is 89. They’re currently on 65.

I’m not sure he’s been rushed back as such, the main problem seems to be having to remain on the pitch when he’s clearly knackered due to our lack of viable substitute options.

Exactly, problem solved. Or if for some reason they want it to be non-standing, just state that on the ticket.

I’d flag this to the Trust. Needs raising with the club. It’s either a safe standing section or it’s not. Needs to be made clear to everyone that gets a ticket in there one way or the other. Take away the apparent grey area and you take away the conflict IMO.

Eight in a row now. Be very impressed/surprised/delighted if we manage to make it nine like.

From what Eddie said today you wouldn’t think it would be too much longer until he’s back in the squad. Wolves would be my (un)educated guess.

Possibly. There’s probably lots of things of that ilk that they could do. But I don’t think just leaving things as they were was a particularly valid idea going forward.

Honestly think people are being a tad too touchy here. Perhaps it was slightly foolish of her to say something like that publicly, given the inevitable kick-back (although there’s not exactly a huge amount of context in that brief clip). Let’s be honest, if someone from Sunderland was immersed in that world of dramatic arts, or whatever you want to call it, they’d think the same. They probably wouldn’t verbalise it out of respect and loyalty to their home town, but they’d think it. Different places suit different types of people. And different places are shite to certain types of people.

She’s the Vice President of the Royal Academy for Dramatic Art. Of course she’s going to think London is great and Sunderland is shite. It’s obviously what people that move in those kind of circles are going to think. Ask Mick from Murton whether he prefers the club or a trendy wine bar in London, and you know what answer you’ll get.

Willock or Anderson

Worked wonders for Chelsea this season.

I don’t think we (Newcastle fans) have done one of the pre-match Thames cruises in winter have we?

As a mentioned earlier, it’s from the perspective of the road infrastructure from the west and probably car parking as well (if you’re coming from the west where would you park, without having to drive past the stadium and into town?). Anyway, all irrelevant now.

I agree with that first paragraph, but that’s kind of inevitable when you start becoming successful (if you can say that about us). I take your point about the people who travelled all over and now can’t go, that’s genuinely shite, but I still don’t think they could have left it as was. Youngsters have to be given the chance to get on board somehow. Aye, maybe they could have just sourced tickets from others all the time (as some probably did), but that’s not really a coherent way forward. Perhaps they could (and still can), do something around holding tickets back for U25’s, or something like that? Whatever they do they can’t win do a degree though. And we generally all look at things from our own individual circumstances (which is perfectly understandable).

I agree in that it was rarely abused in terms of direct touting (probably did go on a little bit, but certainly not to the point where it was a major issue). But they had they had to open up a door to youngsters to accumulate their own points somehow. People complained recently (rightly or wrongly) about the away following at the mackems being made up of ‘oldies’. If we didn’t do something to start getting youngsters to accrue points, that would only get worse.

The one’s up the Thames might be class, but I’m not sure going up in the Tyne when it’s -3 in January would have the same effect…?