Shadow Puppets

Why? I genuinely don’t understand that attitude like. I’ve been to around 40 away games over the years, either on my old season ticket or via hospitality ballots, and Tuesday night was the only time we’ve ever been told to sit somewhere else. Same experience for our friends who go to 5+ away games a year. They’ve never experienced that. Seems to me that a subsection of away fans, because they’ve been going for a long time, think they run their own rules for the away end.

I have no idea, other than that 75 tickets went to hospitality clients. I can verify that, with 1000% certainty…. Partly because of my conversations with the hospitality team who I know well… and partly because I entered the hospitality ballot and didn’t get one (I get them almost every time I enter that ballot, but didn’t for Luton specifically because their allocation was so small.). No idea where the others went ?‍♂️ Well I can only go on my own experience, and EVERYONE (20-30 people in the immediate vicinity) was telling this family to sit in their own seats… everyone was kicking off at them, so as far as I can tell we were well within our right. I mean it’s just common sense isn’t it, as well… if you just sit where you feel like sitting, people who travelled together / paid to sit together, will end up getting split up. They are pushing for transparency on it ?

The people claiming stuff about Luton are, again, making it up. Plucking it out of their arse to suit whatever it is they’re angry about. I was speaking with our hospitality rep today about that exact thing (literally 5 hours ago at Paris airport) and they reiterated, 100%, that a maximum of 7% goes to hospitality for ALL PL games. He specifically cited the Luton game as an example of how angry he gets seeing people make stuff up about it. And no, the empty seats are unlikely to be because of corporate people. They sell out their small allocation each time, and there’s no benefit to a corporate client to buy the ticket and not show up (they don’t earn loyalty points on them so why buy and not show?). It’s much more likely, in my opinion, that due to the new rules about who you can and can’t pass your tickets onto, that season ticket holders might be buying tickets to continue building loyalty, but perhaps not actually always using them. It really does just need need someone to post a proper breakdown of how it works so people can stop banging on about it.

A long story about last night… We arrived an hour before kick off to find a couple of older blokes (60+) in our seats, with his wife and mate in the seats directly in front. We explained that they were our seats and was met with “you can sit anywhere you want at European games mate”. I knew that was bollocks, having been to all the away games this time, and a couple in the Pardew European run. Never come across that before. However, we went with it and sat in the seats next to him. As you’d guess, then people came and told us to get out of their seats. He then told them to sit somewhere else as well etc. This went on another couple of times. Eventually we got forcefully told (rightly) to sit in our correct seats, so we had to tell these blokes to move. We were met with the following: - he questioned how many loyalty points we had, and other people on our row, had. - he bragged that he had 550 so he can “sit where he fucking wants”. - when the lad next to us mentioned that he got his via hospitality, as we did, (which is a perfectly legitimate way to get tickets), he kicked off. “Of course. Fucking hospitality wankers… plastic prawn sandwich wankers” - then his wife (absolute bellend) started verbally abusing us, telling us to fuck off… calling us plastic fans (despite me having a season ticket for 25 years, building around 200 loyalty points, before managing a company who own a box, therefore forgoing my loyalty points and ability to earn loyalty points). We proceeded to tell them that we were sitting (standing) in OUR SEATS. He then moved along a couple of seats, only to find two women come and tell him to move again (because they were theirs). Then he started mouthing off asking the older of the two women what the fuck she knows about football, to which her daughter defended her (having been going to games for nearly 50 years). The bellend wife then proceeded to get physical with the daughter, calling her a cunt and dragging her by the arm, almost pulling her over the seat in front, until we interjected and put her in her place. It kicked off verbally for a while (everyone in the area on our side) until he, the wife, and his mates ended up standing on the stairs the entire game. Irony of it all is they all stood in near silence all game. Absolute whoppers. I guess what I’m trying to say is, we have some right entitled bellends in our crowd. Not the majority, thankfully, but some think that just because they’ve been going for a long time, they can do whatever the fuck they want and treat other fans however they want. There’s also a basic lack of understanding on how the away ticket allocation works, and fans belittling or looking down on other fans. Just to reiterate the situation that we are in… I know with 100% certainty that a maximum of 5% of the allocation for CL games goes to hospitality clients, maximum of 7% for PL games. That is no different to previous years. And there is some kind of misconception that “hospitality clients” means “entitled rich blokes”. Which is utter horseshit. Pretty much every box in St James is family or small business owned. Normal, passionate, fans, who happen to run successful businesses. People who are just as passionate, just as deserving of a ticket, as anyone else in most away ends, and most of which have previously built up massive loyalty with the club over decades. The narrative that is being peddled on social media about the club giving bigger allocations to corporate, free tickets to YouTubers etc, is just toxic, and complete bullshit. It could all be solved by a simple news article on the website spelling out factually how allocations are broken down. Despite all of the above, we had a mint night. Incredibly proud of the lads.

Atmosphere at PSG was the weirdest, pathetic I’ve ever seen. Europop disco pre-match. Prick doing karaoke on a tannoy, shouting all game, attempting to get their fans gee’d up. Just all round weird, plastic.

I can easily name 11 home games from second half of 21-22 and 22-23 that were flat as fuck. It’s all dependent on where you are sat. - Chelsea home 21-22 - Man City home 21-22 - Cambridge home 21-22 - Watford home 21-22 - Liverpool home 21-22 - Palace home 22-23 - Bournemouth home 22-23 (after the Queen) - Bournemouth home 22-23 (Carabao) - Leeds home 22-23 - West Ham 22-23 - Liverpool home 22-23 (apart from the Bobby tribute, awful atmosphere) I don’t think the atmosphere this year is all that different to last season really, apart from less Wor Flags displays.

You’re right to an extent, of course. But you can’t tell me that last season and many seasons before, we regularly had turgid atmospheres. A few more this season, sure. I think the biggest obvious issue between this season and last is that Wor Flags haven’t seemed as present this season, because focus has been on CL games. Last season it felt like a lot of games were Wor Flag spectacles which helped massively in building atmosphere. They were there today obviously, but it was a rehash of earlier stuff, and there is perhaps a bit of desensitisation to it when people have seen it all before. I’m not saying it should all be on Wor Flags of course… I’m just trying to find the obvious differences between this season and last.

The atmosphere had fuck all to do with the ticketing situation. It’s regularly like that and has been for years. For whatever reason the atmosphere one week is incredible (PSG) followed by shite.

I usually can’t stand Jim White (Simon Jordan is becoming much more reasonable in recent months), but Jim’s reactions and stirring in this are hilarious ?

As I said a week or so ago... from the horses mouth... if he needs surgery he'll be out for 6-8 months. If he doesn't, it'll be a few weeks still. There hasn't been any further update since he returned from Holland when I said that he has been told he doesn't need surgery as things stand.

I’m in the minority who thought this was horrific then? ?

No surgery needed (at the moment).

I'm glad you had a good time mate, but from the area I was in, it was clear that people were so far gone they didn't stand a chance of being able to create an atmosphere. Literal zombies.

You can get to fuck on that one though. ?

Rashford decision was wrong in my opinion. Maguire handball penalty was correct. Agreed on forearm. Your penalty was very soft though. Convinced it hit Maguire’s hand first.

he’s flying from Amsterdam to Newcastle

Taking my hatred of Man Utd out of it, that’s a ridiculously unlucky red card like. Of course intent matters. He’s protecting the ball, the other player puts his leg exactly where he’s about to stand. How is that Rashford’s fault? Why isn’t it the Copenhagen players fault?

In this game, yeah. He’s been doing a pretty good job of it the rest of the time.

?

Just going back to yesterdays atmosphere (shite from minute 1), compared to the league cup game against Man Utd (phenomenal from minute 1)… - both evening kick offs - both massive games - both decent > good away allocations - both playing weakened teams The only difference is: - far less alcohol / drugs consumed vs Man Utd due to it being a work night, most people driving to and from the game that day. And the Man Utd game had FAR more day tripper away fans with the 7,000 allocation. Really think the fans need to take a good hard look at why the hell they bother if all they plan on doing is getting wankered before during the day.

Oh I did ? Some pissed up dickhead chav on the tube shouting at some Dortmund fans that "England won the war" and that we "saved the world from having to speak your horrible language".

Well unless everyone who I see weekly in the corporate team are point blank lying to me, the 7% figure is correct. I think it's much much more likely to be season ticket holders selling them on / giving them to mates. Two of my friends went on someone else's ticket yesterday.

People will always say / believe whatever they want if they perceive some kind of injustice somewhere (see the vitriol towards YouTubers etc). The reality is that last night's atmosphere had nothing to do with who had the tickets and everything to do with British drinking culture... I'll never fucking understand why you'd spend hundreds of pounds to follow NUFC in Europe, only to be too pissed to make a noise / stand up.

They are very open about it if you just ask any of the corporate team. I was speaking to my corporate team contact at the match last night who said for the PSG game they've only been allocated 100 away end tickets.

No that's not true at all. A maximum of 7% of the away allocation are held back for corporate clients AND players friends/families. A few years ago it used to be maximum 5%. So only a small increase. That's not the reason for the away issues at all.