The first own goal of the Saudi era? - Why Newcastle's new ticket system just didn't work

Since the takeover, the new owners seem to have got everything to do with the club right, from staff appointments and transfers to cleaning the windows and removing tacky advertising. It was unrealistic to expect them to have a flawless record with their descions indefinatly and the way Memberships work now is the first own goal we’ve seen under their stewardship. 

I’m not talking about the ballot itself, last season was basically a ballot anyway. Some members were very lucky and managed to get to a good chunk of the home games, but as with everything in life when one person’s lucky, there’s another who’s not. 

I was one of the unlcuky ones, only managing to get to two games last season (Palace & Brighton) despite trying for a ticket every home game. It was frustrating and disapointing, but that’s life and the demand was to be expected when the good times came back to the pitch. If anything the ballot system is fairer as those who either aren’t at work when the tickets go on sale or have the ability at work to log in to several devices were always going to have the upper hand, the ballot removes that unfair advantage and everyone has the same chance now.

The issue is with the randomness of it all. 

For someone who doesn’t live in the city and has to travel a good distance to go to games, budgeting for a match is always a big part of it for me. Due to the last train home usually being only a few minutes after a 3pm match ends, I always need to stay over in Newcastle (unless I fancy missing part of the match), and train tickets are notoriously expensive now. For the Sela cup this weekend, my match ticket, train and hotel is £320, that’s before I’ve even seen the bridges from the train window. I could do this becuase I knew what it would cost me in advance and I was able to arrange things almost a month before the game, including getting my ticket and knowing I would be able to go. that’s the most important part, I knew I was able to go. 

For the first game of the season against Villa, the ballot will close on the 4th (assuming that’s also the date we get to know if we are one of the lucky chosen few to get a ticket) that gives people like me 7 days to arrange travel, hotels and potentially time off work. It’s just not good enough. 

Contrast this with the Brighton game last season, I managed to get my ticket for the game on the 3rd when they went on sale, the match was on the 17th. That gave me two weeks to book the Friday off work, sort my travel and my stay. If the same situation was to happen under the new system I would not have been able to go, mostly because 7 days is not enough notice to get time off work for myself and unfortunately I’m not able to magic up the money last minute. 

Various ideas both good and bad have been shared on Twitter, the most important thing would have been to just let fans know beforehand. Dropping these changes onto fans the day before the first ballot simply isn’t good enough and although the club has now changed the way the ballot will work and will let us pick what price ticket we want to entered for there are other issues to address. Lots of fans with health issues aren’t going to be able to make it all the way up to level 7 why couldn’t they have opted out of tickets in seats they just can’t access. Families aren’t able to pick seats near each other, so someone who might want ot take their kid may be sitting the Gallowgate while their kid has to sit alone in the Leazes! 

The lack of transparancy lately has been a real issue. From how digital tickets will work, to season ticket changes and now this! There will always ben someone who isn’t happy with any change, but the majority of this could have been avoided if the club were transparent weeks ago, descions like this aren’t made quickly and the club would have know what it was going to do long before we found out. 

As for the timeings, I’m hoping the Villa game is one off due to being the first game and we will go back to having enopugh notice before a match, because the current situation just isn’t going to work for a lot of people.

I have no answers, only questions and the main one being, who the hell thought this was a good idea?!