Ticketing and Tantrums

So, I'm not sure I mentioned this, quiet as I am on all matters Bradford City on this blog, but, well, it turns out we're playing in a major cup final on 24th February. At Wembley. Against Swansea, a team three divisions ahead of us, a team that knocked out Chelsea.

We knocked out Arsenal and Aston Villa. I may have mentioned this.
Anyway, suddenly and somewhat unexpectedly we are "giant killers", and the Dalai Lama is blessing us ahead of the final. Frankly it's all got a bit, well, weird. And, understandably, everyone wants to be there.

Even before the first tickets went on sale the chat forums and various Facebook groups and Twitter feeds were buzzing with complaints and conspiracies. Huge threads debated the rights and wrongs of granting both season ticket and flexicard holders three tickets each; discussions turned to slanging matches as to what exactly constituted a “real” fan.

It’s impossible to please all of the people all of the time, and anyone who has ever overseen any sort of big event – or indeed tried to make arrangements to attend one – understands this all too well. Just look at the Olympic ticketing, which was slammed and ridiculed in equal measure. I tried to buy tickets myself, trying to second-guess the system by selecting a range of events of varying popularity in the first ballot, including hockey. I didn’t get anything. In the third ballot I tried again and got...hockey. Which didn’t really make any sense. Where I don’t really have any bright ideas as to how they could have done it better, it’s not like the Olympics organisers didn’t get a fair bit of warning of, well, a few years to put adequate systemsin place. Bradford City, on the other hand, has only had a few weeks – I suspect they only really started thinking about it after the Arsenal match, and perhaps not even then: we never, ever expected to be here.

So what are the complaints? Well, before the tickets had even gone on sale a few people were bemoaning the fact they could only be bought online or over the phone, and not by queuing at the office, as many fans have become accustomed to doing. Where the website claimed they didn’t want people standing for hours in the cold, this nonetheless inadvertently effectively disenfranchised those without credit or debit cards, and limited the options for those without computers. Fellow fans dismissed this as "ridiculous": who on earth doesn’t have a credit card? Well, quite a lot of people, actually. Some simply choose not to have them; others have older, building society accounts that come with a cheque book but no card; others, perhaps the group that feels most put out by this decision, are those who have been denied such facilities by their bank, on account of their credit history. A couple of fans – JSA recipients – explained their financial situation meant they were not “eligible” for a credit or debit card; one had actually had these facilities withdrawn as he slipped into debt. Yes, as many pointed out, you can get a friend to book it for you then give them the cash, but it isn’t always that easy – you would need a dedicated friend to sit in a phone or internet queue for a couple of hours on your behalf before parting with anything up to £300 for you.

Which brings me to the second, biggest gripe – actually buying tickets. I know from trying to secure tickets for big gigs that it’s a frustrating and almost dog-eat-dog experience. I once sat with my laptop on my knee and desktop computer in front of me poised to buy from a handful of remaining O2 tickets for a Peter Kay gig which were due to go on sale at 9am. At 8.58 there was a power cut. When the power came back on at 9.05 the tickets had gone.

With 30,000 tickets up for grabs from the Wednesday morning there really was nothing to panic about, but inevitably everyone was online at 9 on the dot to try and secure the right ones. Error messages abounded; online waiting times claimed to be as long as two hours; phonelines inexplicably went dead. Bradford went into a collective huff, and allegations flew, claiming that people were logging on and booking several times over for the same season tickets. Amidst the chaos one sensible voice (Michael) wrote on one Facebook thread: “please dont be put off people just keep trying and lets show our support and solidarity to Bradford City come 24th Feb.we might not be a man unt or a liverpool but were Bradford City and were PROUD.” Common sense, of course, but human nature dictates that people want to sort things out as soon as possible, then there’s travel and possibly accommodation to be booked too. People – particularly big groups with several season ticket holders trying to buy together – were desperate to ensure they got the seats they wanted for this once-in-a-lifetime experience, and at the right price. It’s understandable people want to buy early.

My dad, once he had understood the concept of waiting on the end of the phone and letting it ring until someone eventually answered, easily managed to buy the three tickets we wanted – great seats fairly near the front (in Wembley terms, anyway, that is, seats that don't require opera glasses or a telescope). My whole life is now geared towards 24th February and nothing can dampen my mood until then.

The one bit of the debacle that did annoy me, though, was this constant reference to “plastic fans”, and the vitriol directed at this largely imaginary group. Hoards of fans posted triumphant statements saying how wonderful it was that these terrible people wouldn’t get tickets, and how it “served them right.” Nobody has really given a decent definition on what on earth they mean by a “plastic fan”, though the implication is the previously uninterested glory hunters who never go to games but quite fancy a trip to Wembley – actually, Bradford Council would be the prime example of this. But others seem to mean anybody who isn’t a season ticket holder, and this is unfair. So, to end, allow me to mount a quick defence for some of us “plastic fans”, as the latter definition would include me. Firstly, I agree wholeheartedly that season ticket holders should be given first refusal on tickets – they are the ones that pour money into the club and attend the most matches, so it's perfectly fair that they should be rewarded. Even if they all take them up, we’re still talking about a minimum 6000 tickets left over for everyone else to fight over (and at the time of writing a further £1000 have been released.) But at the same time it should be acknowledged the rest of us are not necessarily lesser fans for not having season tickets, but rather victims of circumstance. On saying this, I’ve been met with cries of “well buy a flexicard, then!” and actually I might next year, as a sort of subscription to my club. But I didn’t this year because I live in London and rarely make it to what my dad calls the Holy of Holies, Valley Parade. I probably go to around 8-10 games a year, in such glamorous locations (to name a few from past years) as Aldershot, Barnet, Swindon and Dagenham. I also, like many other Yorkshire expats, subscribe to Bantams player – thus giving money to the club, but just not for a season ticket – and I met possibly the most dedicated football fan I’d ever met in the entrance of Gatwick Airport after a Crawley game, as we headed towards the Southern Train terminal. Living in Detroit, he’d come over for 24 hours, including 18 hours in the air, because Crawley was “the closest I get to a local game.” We lost 3-1.

So don’t dismiss others just because you don’t see them shouting and singing in the Carlsberg Stand every other week; don’t turn on your fellow fans, or indeed newcomers showing enthusiasm for the club about which you are so passionate. Bradford has a fanbase that stretches well beyond the bounds of Baildon and Buttershaw, and I hope that after this stunning cup run and epic, positive news coverage our fame will spread even further and our fanbase will grow. I hope there will be enough tickets left for those who want them, and am pleased to see that, even when the occasional ticket appears at a vastly inflated price on ebay it is quickly taken down again. We should support each other and help each other out to ensure that, above everything else, as many that want to go make it to Wembley, and we all have a wonderful time on 24th – because we never, ever expected to be here.