The9

Mine's arrived - sitting on the table in the lounge waiting for me to have time to read it...

Interesting, I didn't know there was a SaintsTicket thing on twitter doing this. Tbh with the number of times we don't quite sell out I'd think there's a serious risk of not even covering the cost of the ST, but I guess there's a market for people who don't have a purchase history and can't be bothered to get themselves on the system.

Unlike Saints, where you can just buy priority with ST or Membership purchase, some other clubs have lengthy waiting lists and very restrictive criteria for tickets - which makes the whole "buy it and let someone else use it" a very enticing prospect. Liverpool had some properly mental requirements for someone to get a ticket to see their reserves away to Exeter in the Cup last season - you had to have been to something like all of their previous 6 League Cup away games dating back about 5 years and there was no benefit to having gone to league, european or other cup aways! I'm guessing the usual issue here was someone gobbing off about it in social media in a way that attracted the attention of the club*. The tickets are very clearly marked as non-transferable, and if the club can basically get away with reselling a home ticket at a higher price than the ST holder paid, they probably will. With away tickets having a fixed face value it's going to be more about stopping people circumventing the priority rules for other matches (and stopping touting). It's not financially beneficial for Saints to clamp down on it because they know we don't have the far greater waiting list of some of the more popular clubs. *have since read the thread and spot checks would also cover it.

I would imagine the idea is that they won't travel if they don't have tickets. This seems flawed.

Bringing a bench onto the pitch is only a yellow card, isn't it? He'd do well to score from a seated position though.

Were they away to Bournemouth (or more likely Yeovil, Exeter, Bristol Rovers, Plymouth or Torquay) by any chance? As I say, it's rare, but clearly leaving the opportunity for others to get in the ground with Saints/Inter fans for a reason other than just watching the match is the kind of thing the club are wary of. And no, I'm not suggesting Skates.

Saints ticket requirement appears to be preventing something that is very unlikely to happen anyway - that being a bunch of people unconnected to either club wanting to come along just to create trouble - as that's something that hardly ever happens in football. Compare that to yer Skate yob who never goes to their home reserve games, never mind the away reserve ones, who can somehow find it in himself to pop over to St Mary's for a nothing reserve cup game he'd never normally have any interest in, and how unlikely it would be that he'd turn up for any other Saints game, even though it's just as good an opportunity for him (and his mates) to get at Saints fans.

No, it's what you implied, it was worth clarifying.

Just pointing out the general weirdness that fans of rival clubs only tend to fight when there's a direct footballing reason for them to do so, rather than just turning up to the other team's games when they're not involved at all. So Milan fans don't generally pitch up for Inter games looking for trouble even though they're right there in the city. Similarly the Skates don't generally turn up at our home games when we're not playing them even though it's only ever 20 miles away. However, give them a reserve team match at St Mary's (that none of them would usually go to) and suddenly there's trouble ready to happen. As you say, they've usually got something better to do. (But not when there's a loose footballing excuse).

Names on tickets is an Italian regulation, prior purchase history is a Saints requirement.

Exactly this.

The same reason we don't get Skates turning up to Saints games for a ruck, but somehow it's worth the hassle for a development team cup game at St Mary's when they've probably never watched their kids' side before...

Won't help him for Prague though - if he's not an ST holder it doesn't matter if he's been to Midtjylland or Israel, he's not priority over ST holders. As for the bloke having a go, well, who'd have thought it (oh yeah, me), we have a few nobheads in the away following. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a bit of evidence of it on this thread...

Literally every club in that list apart from possibly Burnley is bigger than them (and even Burnley have won the league as recently as the 60s, its their outdated ground that holds them back). Based on attendances alone the Skates are at best bottom half Championship material. They're about Cardiff sized nowadays, albeit without the facilities.

What's ironic about it?

I managed to squeeze in Wolves v Norwich on Saturday without wearing a Saints shirt, and I think I may have something of a reputation around here for being a bit obsessed with them... But wearing a different team's shirt to a game is just weird,. Even if you're just a football tourist, it's got nothing to do with your club, you're not the focal point, so if you're going to go, going "normal" is normal.

Good question, someone must have asked - I couldn't be ar5ed tbh.

Just for the record, you can be a "really nice bloke" AND an "attention seeking pr*ck" too... I'd say there were a handful of Israelis, there was a guy in the row behind us in some kind of military uniform, he was local but had a current Saints shirt too.

Yeah, of course, I went to the U23s Premier League Cup Final or whatever it was...

It is U21s. The Premier League 2 team is U23s, but because the EFL have their finger on the pulse and all that, they've made the rules to match last year's dev squad rules. I think, can't say I'm paying that much attention.

Reading between the lines, all the paper versions were sent yesterday.

It was probably worse not knowing either way (especially with our previous history of conceding against Everton, we managed to go from 1-0 up to lose in the amount of time it took me to get on the pitch out of the clubhouse and kick off a Saturday match once, not improved by the fact our winger was a Toffee).

Your argument loses a bit of weight when you consider there will be empty seats anyway - we're not looking like selling out the second allocation. They didn't need to make it clear from the beginning that purchase history was necessary because they were only selling to ST holders with over 5 aways to begin with.

I'm not talking about Saints fans, I'm talking about general football-following yobs who pitch up at other locations where their team isn't playing - it's a hackneyed concept, but you still get the odd few. Not a recent example, but Cardiff's nobbers were in with the England yobs in Charleroi in 2000 for instance. Chances of doing that are now hugely limited by ticketing restrictions, and for some reason people who just want to fight near a football match get put off by people making things difficult for them. The point isn't even that it is likely to happen, it's that the club don't want to look like they've contributed to it happening if there's an incident. And yes, there were some known Saints nobheads in Be'er Sheva.

I think Boufal is intended to be our creative "number 10" point of the diamond, in the hole, playmaker, etc. Though I wouldn't be surprised to see him switching around between striker and midfielder roles as Redmond does.