The Kraken

Back up. http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/southampton-fear-jack-butlands-euro-906787 Sorry, which direct quote are you referring to?

I'll tell you what it is now; it's currently unavailable.

Whatever, its a news article from a gutter level tabloid with no direct quotes attributable to anyone, telling us that a player's value may have gone up because he was called into the tournament squad for his national side. Hold the presses.

Because it is shoddy service. Because its not an isolated example from the ticket office. Because its another example of poor communication unnecessarily making the customer service experience of the ticket office more difficult. Because there is a relatively new booking fee which, you'd have thought, would have enabled the club to improve the whole service but which seems to have gone the other way. Its hardly a kicking to highlight a flawed club policy. A customer wants to give the club hundreds of pounds, and is being given the run around to do so. Yeah its a completely minor incident, I don't think anyone would suggest its a huge issue, though pretty frustrating for the OP. But if there's any sort of chance that the club actually read this thread and do something about it, then all the better. It's also highlighted that there isn't a consistent club policy for dispatching concessionary STs; some students were told they need to show ID, haven't yet, but have still received their tickets through the post. The OP has had the opposite experience. If I worked for the club's ticket office I think that's information that I'd want to know, so I could standardise it and make sure my staff know exactly what they're supposed to be doing.

I did notice the irony of his statement!

The first two responders on POL are voting for the statue:

You just know that there's enough of the deluded lot to actually vote for it themselves; I genuinely don't think there's any need for vote rigging, they're that blinkered that they'll likely vote for it themselves.

Leyton Orient 2 Southampton 2, 2009-10. Packed out away end, Saints on a run of 4 wins in a row. Despite dominating the game we found ourselves 2 nil down, but a late brace from Rickie Lambert secured a point. Great day out, really good atmosphere in the ground and a brilliant comeback.

Valid ID for being a student.

Thinking about it, you're probably right. Last year we would surely have seen very few away fans. This year we have two British teams with a large fan base. The only prohibitive factor I can see is the cost; but a family day out at £50 for two adults and two under 11s is relatively resonable. Not so sure about the appeal of the full adult price though, time will tell.

You think? I'd genuinely be massively surprised if that turns out to be the case. We shall see; I'd say 15K at those prices would be very decent.

Doubtful. 7,000 turned up for the memorial Cup last year. Which (given we once got over 30K for the former Ted Bates trophy) suggests that something was pretty awry with either the pricing or the format. Yet this year we have the same format, and a 50% price rise, so it doesn't seem as if there have been any lessons learnt.

No-one is really disagreeing with that though. The point is that the communication from the club as to what constitutes "valid ID" has been non-exsitent. Also that this lad, after going down to the stadium and talking to ticket staff, then proceeded with the exact steps they laid down for him to prove his student status. And after providing exactly what they asked for was then told that, in fact, the club requires something different from him.

I think there's still a potential for a points deduction for the failed CVA1. Neil Allen tweeted from the meeting: pn_neil_allen: Birch; Football League want amendment if CVA goes thru it is still ‘at their discretion’ whether to grant golden share. This was passed. So the FL still have it in their power to refuse the Golden Share. Or, similarly to what happened with us, to apply a points penalty on the club and refuse to grant the golden share unless any claim or appeal is forfeited. Which gets around the fact that its a loophole in their own rulebook.

Given that we only had 7,000 or so in attendance last year, I'd suggest they got the pricing wrong then too. £25 a ticket is way out IMO and I think we'll do well to get more than 5,000 through the gates.

I stayed away from renewal prices; the ones I quoted were for new sales only. For the reason that you'd expect matchday prices to be slightly more expensive than the most expensive comparitive season ticket price (otherwise there's no point buying a new season ticket, you'd just as well go game by game).

Precisely. A fairly sensible policy by the club, but (again) very poor in actually communicating the changing requirements to a customer who has to go to the ticket office in the first place to prove eligibility.

You have to assume that the season ticket price per game will be slightly cheaper than the matchday ticket price. New (adult) sales of STs per location are as follows: Family: £555, 19 games, £29.21 per game Wings/goals: £600, £31.58 per game Itchen & Kingsland: £670, £35.26 per game Kingsland Premium: £720, £37.89 per game Itchen Premium: £780, £41.05 per game Now that's just a rough benchmark as there will be different price categories (A-C) depending on the opposition, but I imagine a pound or so above those prices would be the Cat C price, with Cat B and Cat A a little higher in each case.

I think these prices are far too high. For league games I'm expecting a range of £35 to £45 for the cheapest tickets; more for the Itchen and Kingsland Premium seating in the Cat A games. I think matchday ticket prices are going to come as a real shock to some people.

FC, I think we get the idea. Its the actual putting it into practise that doesn't seem to stack up. You previously suggested a range of season ticket prices, from £300 to £800, with the more expensive tickets subsidising the lower price tickets. Well, we already have that range, up to £780 per season in the Itchen and Kingsland Premium, plus newly introduced season tickets (Club Lounge Membership) costing well over £1,000. So with that in mind, to accommodate your suggestion, we would either just be introducing a lower price band of tickets, or introducing tickets that cost up to £1,500 to cover the lower price range. I just don't see it as realistic to do either of those. I really think you're looking at this from an idealistic point of view, in that you're simply trying to look at ways to drive up attendances to fill an expanded stadium. You're looking at ways for how we could take a gamble, build a stadium, and then how we could fill it. As I've said before, I think this is the wrong way round of looking at it. We first surely need to have a good idea of how many more customers want to come within the current pricing scheme and, if necessary and financially viable to do so, expand the stadium to fit that need. Previous years in the Premier League have shown us that, apart from one season following the cup final where we sold out pretty much every week, the three other seasons had a significant number of games where we did not sell out the home allocation (something like 8, 8 and 6 games per season where we had less than 31K crowds, whereas we only had 1 in season 2003/04). That suggests that its not a complete given that we will sell out every single game this season coming. With that in mind, we surely need to make sure we can fill the current stadium to a higher degree than we've ever done in our history before making any definitive plans to put in more seats. Because, with your model and benchmarks given, I can't see any other way to accomplish it other than adding 10,000 or so seats and then offering cheaper prices to fill them. I know you don't want to see it that way, but with the price benchmarks you've provided that's the only way it can work.

Fair enough. I tend to disagree about the student part of it. I (and some of my friends who I've previously spoken to previously about this type of thing) went to Uni; I happened to go to Bournemouth. I actually went to a fair few Bournemouth games when there, simply because they were close to where I lived, it was cheap, and it was football. The idea of travelling 30 miles to Southampton for better quality football never crossed my mind, even though Saints are obviously my own team. But that's just me; maybe some students would want to pay Premier League prices and travel 17 miles there and back to watch footy whilst ignoring the football club on their own doorstep. In any case, I think my whole point is that I don't believe there is a massive untapped market of fans that we're missing out on. We will get some new customers but, in the general scheme of things, I think any huge increase in attendances will come from attracting current fans/customers to come to St Mary's on a more regular basis. That's how we'll prove we'll need a bigger stadium IMO; not by finding a new swathe of fans who have never been to St Mary's before.

Stay on topic please. If you have no interest in the thread then don't post in it.