Drew Peacock

I think just the crazy, hostile atmosphere. Don’t get me wrong, neither of us find a lot of the things that went on that day right or acceptable. But football has been sanitised so much over the years, some of it rightly so of course, but generally the tribal nature of football atmospheres has been taken away into a kind of take it or leave it, half-arsed, passive theatre experience. That day was far from that, and as I said, nothing bad happened to us and didn’t witness anything really terrible happen to others, so nothing to be traumatised for. If we had then it would have been different.

I went with my then 12 year old on the Ausden coach in 2017. As we arrived at the ground we were greeted by 2 lads aged about 11, circling the coach on bikes giving it the middle finger. My lad had colours on and we went for a little walk to get something to eat, but soon enough we had 3 coppers come over to us and insisted on escorting us all the way back to the ground. You go into the cage near the away turnstile with the coaches nearby and you might hear a bit of abuse and rattling of the cage, but it was heightened last time because of their last minute winner against a Prem team, when they were League 1. The early part of the journey home, in slow moving traffic, things were bouncing off the coach and bottles smashing all over the road in front of us for a while, so it was a bit crazy, but again it was mainly the context of the result that day I think. I don’t wear colours, but if I did, I personally wouldn’t at Millwall as it has a unique feral feel in the air. It’s always been a ground, like a few others, where I just keep my head down and don’t say anything to the natives. Some mates of mine though have said they’ve mixed with some of their fans pre-match and they’ve been great. Edit: This game is still one of my son’s all time favourite away day experiences (Not for the result obviously) and we’ve been to 100s. 😂🙈 But we came to no harm I guess and weren’t personally involved in the trouble that day.

You can never have train travel to away games as your only option for now.

I think we pretty much agree then after all. 😁

I wasn’t saying that the system now is ideal, certainly with the length of time points are currently being carried over for. The example you give is a valid one and not one of the lazy and untrue excuses that are often given. Are you though saying that there should be no priority system at all? If you had built up any kind of loyalty/bonuses over time in any buying experience or offer, would you then be happy if the retailer said ‘I know you’ve spent £1000s building up your loyalty/bonuses to us over the years, but we’re scrapping what you’ve earned to date and sharing them out with people who want to start shopping with us today, as demand now outstrips supply and we want everyone to be equal.’ ?

There is a lazy myth constantly poured out on here that those who can access away tickets in the priority 1 category are only old people, coach 1 types, those who add nothing to the atmosphere and whatever other negative stereotypes fit the agenda. It is simply not true. My son is 17 and very comfortably priority 1. He has had a season ticket since the 2013/14 season and I think the current away priority points system started from the 14/15 season. Although that suits us, I agree that is probably too long and feel for those younger fans who haven’t been able to get season tickets easily since around the 2014/15 season and therefore can’t ever catch up. I know people also have changes in circumstances both financial and otherwise that may prevent them from going to games for periods, but the fact is that anyone over the age of about 15 has had the possibility to now be on priority 1 if they’d gone to aways regularly. Just because demand is often greater than supply now doesn’t mean that there should be no priority for those who have earned that. As I said, I think there is a definite argument to shorten the priority points period and there are some people who have been unfortunate in when they’ve wanted to start going to games it’s coincided with the most successful time in the club’s history. But lots of the lame excuses that often appear when there is a big game or short allocation are often not valid.

https://www.lcfc.com/news/3754869/khun-vichai-tribute-scarves-for-supporters-travelling-to-qpr

Has anyone else been charged £23 instead of £19 for an under 18 ticket? Edit: It is an error so anyone who has bought one make sure you get refunded and hopefully anyone buying from now should get charged the correct amount.

The account holder needs to be registered with the club as a disabled supporter. Don’t think you can access the wheelchair seats online until that is done. They’ll need some proof of the disability like a copy of the letter stating eligibility for Disability Living Allowance. If you contact them as below they’ll be able to sort you out.

Shame he’s been replaced. I was looking forward to hearing ‘You fell asleep on the job’ or similar, quickly followed by ‘**** VAR’ VAR is one thing I’m not missing one bit this season, although it took me a good while to mentally adjust from half-hearted goal celebrations whilst wondering if the VAR process would interfere.

Yes! 😂 This will be a lot better than the match day experience at Blackburn that’s for sure. Sunday lunch time kick off on a rainy day, with most places boarded up permanently or at least closed for the day, and then a half empty stadium was miserable wasn’t it? I don’t know if it was just how I was feeling and it does also depend on other fans around you on the day of course, but that was up there with one of the worst away day atmospheres for a long time for me. I know others have said they thought it was decent and of course it can be subjective.

A couple of blocks open now on the bottom. I think one of those is closer to the goal than it looks, after looking at the stadium photos.