Cutting the Old Firms Allocation

[PauloPerth]

I like the idea of only giving the OF one stand, but in reality for Saints I can’t see it working over a sustained period of time. Wouldn’t object to trying it against each of them, though it would cost us a fortune.

In the early years of McDiarmid when we could regularly get 8000+ home fans, and the OF allocation was far more limited, there was constant issues of their fans in the home end and hassle for stewards having to deal with them.

Unless we somehow miraculously become competitive with them in the league, I can’t see us ever shifting 8500 home tickets, or even half that to be brutally honest. Reslistically, how many years would we persevere with 4500+ empty seats in matches where they could be sold?

[PauloPerth]

I’d take a different approach and sell the OF allocation ourselves. The OF clubs do nothing to clean up the act of their supports or improve their behaviour, so they lose distribution privileges.

Folk would have to apply months in advance and send proof of ID or join an away supporters register so their details were kept on file. We’d only sell to under 13’s, females and over 55’s.

The majority of the arseholes who damage our away end and sing the shite are young men so f**k them, can’t behave yer no getting in.  

I’d look at it as a positive form of ethnic cleansing of the OF support.  Youngsters wouldn’t grow up copying the guys around them and would see the positive wholesome ways diddy fans support and sing for their club, so they’d see that as the proper way to behave at the football.

There would be a significant impact and media attention from us announcing that we’ll be choosing which of their fans we’re going to let in, and the statements and outrage from the two clubs would be magic.

[Kapowzer]

Been touched on already. Our away stand was financed off the back of Phil O'Donnell's move to Celtic and the mandate of the Taylor report. The stand was devised in the early 90's and constructed to make the most of the visiting OF support in a ground where any expansion is very limited. On occasion Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen have all justified opening the top tier and in a few occasions have came close to selling it out.

By and large this worked, an independent stand, enough separation to make segregating outside the ground easier. But the club also partitioned either end of our main stand for them. It made sitting there unpleasant when they visited. With the amount of hospitality we sell it still kinda is, however the roasters just wear suits. The tickets we sold to away supporters for a home stand were also never vetted so they entered our database with no asterisks.

John Boyle got control and tried to boost home support however during his tenure most Scottish clubs (outwith two) suffered a slow syphoning of numbers. For an OF game in the late 1990's we'd have 7-7,500 home support, now it's about 4,500-5. When trying to boost the home support failed Boyle decided to capitalise and take the OF buck. Cooper stand fans were moved 3x per season into the Main stand. A major PR calamity with hindsight. One it took Burrows getting the reins to allay any further fears for good.

In the crucially important playoff, the club decided to reduce The Cinch Fan Club's allocation from the whole stand to the SPFL 5% minimum and partition them in the corner where they wouldn't be seen on telly. It undoubtedly made a difference but we kinda did the hard work at Ibrox days before. Many Hunnorum bought tickets by circumventing the database and that created that nasty, hostile atmosphere you see in the video highlighted by Capt Oats. I was sat on the other side of the aisle from the person who filmed it. It was not nice.

I appreciate that over the course of a season an extra 1,000 in anyone's stadium is 25k, if you've got 3k seats sitting empty, you're looking at 225k minimum over withholding them. Directors of a company are duty bound and have to justify their decision making in the best interests of their organisation. It is rarely taken lightly.

I fully support my clubs decision, I also suspect Las was inspired to follow suit in his new role.

It's up to our clubs to recruit new fans and encourage the lapsed back (tough) than let the OF orcs dictate things (easy). I get 10 of us are playing for European slots and essentially to facilitate one of the OF getting a crack in the CL. St Mirren, Motherwell, Partick, to a lesser but still significant extent Killie and Livi, will always have to compete with glory hunters, not made any easier due to our proximity.

[craigkillie]

In what way is Killie a lesser extent? Ayrshire is just as rife with them as Lanarkshire is.

[VincentGuerin]

9 hours ago, Kapowzer said:

Been touched on already. Our away stand was financed off the back of Phil O'Donnell's move to Celtic

His move that happened about a year and a half after the stand was opened?

Not sure how that can be right.

[Shuggie_Murray7]

Just imgine how good we would be if we gave them no stands.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

11 hours ago, djchapsticks said:

Not only have you made an arse of the team he supports, but also our club 'whoring out' the club shop.

I honesty had him down as a St MIrren fan in my mind.

Ah well. 

[Swello]

41 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:

His move that happened about a year and a half after the stand was opened?

Not sure how that can be right.

"Paid off" is a better way of putting it. We got the £1.75m in one lump sum from Celtic and that cleared any costs for the build.

 

[tamthebam]

cutting Old Firm fans' allocation? Might I suggest cutting something else off?

 

[pozbaird]

I’m only saying this from memory, haven’t Googled it. Didn’t Motherwell market that big away stand by selling Old Firm fans some sort of ‘season ticket’ thing for it? I seem to remember some sort of advertising aimed at them that ‘guaranteed them their seat for every game’ that involved them at Fir Park. If I’ve imagined this, then let’s all move on. Nothing to see here. Etc. I also haven’t read every recent post here, so if it did happen, I didn’t imagine it, but someone else has already mentioned it, then, erm, let’s all move on. Nothing to see here. Etc.

Edited September 20, 2022 by pozbaird

[Pie Of The Month]

21 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

Mind when the then Partick Thistle board were in tears after the fixtures were releases a few years back because they had one less Celtic/Sevco visit at home? They went sprinting to the tabloids to wail about how massively unfair it was and how they were terribly disadvantaged.

Horrendous bootlicking nonsense.

Our board also turf our fans out of the home stands to accommodate more of them and lie to us claiming it's a police decision because they can't put the Old Firm in the main stand as it's a fire risk. 

That will all change now we're apparently fan owned. 

[capt_oats]

37 minutes ago, pozbaird said:

I’m only saying this from memory, haven’t Googled it. Didn’t Motherwell market that big away stand by selling Old Firm fans some sort of ‘season ticket’ thing for it? I seem to remember some sort of advertising aimed at them that ‘guaranteed them their seat for every game’ that involved them at Fir Park. If I’ve imagined this, then let’s all move on. Nothing to see here. Etc. I also haven’t read every recent post here, so if it did happen, I didn’t imagine it, but someone else has already mentioned it, then, erm, let’s all move on. Nothing to see here. Etc.

Aye, it was a debenture scheme.

It's mentioned in the Wiki about Fir Park.

Quote

"When the South Stand was first opened, Motherwell offered £20 debentures guaranteeing tickets for the games played by the relevant visiting team at Fir Park. This offer targeted supporters of the Old Firm clubs, with 600 debentures sold by late 1995, mostly to Rangers fans."

Link

[Matty-RCFC]

It’s going to be very interesting as to what County do in our next game vs the OF, which is (correct me if I’m wrong) Rangers on Christmas Eve. The last time we faced OF opposition we gave Celtic the full east stand, normally just giving them the east stand extension. I assume that our away end was built with the same purpose as Motherwell’s; just make it as big as possible and then you don’t have to worry about extending away allocations because you should probably fill the demand in that stand alone. However, the number of County fans attending games in general is decreasing to the naked eye - whether that’s because of dissenting views of the manager, the cost of living crisis or maybe some teuchters that are scared of COVID or whatever. This then, I’m assuming, made Fergie think it was okay so supplement the decrease in fans by extending the away allocation, and giving County just the main stand and the Jailend which are the two smallest stands in the stadium. The home turnout was as poor as I’ve ever seen it, and that’s including league cup group stage games. The match day experience was completely unenjoyable - shut your eyes and you were at Parkhead/Ibrox. I wonder maybe if season ticket sales were less than projected this season and we used this fixture to try and make up for some of the losses we’d made, but it’s then disappointing to then give up the chance of a potential major cup quarter final against a likely winnable opposition.

It will be very interesting to see whether we give Rangers the full shibang on Xmas Eve seeing as home turnout will likely be very low again, but the club are surely aware that should they handout similar allocations then numerous County supporters will simply not return for these games until allocations are back to regular.

[Swello]

46 minutes ago, pozbaird said:

I’m only saying this from memory, haven’t Googled it. Didn’t Motherwell market that big away stand by selling Old Firm fans some sort of ‘season ticket’ thing for it? I seem to remember some sort of advertising aimed at them that ‘guaranteed them their seat for every game’ that involved them at Fir Park. If I’ve imagined this, then let’s all move on. Nothing to see here. Etc. I also haven’t read every recent post here, so if it did happen, I didn’t imagine it, but someone else has already mentioned it, then, erm, let’s all move on. Nothing to see here. Etc.

Yep - that was a total cringing minter - an episode that I'm highly pleased to see brought up again  

The crawling, sycophantic wording of the adverts for it was fucking rage inducing (there was another thing like this under Boyle too) that would have caused the pitchforks to be out if it happened in the mass internet age because as it was, very few Motherwell supporters actually saw it.

Locking any OF supporters out for a West of Scotland club at that point wouldn't have been on the agenda as "fan power" wasn't such a thing then. My first OF game at Fir Park in the mid-80's had 21,500 there for a normal league game and a good 18,000 of them would have been Rangers supporters - we only got a little bit of our own terracing and as a young boy, it was pretty intimidating as you had to walk through Rangers support to get to your own bit or to go for a pie or a pish. This game is a couple of years later but shows how it was.

 

To go from that to having them all contained in the South Stand feels like a lot of progress over a very long time.

[Doctor Sanchez]

2 hours ago, Swello said:

 

 

Enjoyed watching that. Quite a few ex St Mirren players in there. 

Always enjoy watching the OF get beaten. 

[Swello]

15 minutes ago, Doctor Sanchez said:

Enjoyed watching that. Quite a few ex St Mirren players in there. 

Always enjoy watching the OF get beaten. 

It was a good laugh that game and young me appears in the crowd shot after one of the goals - has to be watched for Terry Butcher's classic 80's professional foul near the end - yellow card 

Also - the cross for our first was the only thing that Paul Kinnaird ever did before moving to St Mirren and scoring against us to put us out the league cup (might even have been his first ever goal). Wishart also soon moved to St Mirren "to join a club with some ambition", which went down well.

[gannonball]

I think just cutting it as a whole is a bit too simplistic and it should be deciphered if it is worth it for each club. St.Mirren have a stadium suitable enough for their fan base but for the likes of Livingston and Saint Johnstone it probably makes sense to just cash in and use it to get an extra player in their squad. The home crowd are never really going to create an atmosphere like St.Mirren did to will the team on. I think it also depends as to how the club are doing the time and whats riding on that particular game,  Kilmarnock seemed to be performing decently against us and Sevco under Clarke so it made sense to cut the allocation in the second half of the season to try and pick up points. Now they have increased it again to get more income to stay up this season.

[Kapowzer]

6 hours ago, Swello said:

"Paid off" is a better way of putting it. We got the £1.75m in one lump sum from Celtic and that cleared any costs for the build.

 

I mean it's almost like a Jambo can't comprehend the concept of mortgages, while sitting looking at or in their shiney new main stand.

[TxRover]

22 hours ago, Doctor Sanchez said:

Giving tickets away free to local schools is a ploy thats been going on for decades. I remember getting a couple of tickets to Love St and I'm older than time itself.  

 

Is there not some rules in place about pricing to get in?  It's something to do with all seats have to be the same price for home and away fans, or can't charge more than the other club charges your fans when you go to their place...

Someone on here will know the score I'm sure.  

There’s a pretty wide opening in the rule…
 

I31. Except as provided in Rule I32, a Club which is the Home Club for a League Match or a Play-Off Match is prohibited from charging higher admission prices to accommodation designated for supporters of the Visiting Club than for broadly comparable accommodation designated for use by supporters of the Home Club at the same match.

I32. The prohibition in Rule I31 does not apply to any:-

I32.1. element of discount in the admission price per League Match integral in the price of a Season ticket for all of the home League Matches of the relevant Club for the complete Season in which the relevant League Match falls;
 

I32.2. concessionary admission prices for the relevant League Match or Play-Off Match charged exclusively to persons who are senior citizens, children and/or disabled and who qualify as such; and
 

I32.3. concessionary admission prices for the relevant League Match or Play-Off Match charged to individuals comprised in groups of two or more persons, at least one of whom must be less than sixteen years of age, for admission together to a bona fide family enclosure exclusively used and designated as such for the complete Season in which the relevant League Match falls or the whole of the relevant Season immediately prior to which the Play-Off Match is held.

[craigkillie]

Kilmarnock seemed to be performing decently against us and Sevco under Clarke so it made sense to cut the allocation in the second half of the season to try and pick up points. Now they have increased it again to get more income to stay up this season.

We haven't increased the allocation.