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Ipswich Town (H) - Saturday 17th December 2022

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  • True, but it was still a very different situation - and easy to see why they took the decision to close the stand.

  • edited November 2022

    I have been moved from The Beechdean to the Frank Adams in the past when we have given over that stand to away supporters. Can't remember ever been consulted, just been called and offered tickets elsewhere.

    Never really bothered me as it benefits the club financially and let's be honest the club needs the money. It happens once or twice a season, I have had that seat for many years now as a ST holder & there is a reason why I choose them 3 seats, and wouldn't give them up for entire season, but for the odd game, nah, not bothered nor worth getting in a lather over personally.

  • Having had a Main Stand season ticket since 1990, I have become used to being moved for away supporters such as Sunderland etc. However, the club have always communicated with us and asked us where we wanted to go in the ground for the match in question.

    I don’t have a problem with it really but good communication and a little respect goes a long way.

  • This is another zinger from Rob's interview: "I think people are enjoying the games, win, lose or draw".

    Hmm.

  • Whilst I do, genuinely, appreciate the annoyance for the small minority of season ticket holders who will have to move, there seems to be quite a double standard at play here.

    Just at the end of last season, many of us were complaining about Franchise's ridiculously selfish decision to deprive fans from being able to watch a game that they would have liked to. Now that it's our ground, we seem to be saying that we'd prefer empty seats than giving fans who want to be there a chance to see the game. You can't have it both ways - and as a football fan I'd always prefer the decision that means the maximum number of people who want to watch a game are able to do so.

  • edited November 2022

    A good point well put in my opinion. I think probably its just as much how the decision was presented to those affected than the decision itself

    Going forward it may therefore be prudent for the club to consider not selling any season tickets to some or all of the blocks in question next season onwards

    If that was the case discussions could be had with the effected people at a very early stage for them to make choices of an alternative

    The problem with this decision very much smacks of changing your horses midstream

  • The selling of differential advantage goes back to the Wembley play off. Jolly nice soft polite Chiltern southerners gave crazy northern noisy Machams thousands of extra seats away, above and round us, making what was already going to be a difficult day even harder.

    Have we learned nothing? Well yes we have, that short term tactical necessity will always take precedence over longer term strategic goals.

  • In the mid 2000s I went with the family to a baseball game in Tampa Bay. The exchange rate was over two dollars to the pound. Food was cheap and varied, a nice man kept bringing cold beer to our seats and the temperature inside the dome was about 25 degrees C. Both teams scored a lot of runs. As I quite like the sport but don’t follow a team I had a thoroughly enjoyable experience in which win lose or draw didn’t play a part. It was entertainment for us that day.

    I suppose if we could provide something similar each week at Adams Park then we might attract a fair few ‘day trippers’ to swell our coffers. Not enough to fill an expanded ground though.

    Because football differs from entertainment in many fundamental ways. It’s why we watch it in the freezing rain in grounds with open stands, don’t take out eyes off it for 45 minutes at a time then queue up for a poor quality tea hoping we won’t miss the second half kickoff, have our whole week ruined or rejuvenated by it, get away from the ground in a hurry after a defeat, hug strangers after a stoppage time winner. It’s a hard thing to ‘get’ if you don’t truly ‘get it’. It isn’t entertainment, it is passion.

  • If we're going to purge Americanisms from the Wycombe Wanderers vernacular, zinger can do one straight off the bat.

  • I'm not personally affected, though it's the apparent lack of sounding out of affected supporters that makes no sense. It doesn't bode well that decisions are being seemingly autocratically without a finger on the pulse of supporter opinion.

  • Great anecdote. Yes, the difference between football and American sports is very deeply rooted, and it is absolutely tribal at it's core.

    American sports are a lot more about entertainment. My wife and I were on our way to an ice hockey game recently and we had a debate about whether we would rather win 1-0 or lose 6-5 for the entertainment value, and we decided that losing 6-5 would actually be more fun (we lost 4-3 in overtime, and it was indeed tremendous fun). I would NEVER want Wycombe to lose, even if it would hurt a hated rival club. I am more of a casual fan of the local hockey team, and though I still celebrated madly when they won the championship and also went to the parade...at it's core it is about having fun and being entertained. Football is about something deeper.

    I am sure there are Americans who live and breathe their NFL/NHL/MLB/NBA club, but even in the presentation of the match it is more about "the event" rather than the game itself.

  • I’m glad that someone has spared a thought for our disabled supporters. this decision has meant that the Disabled Supporters association has been turfed out of Box 1, which the Club had previously agreed to let the DSA convert into a Sensory Room with viewing platform outside. This decision was taken with precisely no consultation. Maybe the decision can be reversed?

  • I recently attended my first hockey match, Arizona Coyotes at Montreal Canadiens, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a very smooth operation for fans, a connecting tunnel from the Metro right into the 21,000 stadium, which was all but full. Seats up top at $48 still gave a good view. The price of a can of Molson beer, the club's owners, was steep at $15 though. Just about everyone had a Canadiens top on, lots of families, groups of teenagers and young men and women. It did feel very tribal, I think because the Montrealians are very proud of their French identity, and perhaps because most of their games are against teams from the USA. The obligatory fight went down very well with everyone. It was quite comical, the two players clamly took off their gloves and helmet, handed their stick to a teammate and then punched each other in the head very hard. I would certainly go again to a game if I had the chance.

  • I am now jealous of you forever. Montreal is hockey royalty!

  • Don't mean to be picking an argument however. Having run a few companies over the years, (regarding your last sentence), I am afraid that sometimes it is necessary. If you are not around in the long term because you couldn't survive over the short term then the longer term strategy becomes irrelevant!

    Not always palatable I know but not everything is black & white.

  • @EwanHoosaami of course without a today there is no tomorrow. That said, in my experience, similar to your own, once an organisation lets the urgent overtake the important it’s a slippery slope. Hope and trust were are not there (yet).

  • Would be interesting to know Mr Parry's view on this!

  • Apologies if I missed any previous comments on this but I see that the end two blocks, top and bottom in FA Stand, are 'unavailable' for the Portsmouth game. Presumably they're going to our South coast friends, suitability segregated?

  • Mr Parry? You mean the man that backed the Steve Hayes plan to sell AP for the benefit of a nomad rugby club? Surely the last person to ask for an opinion.

  • You do enjoy being mischievous, don’t you? As you well know I was referring to the inconvenience of moving some season ticket holders versus the financial benefits to the club, I made no mention of the boxes because I was unaware of the situation regarding our disabled fans. I hope and expect that they have also been offered alternative accommodation.

  • I have opinions, they just don’t suit your narrative.

  • edited November 2022

    In my opinion, that's not really the point. They shouldn't have to ! It's all been set up for them to use, its a sensory room, do you just think disabled people can be and like being shifted about to wherever. Things like this depending on the disability can cause a lot of stress and worry. Still, I'm guessing you'll be fine still over in the board room, all of this won't affect any of you, so why should other people worry about having to do it a few times a season eh ? We should all just get on with it and stop complaining.

  • I am wholly sympathetic to the situation for disabled fans, but I interpreted the original post by Peter Lerner to suggest that it had been agreed to convert the box to suit their needs, if it has already been converted then I misunderstood and apologise. As for your second sentence, I have read many posts from fans who understand the situation and are relaxed about the inconvenience of being moved so not everyone shares your opinion. Personally, I am more than happy to move to another seat if it helps the club’s finances.

  • I was not being mischievous, just simply interested in your view on the clubs treatment of disabled supporters. I am personally unhappy at their treatment by the club, but you appear to be quite happy with the clubs stance on this.

  • Where did I say I was happy with the stance? I said I knew nothing about it till Peter Lerner’s post and hoped the club would make suitable alternative arrangements. Please don’t twist my words.

  • You either agree or disagree with the forced removal of disabled supporters. You are of course quite entitled to sit on the fence as usual.

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