Look at all these empty seats at St James’ Park – Newcastle United owners need to sort it ASAP | OneFootball

Thousands of empty seats at St James’ Park on Saturday.

How is that you ask?

Aren’t tickets like gold dust these days and Newcastle United fans desperate to get inside St James’ Park, with demand vastly outstripping supply?

Obviously it is a big fat yes to that.

So how come for the win over Brentford, you looked around and could see thousands of empty seats?

I thought this myself and then even better, Newcastle United fan Shirelle Anderson (@dibdab74) has posted these photos, taken at 6.05pm, 35 minutes into Saturday’s match.

The photos perfectly illustrating / backing up what I had seen with my own eyes.

So how can this be the case?

Were there tickets unsold in the Newcastle United sections (Brentford had unsold empty seats, as well as the ones in the home areas)?

I can’t see that as having been the case, when I have heard through friends in the pub(s) yesterday, that there were members who didn’t get tickets for Saturday in the members ballot for the game.

There is something seriously going wrong when you end up with thousands of empty seats and yet at the same time, so many fans not able to get tickets who would love to have been inside St James’ Park yesterday.

I have a few ideas as to what may have been factors leading to so many empty seats and the Newcastle United owners and their senior staff have to sort it out ASAP…

With the club issuing so many threats now about what could happen to fans if they pass tickets on in a way that is against the rules, losing loyalty points, losing season tickets, losing memberships, whatever, it has created a crazy culture where fear of what could happen, leads to empty seats rather than those seats being filled by other Newcastle fans. How is that a good thing?

The club need to massively rein back on threatening their own fans and instead look to make it as easy as possible for anybody who has a ticket they can’t use, to be able to pass it on to somebody else.

There is nothing wrong with this and has happened down the decades, plus I personally have never experienced at first hand seeing or hearing of any Newcastle fan charging another NUFC supporter more than face value, if indeed charging anything at all. In many / most cases, NUFC fans pass on tickets to family and close friends.

Speaking of which…

One of my mates lives a few hundred miles away but has a season ticket and travels up every home match to St James’ Park. However, as it happens, he found out on Wednesday that he couldn’t for this Brentford one due to a bereavement.

The people who he travels up to games with, would have in the past just brought up his season ticket and one of our group / network would have for sure, found somebody to use it.

However, with this new system, my mate had to find out how to pass his ticket on using the new club system.

After hours trying to work out how, he gave up and rang the ticket office.

I had read plenty of stories, including on The Mag, of fans having horrendous experiences now when ringing the ticket office. I thought for sure they were exaggerating, not any more.

My mate spent pretty much all of Thursday and Friday on the phone to the ticket office, or more accurately, waiting to speak to somebody at the ticket office.

Up to the here and now on Sunday, he still hasn’t managed to speak to anybody at the ticket office.

He tells me (and he is no liar or prone to exaggeration) that time after time that he rang, he was told he was in a queue, with never less than 50 people ahead of him, then whilst waiting between one and three hours (honestly!) as it counted down and he (very slowly!) went up the queue, he then reached the point where he got… cut-off!!

Yes, every single time this happened, which is why he never got to speak to anybody at the ticket office and how his seat was empty yesterday.

The Newcastle United owners are failing the fans massively in this respect, the ticketing site is a joke (What happened to the brand new one that they promised in time for the new season? Or even worse, is this it?!!!).

As for how you then get in touch with the club / ticket office, quite clearly there are nowhere near enough staff and the phone system is not fit for purpose. Unless that is done on purpose, cutting people off to get rid of them, put them off trying to get in touch…

Using technology is great and brings many benefits BUT at the same time, the NUFC hierarchy have to look after those who may struggle to use it.

These problems massively compounded by the fact the ticketing site is shocking AND all but impossible to get in touch by phone. As the recent NUST survey / report showed as well, most people emailing the ticket office NEVER got a reply. I am sure that this isn’t on purpose and more a case of simply the club not employing enough staff to answer the emails and phone calls.

As I understand it, members buying tickets / getting them in ballots, aren’t even allowed to pass them on at all to another fan. Why is that? What happens if we wake up on the morning of a game and you’re too ill to go to the game?

A lot of thought seems to have gone into how to threaten fans and bully them into not passing on tickets in a way that is against the new rules. However, it is time now to put some thought into making sure that it is made as easy as possible to ensure ALL seats are filled at St James’ Park.

Stats from BBC Sport:

Newcastle 1 Brentford 0 – Saturday 16 September 5.30pm

Goals:

Newcastle United:

Wilson 64 pen

Brentford:

Possession was Brentford 43%  Newcastle 57%

Total shots were Brentford 11 Newcastle 9

Shots on target were Brentford 2 Newcastle 2

Corners were Brentford 8 Newcastle 3

Referee: Craig Pawson

Pope, Trippier, Schar, Botman, Burn, Bruno, Longstaff, Anderson, Gordon, Wilson, Barnes (Almiron 83)

SUBS:

Dubravka, Lascelles, Tonali, Targett, Isak, Hall, Livramento, Murphy

Crowd: 51,670 (Brentford approx 700)

(Thomas Frank blames match officials for Newcastle United defeat – Expects an apology – Read HERE)

(Newcastle 1 Brentford 0 – Instant NUFC fan / writer reaction – Read HERE)