Home credits for cup finals from 2015/16

[MK Gould]

I'm not in any way trying to question your credentials as a dedicated Gooner (hence why I said that it was a genuine question) but there are an awful lot of Gooners who attend most matches at the grove and do not live close to the ground so surely their effort, time and financial commitment deserves recognition too ?

...and some who only go to away games that are local to them! Yes, of course it's not simple to compare the relative loyalty of one fan over another.

What I do know though is that once upon a time, in the days of terracing, the matchday experience at Highbury was different at every game. Some were sold out, some were not. And the number of away fans varied from several hundred to maybe 15-20,000... Would Spurs/West Ham/Chelsea/(Palace:-)!) try to take the North Bank... At what point would the Clock Enders launch the attack on Man Utd fans etc etc. But these days, every game is sold out. Every away team bring pretty much the same number of fans. No-one ever tries to take our end. In short, every home game is pretty much like every other... So if you never go to an away game then you are missing out big time!

Btw do you, as a guy that has attended away games for a number of years now, feel that the "quality" of the away fans has diminished in recent years ? Things like that banner and the singing of steve o's favourite song (1 arsene wenger) has me questioning how many of those are actually die hard long term Gooners as opposed to those whose loyalty is to the manager

I think that the average away fan is a lot less AKB than you might think. For all the celebration of the win at Spurs the other week I don't recall anyone singing "One Arsene Wenger...". And in terms of quality I think it's excellent. Noisy, boistrous. We always have a good laugh at away games and my sons much prefer it to going to the Grove. The match day experience is never bland!

Key differences between now and 30 years ago are (apart from the trouble!) that our support is drawn from all quarters of Europe - so when we play in Germany you are as likely to be standing next to a Czech gooner as someone from N5. And whereas our away support could dwindle to several hundred for a midweek away game back in the day, we are pretty much guaranteed to sell out wherever and whenever we play these days. No, away support is something that I consider as good now as ever!

Away supporters contribute NOTHING to the clubs revenue !

Other revenue streams only kick in once a season starts,withouty us we could not have gone out and brought in quality players like yaya so no goal !

I rest my case

Which is why I can absolutely understand why the club will always give first priority to those who generate income over some other measure of loyalty... It makes perfect business sense.

[augie]

Something has to change to combat the thousands of empty seats at every home game. Not only is it embarrassing for the club but it's downright selfish of those who have a ticket and don't bother to turn up. There are plenty of people who would gladly fill that seat for every one of those 26 home games. It was incredibly frustrating whilst on the waiting list to see empty seats littering the ground whilst every summer I got the same bollocks from the club regarding being 15,000th or whatever on the list. Either use your ticket or make way for someone who will.

I can understand circumstances preventing you from attending a few games a season, but for a lot of the empty seats at the Emirates it's the same person just not turning up time after time.

As for the home credit system, I think away credits should count more simply for the fact that they require more effort to go to. And whilst it doesn't prove you're a better fan by any means, no system is perfect and as far as I can see there isn't a better one.

Who gives a fcuk how embarrassing it is for the club ? I dont think the club even gives a fcuk about how it looks on tv cos they already have your cash But you are right when you say that something has to change......the club has to change The club needs to be sent a strong message that fans will not tolerate this continued pile of shite under investment, lack of tactics etc etc If the club dont give a fcuk about the fans then why should the fans give a fcuk about how the club looks on tv ?

If I had the financial flexibility to leave my seat empty then I would rather do that than to give it to some tourist or jcl and have the club thinking that everything is all right and that there is no need to change the way it is being run - if that offends your moral beliefs then I'm sorry but that is just how I feel

[Dan_85]

The problem arises with the home credits system if they implement it at the most very basic level i.e. 1 credit for 1 home game. That makes every game of equal value, be it a saturday evening game against Chelsea or a monday night game against Stoke in January. The club has no problem getting bums on seats for games against the "big four" but there needs to be extra incentive to get people in the stadium for the less attractive games.

I've tweeted my thoughts on this to Tim, whether or not he paid any attention is a different matter. What I think should happen is that each opposition team is given a credit value based on their position in the league table at the end of the previous season. For example if you attend a home match against last season's champions you receive 1 credit. If you attend a match against mid-table Newcastle you receive 10 credits. If you attend a home match against the team newly promoted via the Championship play off you receive 20 credits.

Of course, the credits should not actually be applied to your account until the card is physically scanned at the turnstile. The technology already exists, that's fairly simple to implement. This gives extra incentive for people to attend the less glamorous games if they know they're gonna receive a big chunk of credits which will potentially work in their advantage if/when we reach a cup final.

Of course it's not totally ideal - people can still buy the ticket on their account, sell the card on and not physically enter the stadium but until we enter the realm of fingerprint/retina scanning at the turnstile to ensure that the people entering the stadium actually own the card, I think this is the best way of implementing a home credit system.

[Rocky Number Seven]

Disagree with this, far too easy to pass onto others when you cant make a game an get your "credit" for a final. Plus how many more fans will have to go in a ballot if there are only 25,000 seats available?

IMO away fans put a shift in and deserve to be rewarded. What happens if we are drawn away in every round of the cup? Should somebody who has travelled up and down the country to every cup game be penalised because they haven't attended a couple of home fixtures for whatever reason?

The away credit system has been in place for years, my brother and I have always known that to guarantee a place at a cup final we would need to do the work to get there. We started off going to the likes of Wigan away and watching us get knocked out the cups at sh*tholes where nobody else wanted to go etc to build up at first but once you have a few you can do some more appealing games. IMO getting to three away games over the course of pretty much three seasons isn't hard work for the reward you get at the end.

I think Tim Payton and the AST are way off the mark lately and would hope that the club hear the opinions of other fan groups before deciding this is the best way to go.

[Rocky Number Seven]

Disagree with this, far too easy to pass onto others when you cant make a game an get your "credit" for a final. Plus how many more fans will have to go in a ballot if there are only 25,000 seats available?

IMO away fans put a shift in and deserve to be rewarded. What happens if we are drawn away in every round of the cup? Should somebody who has travelled up and down the country to every cup game be penalised because they haven't attended a couple of home fixtures for whatever reason?

The away credit system has been in place for years, my brother and I have always known that to guarantee a place at a cup final we would need to do the work to get there. We started off going to the likes of Wigan away and watching us get knocked out the cups at sh*tholes where nobody else wanted to go etc to build up at first but once you have a few you can do some more appealing games. IMO getting to three away games over the course of pretty much three seasons isn't hard work for the reward you get at the end.

I think Tim Payton and the AST are way off the mark lately and would hope that the club hear the opinions of other fan groups before deciding this is the best way to go.

Just to add I think that Silver members deserve some credit and opportunity to get a final, I know far too many that attend just as many if not more than ST holders and are having to miss out altogther. This IMO is the one area where the system is flawed.

[remigardeshair]

Btw do you, as a guy that has attended away games for a number of years now, feel that the "quality" of the away fans has diminished in recent years ? Things like that banner and the singing of steve o's favourite song (1 arsene wenger) has me questioning how many of those are actually die hard long term Gooners as opposed to those whose loyalty is to the manager

I'd say that really depends on how you define 'quality'.

I used to go away an awful lot in the 80s and 90s but much less so now as real life has got in the way.

I'd say one difference between away fans now and back then is that they are more inclined to get on the teams back and be abusive now. Back then the support (for the team and players) was unerring during the course of the game - That isnt to say that players weaknesses werent recognised or discussed or whatever, but for the 90 minutes the support for every player was unequivocal.

It's not like that now at all from my recent experiences, five minutes into the QPR away game a season back, Walcott was being called a lazy **** and so on and so on. I'm kind of used to that at home games, but it was a shock away, it's a shame because generally the away day experience is a really good one (I took my son to Southampton this year and he could not believe the difference in atmosphere)

[MK Gould]

I was talking about ticket allocation with a City season ticket holder earlier. He said that their loyalty scheme is timeless, so you get extra credit just for having held a season ticket for a number of years. They also award loyalty points for cup finals, which is a bit of a double whammy for those that don't get allocated a ticket in the first place. Liverpool had a loyalty scheme that was competition based i.e. you could qualify for a CL final ticket if you'd been to all their CL games...

So...every scheme has it's flaws! And, in truth, ours (even in its current guise) is probably as fair as any other...

[Robin_L]

I think the Chavs have a system where their big home games are allocated fewer points than home games against clubs from the provinces, maybe that's the way it will head.

I think the two simplest and obvious ways to improve the system would be:-

1) penalise ST holders who do not have their seat sold for X home games per season. It's in everyone's interests to remedy this. Make it an achievable number, but strip them of the ST if you can't hit the target. That would fill the ground and test the theory that we have millions of fans queueing to fill the upper tier.

2) make away credits count for reds and silvers. This would disadvantage ST holders but so be it, it's only fair and would appease those Silvers and Reds who are currently being prevented from racking up at least 20+ credits based on their actual attendance of away games. This would make it harder for everyone to bulk up their credits, but that's what a 5,600 allocation 3rd round League Cup tie is there for at West Brom after all, to get the ball rolling.

Thus 2) invalidates the need for introducing home match credits, which shouldn't be weighted equally to aways given the time and effort of travelling into the provinces for matches. I know as a Red Member in previous seasons I would have settled for my away credits counting for something.

[QuartzGooner]

I think the Chavs have a system where their big home games are allocated fewer points than home games against clubs from the provinces, maybe that's the way it will head.

I think the two simplest and obvious ways to improve the system would be:-

1) penalise ST holders who do not have their seat sold for X home games per season. It's in everyone's interests to remedy this. Make it an achievable number, but strip them of the ST if you can't hit the target. That would fill the ground and test the theory that we have millions of fans queueing to fill the upper tier.

2) make away credits count for reds and silvers.

Stripping season tickets is not an option for me, the holder has paid up front.

Regardless of what type of member you are, Cup Final Credit system could be based on incentives:

3 credits per away game.
2 credits per home game.
1 credit if season ticket not used, but is put up on ticket exchange.

[Dan_85]

1) penalise ST holders who do not have their seat sold for X home games per season. It's in everyone's interests to remedy this. Make it an achievable number, but strip them of the ST if you can't hit the target. That would fill the ground and test the theory that we have millions of fans queueing to fill the upper tier.

No chance. Once the club have your ST money they don't give a toss whether it's used or not. A credit system set up the way I explained is, for now anyway, the best incentive to get bums on seats particularly for the less attractive games.

[_James_]

It will be interesting to see how this is done, if you gave a credit for every home game purchased you would end up with season ticket holders at exactly the same point as they are now.

[topgoon]

I don't think you should get credits for home games just because you can't be a**ed to go to away games.

Have to admit it is getting harder and harder to get tickets for away games especially this season.

[augie]

I don't think you should get credits for home games just because you can't be a**ed to go to away games.

Have to admit it is getting harder and harder to get tickets for away games especially this season.

That would be my gripe too - from what I am told, it is nigh on impossible to get tickets for away games now (unless you are an established away game fan) so how does anybody break into that circle ? Another thing that I am led to believe is that joining the away scheme means that you have to give a financial commitment to go to all away games and then you pay if you get the tickets......for somebody who has paid over 1k for season tickets, I wouldn't have been in a position to make that sort of commitment If my interpretation of any of this is wrong, then can somebody clear it up for me. Please ?

[MK Gould]

I don't think you should get credits for home games just because you can't be a**ed to go to away games.

Have to admit it is getting harder and harder to get tickets for away games especially this season.

That would be my gripe too - from what I am told, it is nigh on impossible to get tickets for away games now (unless you are an established away game fan) so how does anybody break into that circle ? Another thing that I am led to believe is that joining the away scheme means that you have to give a financial commitment to go to all away games and then you pay if you get the tickets......for somebody who has paid over 1k for season tickets, I wouldn't have been in a position to make that sort of commitment If my interpretation of any of this is wrong, then can somebody clear it up for me. Please ?

I think someone on here said that Arsenal were phasing the away season ticket scheme out, and that it was only open to home season ticket holders anyway.

And as others have said, it is fairly easy to break into the circle. But you need to get in there at the start of the season when people are still away on their hols. Newcastle or Sunderland away in September would be good. Wigan away at any time (if they get promoted). Maybe an away European or two? And a League Cup tie if we get a large allocation (and chance that it would be for a giveaway price for U16...so buy those and give them away on here - just to get the credit). And once you reach 5 then fairly easy to get to 10. Don't forget that they build up over a 3 year period so you need to be patient...

[topgoon]

I don't think you should get credits for home games just because you can't be a**ed to go to away games.

Have to admit it is getting harder and harder to get tickets for away games especially this season.

That would be my gripe too - from what I am told, it is nigh on impossible to get tickets for away games now (unless you are an established away game fan) so how does anybody break into that circle ? Another thing that I am led to believe is that joining the away scheme means that you have to give a financial commitment to go to all away games and then you pay if you get the tickets......for somebody who has paid over 1k for season tickets, I wouldn't have been in a position to make that sort of commitment If my interpretation of any of this is wrong, then can somebody clear it up for me. Please ?

I think you are obliged to buy every away game tkt regardless of the comp except away euro games and you are guaranteed tkts for finals and semis. I'd love to know how many people sign up to it, as if it's more than 1000 than that seriously reduces the number of people who can get away tickets.

It also gives you a great advantage as you are guaranteed to have at least 20+ credits after one season making you a shoe in for tkts for all but the tiniest grounds.