Why some Football League clubs only have themselves to blame for dwindling attendances

By Ian Winwood

Published 13:39 04/11/11

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last week I phoned the box office of Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club with what I believed to be a routine enquiry.

I am, I explained, a Barnsley fan who lives in London. The Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire Super Reds (who are becoming less and less super by the week) are visiting the Seagulls (who are plummeting from the sky in a manner similar to their visitors), I explained, and I’m planning on attending the match. The people who live in Barnsley with whom I normally attend away games aren’t coming this time, and so wouldn’t be fetching me a ticket with them. I just wanted to check that it’s okay to buy my ticket from the ground on match day.

I had no doubt that this would be no problem. I was only ringing just to make to sure.

It’s a good job that I did.

The man on the other end of the phone-line told me that it was the seaside club’s policy not to sell match tickets on the day of game day.

A little bit of digging around has taught me that Brighton & Hove Albion are not the only club to practice this policy. Although it is not a league-wide mandate – a friend was able to buy a ticket for the away end at Reading this season – more and more grounds are shutting up shop on match day.

Such a policy obviously makes like difficult for the fan who doesn’t live in the same town or city of the team he or she supports.

For me it meant getting tickets from Barnsley sent to London – in the hope that the post-office wouldn’t lose the package – for a game that’s taking place in Brighton.

Where, really, is the sense in that?

Obviously this season the Seagulls find themselves in a higher division than in recent seasons. They also play their home games in a sparkling new stadium. But their season is heading south to such an extent that fans who show up early enough have got a chance of getting a game, if not a ticket.

But the policy of Championship clubs not to permit entry to ‘walk up’ customers is baffling. Anyone who watches The Football League Show will see that almost all grounds in the division are host to games played in sight of thousands of empty seats.

How many fans are prevented from going to game on a whim – “it’s a nice day, shall we go to the match? Oh we can’t…” How many away fans are inconvenienced by a policy that makes no sense other than to make life inconvenient?

Can you imagine a cinema refusing to sell tickets on the day of a performance? Or a concert hall? Or a theatre?

Once again, The Championship is proving itself to be the most compelling of all four English divisions.

It would be nice if more of the clubs involved could go further in making it easier for people to see this for themselves.

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