Newcastle United half season tickets a priority as SJP set for empty seats in next 2 matches
Newcastle United half season tickets need to go on sale ASAP.
I say that for two reasons.
Firstly, I want to buy one.
Since Mike Ashley disappeared with £305m stuffed into his pockets, leaving behind a tale of wilful neglect, I have been buying tickets match by match under the new ownership. However, I would like to get season tickets again, both for convenience and because now Ashley has gone, I desperately want to see every match possible once again, no matter how well…or badly, NUFC are doing on the pitch.
As for the secondly part of my two reasons for saying Newcastle United half season tickets need to go on sale ASAP…
Well, I want to see every single seat filled inside St James Park.
I always used to see it as a personal affront on the odd occasion pre-Mike Ashley, when there were unsold tickets for Premier League matches at home.
Of course under this (sorry, last) owner that became almost the norm a lot of the time, especially once he forced Rafa Benitez out.
In the 27 months that Steve Bruce was here as Head Coach, only on one occasion was there over 52,000 paying customers inside St James Park. That was for the 3-2 defeat by Tottenham, Steve Bruce’s LAST game, though most importantly, the new owners’ FIRST match.
The combination of Mike Ashley and Steve Bruce had led to over 10,000 season tickets going unsold this season.
When the new NUFC owners were handed the keys to St James Park on Thursday 7 October, I was on the phone first thing on Friday morning to buy season tickets, to replace the ones I had chucked in when Ashley forced out Rafa and enough was enough (for me anyway) in terms of feeding Ashley season ticket cash.
Even though I was happy to pay full price for the season tickets despite some matches already played, the lass I spoke to said that you still couldn’t buy them, as that was the rule once three home games had gone (Leeds on 17 September 2021 had been the third SJP match of the season). However, she did say to keep an eye out for Newcastle United half season tickets possibly going on sale around November or December time.
I have been keeping a very close eye and nothing doing so far.
However, I do think the new owners need to get them on sale ASAP because the last thing I want is any (more!) negativity now we have rid of Mike Ashley.
I got my tickets for Norwich and Burnley a bit ago but needed extras for both games, for friends who are visiting.
When I went on the official club ticketing site, I was shocked really to see just how many are still unsold. Not going back to anything like we saw under Mike Ashley BUT enough unsold to make me think we are bound to see empty tickets at both the Norwich and Burnley matches.
Naturally not the most attractive of games (not that it matters to me, it is Newcastle playing that is the important bit, not the opposition!) for many people, however, ironically they are arguably the two most important games remaining this season in terms of the need for wins against relegation rivals.
We need every single seat filled to try and help get those wins.
A quick count up showed well over a thousand still on sale for each of the two games, when I looked this Friday morning. However, that doesn’t include the tickets that would normally be filled by away fans. Burnley took an allocation of 1,624 rather than the full 3,200 maximum and they still have tickets for sale.
Especially midweek, I’m assuming Norwich will bring that 1,624 figure as a very maximum.
Meaning we have almost certainly another 1,600 or so to sell for both matches. On the NUFC ticketing site, these sections usually for away fans that the away club doesn’t take, only show as on sale and available once all of the other home areas are pretty much sold out.
So basically, we are probably looking at somewhere around the 3,000 mark still unsold for both Burnley and Norwich. I can’t see any way we will now see this match against the Canaries sell out, very unlikely against the Clarets as well.
With 10,000 and more tickets to sell match by match, that is a fair quantity, especially in these days of almost every club relying on season tickets to fill the vast majority of seats.
You have to keep so many tickets anyway for match to match sales but I think making available and selling something like 5,000 Newcastle United half season tickets now, would then ensure that every single home Premier League match this season (and beyond…) would be sold out, with still a healthy amount on sale each game for one-offs.
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