The Middlesbrough ticket sale has generated one of those debates in which almost every Lincoln City fan has a reasonable point, but nobody has a solution that works fairly for everyone.
Some supporters were successful. Others spent an hour refreshing the ticketing site, saw sections appear and disappear, suffered crashes at checkout and eventually missed out. One person discovered, after an hour of stress, that they had actually bought a ticket when the system first appeared to fail.
That sounds like a fiasco. It probably was a fiasco, at least from the perspective of those trying unsuccessfully to buy. However, opinion is inevitably shaped by experience. Someone who secured a ticket might describe the process as difficult but ultimately functional. Somebody who missed out after trying across several devices is more likely to view the entire operation as unacceptable.
That is important, because the same principle applies to the debate around loyalty points, ballots and priority windows. Almost everybody approaches the subject through the prism of how a particular system would affect them. I am no different.
I will be at Middlesbrough in a media capacity, covering the game. That does not mean I am taking an “I’m all right, Jack” position, but it does mean my circumstances influence how strongly I feel about the issue. I have not spent two mornings fighting with Ticketmaster, only to discover that the tickets have gone.
Stacey West Ben has missed out. He will watch at home, disappointed but not claiming the world has ended. Plenty of other supporters who travelled regularly last season are in the same position, and that has understandably prompted calls for a loyalty scheme.
The basic argument is easy to understand. Supporters who travel to the less attractive fixtures, including Tuesday nights and long journeys, should have the first opportunity when demand exceeds supply. Those who went to Salford City in the FA Cup, Bristol Rovers on a wet night or other unfashionable fixtures have demonstrated commitment. Why should they have exactly the same chance of attending Middlesbrough as someone who has bought a membership after promotion and rarely travelled before?
There is logic in that position.
A priority system rewards supporters who follow the Imps around the country. It also adds tangible value to Gold, Silver and Bronze memberships, which provide important revenue before the season begins. In theory, staggered sales windows should also reduce chaos by dividing demand across several groups rather than asking thousands of people to access the same event simultaneously.
A properly designed points structure might begin with Gold members who have attended 40 or more away games over two rolling seasons. The next windows could cover 30, 20 and ten matches, before opening to other members and eventually general sale. That would reward recent commitment without allowing someone to rely forever on matches they attended decades ago.
However, the concept becomes much harder once you look beyond the headline.
There are supporters who do not live in Lincoln and cannot justify the cost of a season ticket. Some are based in London and are naturally more likely to attend Millwall, Queens Park Rangers, Watford and Charlton Athletic. Others live in Yorkshire, Lancashire or the south-west and select matches according to location. They are not less committed to Lincoln City. Their relationship with the fixture list is simply different.
A one-size-fits-all points scheme cannot distinguish between someone who went to 15 home matches and five away games compared with a supporter who attended no home games but travelled ten times. Also, can you imagine the window carnage if we started having 40-game, 30-game and 20-game windows? We’d have more windows than Buckingham Palace.
Also, those with money could buy loyalty. I had a mate, who I won’t call out, who bought a cheaper season ticket a couple of years ago just to go to a handful of matches, because it was cheaper than fighting for ten tickets. There is a loophole, someone buying the cheapest ST they can, selling back to a club, or using the buyback system, and getting priority to away games. Of course, the away tickets could just favour those who travel away, but then a Gold member might wonder why their loyalty is worth less than someone who travels.
When it comes to points, should home games earn one point and away games two? Does a Tuesday night count for more than a Saturday? Should mileage be considered? What about cup matches? Does someone who lives on Sincil Bank and can walk to a home game deserve to be thought of just as highly as someone who drives from Norfolk every home game? Those who can walk round might have popped along to watch us play Huddersfield in the EFL Trophy, whereas that’s not a luxury someone living two hours away can afford with a 7 pm kick-off.
As soon as caveats are introduced, the system becomes more complicated and more difficult to administer. It also creates opportunities for error, particularly if every purchase must be correctly assigned to an individual Fan ID. We have already seen frustration when supporters cannot assign tickets correctly on the official portal. A loyalty scheme only works if the underlying data is flawless. One incorrectly assigned ticket could affect somebody’s priority for a future sell-out.
Also, we’ve already seen anecdotal evidence online of people within fan groups moving tickets to their friends that they don’t want. I’m not criticising this, but it might mean some buy away tickets in their name, knowing they can pass to others and still get the points. Again, that’s obviously not what is happening at present, we don’t have a points system but fans are savvy and resourceful, and where there is a workaround, things will be worked around.
There is also the risk of creating a closed shop. Those with high points receive first access, which helps them maintain their points. Younger supporters, newer fans and people whose circumstances have recently changed begin at the back and may never catch up. Perhaps somebody has moved back to Lincoln. Maybe their children are now old enough to travel. Perhaps they have finally reached a position in which work and finances allow them to attend more often. They might be desperate to attend seven or eight selected fixtures, planning childcare and family commitments around them. They may accept that someone attending every week deserves an advantage, but it is harder to accept that they should have no chance whatsoever.
I know some other clubs have a loyalty system, but just because others do it, does it make it right? I’m not sure. I don’t have strong ideas on it either way, but that’s because it doesn’t always directly affect me. I’m not putting forward an argument against rewarding commitment. It is an argument against completely shutting the door.
A compromise might see 80 per cent of an allocation distributed through points, with 20 per cent reserved for a ballot among members. Regular travellers would receive a meaningful advantage, but occasional supporters would retain some possibility of attending. A ballot also removes one of the worst elements of the current process. It does not matter whether someone works at 10 am, has the fastest broadband or can access four devices. Eligible supporters register their interest during a fixed period, and tickets are then allocated. That would be calmer and more accessible, particularly for people who cannot sit refreshing a website during working hours.
It would also be honest. The current process is effectively a ballot anyway; only the random factor is whether Ticketmaster allows your screen to load at the correct second.
That brings us to a separate issue. Around 6,000 or 7,000 supporters trying to buy tickets should be nothing to Ticketmaster. This is one of the largest ticketing companies in the world, routinely handling events with demand many times greater than anything Lincoln City could generate. The platform fell over at 10 am on consecutive days. It returned at different times for different devices and allowed some supporters to progress while others were locked out. That is not simply a case of tickets selling quickly. It is a failure of the purchasing process.
Ticketmaster deserves criticism, but the club has not been removed entirely from scrutiny. We selected the supplier and adopted a policy that allowed thousands of supporters to access the same sale at the same time. That said, how much of an issue has it been over the last few seasons? We’ve been with Ticketmaster since what, 2020, and how often have we had this issue?
Some say the club should have received assurances that the system could cope, but surely selling more tickets in the same window for Cardiff and Reading last season proves it can. Perhaps on this occasion, Ticketmaster failed to deliver. If so, the club should be taking that up robustly with its ticketing partner.
It is difficult to simulate thousands of people repeatedly refreshing at once, but this is precisely the type of event the platform exists to handle. Supporters are entitled to expect better than a site that crashes at the point of maximum demand. Of course, a points system could spread traffic by creating smaller sales windows. A ballot would remove the rush completely. Both therefore offer technical advantages as well as arguments about fairness.
Yet both also create new problems.
As we’ve already covered with points, supporters might buy tickets they do not intend to use simply to protect their place. A ticket purchased in one person’s name could be passed to someone else, meaning the system rewards purchasing rather than attendance.
Scanning tickets at the turnstile might reduce that, but even then there would be circumstances to consider. Somebody could buy a ticket, fall ill on the day and pass it to another supporter at face value, as I did for Port Vale on the final day of the season. Should they (I) lose points despite having intended to go? Should they (I) get points having intended to go, but not gone?
What if a regular supporter breaks a leg and misses six weeks? What if they suffer a serious illness? What if a wedding, festival, work commitment or family emergency causes them to miss several matches? Some people will say that is simply unfortunate. They did not attend, so they should not receive the points. That is a perfectly defensible position, but it highlights what the system is actually measuring. It is measuring attendance, not loyalty, passion or the quality of somebody’s support.
There is a danger that the word loyalty becomes moralistic. A supporter attending 20 away matches is not automatically better than somebody attending two. They are more committed in terms of travelling, but personal circumstances determine what commitment looks like. A fan attending Carshalton away in 2011 does not mean he should receive priority over somebody who was not born then. I know this is a little facetious as a points system is either likely to start as a clean slate, or be backdated a season or two, but you get my drift. There will still be someone who says ‘yeah, but I was at North Ferriby in 2017’ and expects priority over someone who got on board after promotion and has since been to 50 away games. Somebody travelling home and away last season has a reasonable argument that recent attendance should count for something now.
Both positions can be true.
The club is also restricted by what it has already sold. Gold membership includes access to home league matches and priority for away sales. Whatever terminology we use, that priority is one of the product’s main benefits. Changing the rules now would be deeply unfair. Some supporters may have bought Gold specifically because they anticipated greater demand in the Championship. The club cannot suddenly tell them that priority now means something different.
Mind you, Gold members (sorry, Austin Powers just popped into my head) might complain that someone with a bronze membership shouldn’t be able to get a ticket at all ahead of them. Some with bronze memberships, perhaps bought because they live in Scotland and only attend five home games a season, might argue that the chance to scramble for a ticket to a game closer to them is a fair system. One man’s outrage is another’s delight (or women’s outrage).
What the club can do is use this season to prepare properly for the future. It can record away purchases, consult supporters and publish a clear proposal well before memberships are sold for 2027/28. If we chose not to go down a points system, which has often been floated, then a clear communication as to why, which has been done before, will maybe silence supporters.
Any consultation could include regular away travellers, exiles, parents, younger fans and supporters who attend only when money or work permits. No single group owns the definition of loyalty. However, the Fan Advisory Board is intended as a platform for people to raise these issues with the club, and perhaps they are the people to direct sensible and calm feedback to.
Also, let’s not forget that Middlesbrough is an exceptional event. This is Lincoln City’s first Championship away fixture since 1962. It is a moment in the club’s history, and we could probably have sold several thousand more tickets. Would the same match sell as quickly on a Tuesday night in December? Almost certainly not. Bristol City away in midweek is unlikely to inspire the same scramble. Some London fixtures will be popular, as will Sheffield United, Wolves and West Ham, but not every sale will resemble Middlesbrough. For every ‘big’ game, there will be a Preston away, or a team happy to give us 4,000 tickets, rather than the absolute minimum.
That is why I remain undecided on the best approach. I am not on the fan advisory board, and I am not directly affected right now by the debate. Like some of my good friends, I might not be as ambivalent had I missed out. People such as Karl, who went away to Exeter days after going away to Cardiff, but who won’t be at Middlesbrough, despite the rest of his crew getting tickets. If I were Karl, and not me, would I feel different? I said at the top of the piece, personal experience shapes reaction.
I understand the value of loyalty points. I can see the merit of a ballot. I also recognise why the existing membership windows appealed to the club and why they cannot be discarded during the season. My preference, if one is needed, would be some form of hybrid. Reward recent away attendance with access to the majority of tickets, but retain a portion for a members’ ballot so the system does not become entirely closed. Even that will upset people.
The blunt truth is that there are not enough tickets for this game. No policy can change that. Every system merely chooses how the disappointment is distributed. It’s not a problem we could have anticipated, and right now, it might not be a problem that arises until we face Sheffield United or West Ham. Even then, I had no issues getting tickets for Bramall Lane in the cup.
Ten years ago, thousands of Lincoln City supporters fighting over Championship away tickets would have sounded fanciful, but it was a problem back then. The scrum for Burnley tickets sticks out for me: handfuls being given out to fan groups to be distributed as they saw fit. The same arguments about loyalty. The same debates about a points system. While the current situation is a symptom of the progress, it is not new and Ticketmaster, for all its flaws, is better than standing in a queue at the ground in the rain, only to be told they’ve all gone.
The discussion will return when another major fixture goes on sale. It will be loud, emotional and shaped by individual circumstance. It will probably be much quieter when the tickets are for Bristol City on a Tuesday night.
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