The unofficial AFC Rushden & Diamonds messageboard

Just called up the ticket office and you will be issued with a receipt when you hand in your application form. You should be able to use the receipt at the turnstile for the reduced rate until you get your membership card.

Trek wrote:

Two of Diamonds wrote: Same goes for Cambridge Utd.

Cambridge United can offer standing for away supporters in the south end of the Habbin Terrace whereas we can't offer standing for away supporters and that's the difference.
Alty also can allow away supporters to stand on the terrace so they pay the same price as home terrace supporters.
The problem with Nene Park is that the only terrace standing is exclusive to home fans so a club membership scheme, which is effectively what the Trust membership is, is the only way around the new Conference regulations.

I think you've missed the point though. If the Conference have stated the club has to charge the same price for home and away fans, then why are other clubs charging at different rates to stand, compared to sit? It's not relevant to who is standing/ sitting where, cos if away fans are being charged less for standing then that's also against the policy. If the Conference have stated that you can't charge more for away fans than home across the board, then our club has whacked the prices up for the terrace.You're only looking at it from one side. And how does membership of a Trust or other scheme get "around it", it's not like it's a shared facility?? The casual fan will most likely turn up, find it's £17 and either walk away, or do it the once feeling they've been had and not come again. IMO it's been done poorly,

Two of Diamonds wrote: I think you've missed the point though. If the Conference have stated the club has to charge the same price for home and away fans, then why are other clubs charging at different rates to stand, compared to sit? It's not relevant to who is standing/ sitting where, cos if away fans are being charged less for standing then that's also against the policy. If the Conference have stated that you can't charge more for away fans than home across the board, then our club has whacked the prices up for the terrace.You're only looking at it from one side. And how does membership of a Trust or other scheme get "around it", it's not like it's a shared facility?? The casual fan will most likely turn up, find it's £17 and either walk away, or do it the once feeling they've been had and not come again. IMO it's been done poorly,

I think you've completely dismissed his point in favour of a conspiracy theory. We, along with FGR, are the only two teams in this division that cannot offer standing for away fans. The rest can, hence they are allow to charge a separate price for standing and sitting. If we could offer both, we wouldn't have this situation.

The alternative is to bring seating down in price to £14, like on the Terrace. I take it you'll be explaining to all the seated season ticket holders why they shouldn't have bothered to buy a season ticket since it now works out cheaper for them to pay on a game to game basis? Or that they bought their season ticket, which now works out at a far lower discount than advertised when purchased?


Anyway, let's ask the Conference. And if it turns out to be true, we all should send in our complaints to them in protest:

http://www.footballconference.co.uk/contact/

My understanding is that we have to charge the away fans no higher than our lowest rates for home fans. Our lowest rates were the debanke so away fans could only be charged 14 pounds but would sit in the south stand or Airwair. Now this would no doubt piss off our own fans that were charged 17 pounds for siiting in the South and North stands and may lead to home fans buying tickets in the away area to get a 3 pounds discount for seats.

We cant segregate the terraces like other clubs so they can still charge a separate price for standing and seating.

Mad Dog wrote:
I think you've completely dismissed his point in favour of a conspiracy theory. We, along with FGR, are the only two teams in this division that cannot offer standing for away fans. The rest can, hence they are allow to charge a separate price for standing and sitting. If we could offer both, we wouldn't have this situation.

Thank you Mad Dog. Saved me job of pointing out that Robin had the missed the point. ;)

Mad Dog wrote: I think you've completely dismissed his point in favour of a conspiracy theory. We, along with FGR, are the only two teams in this division that cannot offer standing for away fans. The rest can, hence they are allow to charge a separate price for standing and sitting. If we could offer both, we wouldn't have this situation.
The alternative is to bring seating down in price to £14, like on the Terrace. I take it you'll be explaining to all the seated season ticket holders why they shouldn't have bothered to buy a season ticket since it now works out cheaper for them to pay on a game to game basis? Or that they bought their season ticket, which now works out at a far lower discount than advertised when purchased?
Anyway, let's ask the Conference. And if it turns out to be true, we all should send in our complaints to them in protest:
http://www.footballconference.co.uk/contact/

It wasn't my intention to appear as a conspiracy theorist, I was merely asking for full clarification and evidence (which we still haven't seen for ourselves yet) that this is why the home standing price was hiked up to a level which will most likely result in a downturn of our own support. Something we should challenge IMO. You suggest we could have dropped the prices to terrace level then explain this away to our season ticket holders (who would still be paying less than £14 a game so it's still a saving), and there is a case for dropping on the gate seating prices but raising terrace prices a little and it would probably be more pallatable. Considering the matchday prices have only just been announced the season tiket holders brought their tickets based upon the discounted prices advertised at the time, not because of a future rise. There's still no explanation of how being a Trust member "get's around" this ruling, and people might want to know. I take your point about offering away fans both standing and seating, but it sort of flies in the face of the ruling as that shows preference to away fans, which is another wrong IMO.

Give Helen and the other people running our Club credit, Robin. If this is what they been told by the powers that be at the Conference I assume that they have looked at the wording in detail then we should accept it IMHO.

A lot of clubs run membership schemes whereby they can charge home fans less than away fans.
I recall speaking to Grimsby Ticket office back in 2004 when we played them at Blundell Park, in that relegation tussle, why we were being charged an amount for seating greater than home fans in an other area of the Stadium to be told well they have be to be a 'Mariner's club member'.

I agree that it might impact on attendances but I fail to see what our Club can do without being able to give away fans an area of terrace to ensure parity of prices.

Why don't you personally speak to Helen if you're still that upset?

Two of Diamonds wrote:

It wasn't my intention to appear as a conspiracy theorist, I was merely asking for full clarification and evidence (which we still haven't seen for ourselves yet) that this is why the home standing price was hiked up to a level which will most likely result in a downturn of our own support.

Along with FGR, we are the only other team who will be hit by this ruling. Forest Green incidently haven't announced their ticket prices. The rest won't mention it because it doesn't affect them in any great way.

Something we should challenge IMO. You suggest we could have dropped the prices to terrace level then explain this away to our season ticket holders (who would still be paying less than £14 a game so it's still a saving),

I'm talking about the seated season ticket holders. The terracing ones would not be a problem.

and there is a case for dropping on the gate seating prices but raising terrace prices a little and it would probably be more pallatable.

Depends. The lower you drop the price of a seating ticket, the value for money having a seated season ticket will become. The lowest you might be able to get away with could be £16 for a ticket meaning that buying a seated season ticket makes you just under three games better off than some who hasn't. £15 would only make a seated season ticket holder just over a game better off than had they bought a ticket match by match.

Now, you can argue they’ve been shafted over the disparity in savings between a seated and standing season ticket, and that’s true. But after this announcement, dropping prices too far could alienate them.

Looking at the wording of the article, the bit about the directive doesn’t really fit into it and has been added onto the end, as though it wasn’t actually going to be in the article.

It would suggest that what was in the first paragraph was going to be the planned prices, that of ticket prices going up by a pound, and this logically would have been planned back in April when season ticket prices and discounts were being worked out. Re – reading the article, the second paragraph doesn’t quite fit, it reads as more of an update to the original article. This lends further credit to this being something that was not planned by the club.


Of course I could be reading too much into the article. What I've just described is simply food for thought.

Considering the matchday prices have only just been announced the season tiket holders brought their tickets based upon the discounted prices advertised at the time, not because of a future rise. There's still no explanation of how being a Trust member "get's around" this ruling, and people might want to know.

Ok, fair point about the trust membership we haven't been given an explanation. From my own personal point of view, you could by stretching the offering of discounts that normally offered to trust members to the limit by including ticket discounts. This isn’t a new idea and is in practice at other clubs where tickets are cheaper through a membership scheme. I would guess it’s a loophole in the directive.

I take your point about offering away fans both standing and seating, but it sort of flies in the face of the ruling as that shows preference to away fans, which is another wrong IMO.

No it doesn't. It’s supposed to favour the away fans, that's why they've brought it in. The problem is they haven't taken into account our situation, which makes the whole thing a joke.

I'd still like to understand the Conference's reasoning for bringing in this measure when the Football League doesn't see it as necessary.

I would have understood it if they had insisted that away fans are offered seats at the same minimum price as home fans - thus getting rid of anomalies like we saw at Oxford where the home fans could have seats behind the goal for less than we had in the corner - but given there were only two teams who would be affected by this more strict ruling it seems very discriminatory.

Formic wrote:I'd still like to understand the Conference's reasoning for bringing in this measure when the Football League doesn't see it as necessary.

Tony, you appear to have the ear of the Club. Could I ask that you approach Helen for clarification of the Conference's reasoning for this regulation and then up post up here?