Newport v Eastleigh: Sat 6th January 15:00

[Bruce Forbes]

Dec 18, 2023 18:39:01 GMT county1 said:

With respect, I was trying to explain the logistics of the situation with the away end and the fact that it holds 1031 supporters. I realise that we are not going to sell out the home tickets but I don’t think it’s hard to understand that you can’t randomly give extra sections depending on numbers regardless of services offered and h & s issues.
As I said, there are specific entrance and exit points for away fans that you will see on the ground guidelines. There are also permanent barriers and restrictions in place that cannot be moved to allow an extra 200. That would have health and safety implications for catering facilities, toilets and walkways for home supporters in and out of the stadium. This has all been agreed along stringent EFL guidelines with police, emergency services etc. Unfortunately, it’s not possible at this level to simply give another few hundred tickets in another part of the ground.
A similar situation arises when Swindon and Wrexham sell out their allocation and is not unusual in the EFL. We sold our allocation of tickets for Wrexham this Saturday in two hours and understood that we couldn’t then ask Wrexham if we could have more seats in their brand new temporary stand elsewhere in the ground. I realise they will sell out anyway but you simply can’t have groups of away fans randomly seated in sections of the ground for all the reasons mentioned.
We had a crowd of 7326 for our ‘great escape’ match v Notts Co in 2017, they didn’t sell their away allocation but we understood that we never going to get an extra 400 tickets in the away end!
I’ve really done my best to explain the situation so will leave it there for this forum. Good luck for the rest of the season - apart from 6 Jan of course!

Thank you, Mr county1, for you explaining the situation. 
I’m sure that, win, lose or draw, it will be a great day for both clubs. 
By the way, your pen name leads me to believe that you must be Newport’s leading accountant!

[tenacres]

[tenacres]

Well county1, I have been to a few league 2 grounds (Wrexham, Swindon, Crewe, Grimsby & FGR spring to mind) and all of them offer more than 1 option for away capacity and they are all able to cater for at least 15% for away fans which FA cup rule 191 specifies.

I understand from a friend of mine who regularly visits RP that both ends of the ground were not finished and are basically temporary uncovered stands which presumably explains why your away capacity is set so low. If you could add a bit more capacity to the end behind the goal that would allow you to offer 15% & potentially offer the entire Bisley road stand to home fans on occasions when there is a smaller away following. This would benefit both home fans away fans and your club as a whole. Hopefully you will do this. I have heard of another team based in Wales that have also had a bugbear about away allocations at RP (I'll let you guess which club that is!). I am aware that FA Cup rules are different to EFL rules.

I appreciate these matters are not settled by fans discussing on forums and as such have contacted the football supporters association about this, who advised I contact Newport county FC and the English & Welsh FA which I have done.

[bomber]

I'm right in suggesting that over half of our glory hunters, sorry away support, will be in the uncovered end. Hopefully it won't bucket down. 😃

[fairoakfan]

Dec 21, 2023 1:50:09 GMT bomber said:

I'm right in suggesting that over half of our glory hunters, sorry away support, will be in the uncovered end. Hopefully it won't bucket down. 😃

So, Chuckles, do you want the fans to go to the match or would you rather they did not?
A few years ago you would have played in front of a couple of hundred, this subject has been covered a million times, you sound very bitter. Let the GLORY HUNTERS as you call them make their own minds up whether they want to go to more away games , it’s not down to you, I bet a lot of them have a great day and then want to do more away trips. The club is gaining momentum all the time, you can’t expect 500 or so to go every time , if you love the day out and can spare the time good on you, Eastleigh isn’t Man Utd. Just embrace the cup run and dream of your 500 plus crowd halfway up the country on a wet Tuesday evening..

[bomber]

Dec 21, 2023 18:37:54 GMT fairoakfan said:

Dec 21, 2023 1:50:09 GMT bomber said:

I'm right in suggesting that over half of our glory hunters, sorry away support, will be in the uncovered end. Hopefully it won't bucket down. 😃

So, Chuckles, do you want the fans to go to the match or would you rather they did not?
A few years ago you would have played in front of a couple of hundred, this subject has been covered a million times, you sound very bitter. Let the GLORY HUNTERS as you call them make their own minds up whether they want to go to more away games , it’s not down to you, I bet a lot of them have a great day and then want to do more away trips. The club is gaining momentum all the time, you can’t expect 500 or so to go every time , if you love the day out and can spare the time good on you, Eastleigh isn’t Man Utd. Just embrace the cup run and dream of your 500 plus crowd halfway up the country on a wet Tuesday evening..

Bitter? I go to a lot of away games so I'm not missing out, and yes they ARE glory hunters. Those that only do away games when it's either an important fixture or heavily subsidised. I've turned up at Borehamwood and there's been about 35 Eastleigh fans there. We're all asking each other why do we bother? Because it doesn't help the team with such pitiful support. Aldershot brought 400 for an FA trophy game, a much bigger proportion of their average home support than we'd muster for a similar fixture. The vast majority of those who might have a "great day" as you put it are probably long standing season ticket holders who've had years to do more away games but usually don't because they're either bone idle or tight as the gap between two coats of paint. You'll see, on January 24th, Borehamwood away, no subsidised transport, bet we don't get 50 fans attending. It must be heart breaking for Mr Donald to have his goodwill gesture chucked in his face when people decide to stay at home rather than use their own funds to support the Spitfires.

[fairoakfan]

So really what you’re saying is your fellow season ticket holders are the ones that are looking at a cheap day out and don’t put themselves out. Well I don’t fall into that category , as I say I am a supporter of around 10 years, I don’t do all games, yeah maybe I look for a match against an ex league club rather than a smaller or similar sized club much the same as Eastleigh, yes I would look out for a great cup tie and go to that. Doesn’t mean i don’t support the club any less, I applaud you and the fact you go to probably everything, it’s horses for courses, I split my time with watching Saints, as a lot do , the fact is there are a lot more Eastleigh fans now than there ever has been. If we get promotion then naturally you will get more people going to home and away, then the higher you go the more bums on seats you would get, the better teams you would play the better the stadium etc . Just support in your own way, if you choose to go then great .

[bomber]

Dec 23, 2023 20:33:50 GMT fairoakfan said:

So really what you’re saying is your fellow season ticket holders are the ones that are looking at a cheap day out and don’t put themselves out. Well I don’t fall into that category , as I say I am a supporter of around 10 years, I don’t do all games, yeah maybe I look for a match against an ex league club rather than a smaller or similar sized club much the same as Eastleigh, yes I would look out for a great cup tie and go to that. Doesn’t mean i don’t support the club any less.

Literally by definition it does.