11 Comments

Thousands miss Spurs game

seats33Thousands of season ticket holders were missing on Saturday as the Hammers on Spurs at the London Stadium. The London derby was a category A game with 56,988 tickets sold so technically a sell-out but thousands of seats were empty throughout the game.

Sky TV cameras picked up thousands of empty white seats at kickoff and many of these remained vacant during the whole game.

Many missed the early kickoff due to a combination of public transport issues and long search queues at the bridges. The ticket office queue was also the longest it has ever been at the London Stadium causing others to be late.

West Ham had hoped that a new rule potentially revoking season tickets after seven missed games together with a new promotion of the ticket exchange and ticket forwarding would improve the empty seat situation this season.

Around 5,000 season ticket holders were replaced this season after non-renewal but it is obvious thousands more are not turning up to every game or taking advantage of ticket exchange of forwarding functions.

 

 

About Sean Whetstone

I am Season Ticket Holder in West stand lower at the London Stadium and before that, I used to stand in the Sir Trevor Brooking Lower Row R seat 159 in the Boleyn Ground and in the Eighties I stood on the terraces of the old South Bank. I am a presenter on the West Ham Podcast called MooreThanJustaPodcast.co.uk. A Blogger on WestHamTillIdie.com a member of the West Ham Supporters Advisory Board (SAB), Founder of a Youtube channel called Mr West Ham Football at http://www.youtube.com/MrWestHamFootball, I am also the associate editor here at Claret and Hugh. Life Long singer of bubbles! Come on you Irons! Follow me at @Westhamfootball on twitter

11 comments on “Thousands miss Spurs game

  1. As a few people said to Gold on twitter recently, it’s all well and good having a ticket exchange where 80% of the exchange price goes into the transfer kitty, but what’s the point if they don’t spend it? And if it’s all for the benefit of the club and fans, why not make it 100%?

  2. It is 90% and the other 10% goes to Ticket master as an admin fee but I would agree 100% would be better and pay TM out of the profit from selling the ticket again

  3. Few empty seats around me which I was very surprised about given the opposition. Also, don’t know if Sky picked up on it but glad to see MotD didn’t, on 0 -3 loads of fans headed for the exit with half an hour to go.

  4. Not sure if I am typical but as away on holiday in Sardinia put my ticket on ticket exchange as soon as was able but it was not taken up; so not sure where the multitudes of fans wanting a ticket for each game are!

  5. I am pretty certain that picture was not taken during the game. There really were not many seats empty on Saturday in my opinion. 100% not the extent shown in the photo.

  6. I agree with LJ about the photo. From the East Stand that was not what I saw on Saturday; what time of day was it taken? I’ve got to say Sean along with that, I think there are a few other serious non sequitors or misdirects in the article.
    “Many missed the early kickoff due to a combination of public transport issues and long search queues at the bridges. The ticket office queue was also the longest it has ever been at the London Stadium causing others to be late”

    I didn’t see that, again, but OK, so how does that lead us on to

    “West Ham had hoped that a new rule potentially revoking season tickets after seven missed games together with a new promotion of the ticket exchange and ticket forwarding would improve the empty seat situation this season”

    in the very next sentance? On the one hand your saying there were empty seats because we turned up and couldn’t get in, on the other hand your saying there’s a problem because we’re not turning up. Which one is it? Or is it both? In which case the story boils down to ‘here’s a photo of empty seats, at some point during the day. Some fans were delayed and others might not have been able to go for other reasons’

    Anyway, the bottom line is, the fans turn up more often than the team does. They salvaged some pride after the second half on Saturday but there’s a few in the team need to look at Zabelletta if they want to know how you get to win a title or play Champions League footblall.

  7. You can take that type of picture shortly after half-time when people are still down in the concourses or queueing for the loo. It looked pretty full from where I was sitting in the 1966 seats.

    The only thing of note that I saw was from the section down in front of us where at least half a dozen people had collapsed seats and were standing in the aisles with their seats in their hands – it was very odd, maintenance guys were quickly on the scene with powered screwdrivers and repaired the seats – it was a though problems with the seats were expected.

  8. Sean-have to say I also disagree. Maybe a couple of hundred seats but certainly not 1000’s. But I do agree a large number of fans left at 3 – 0 but they are not true WHU fans. They are “tourists” and the sooner they give up their seats for true fans the better.
    On the subject of seats, i have a seat in 138 (A Band) in the East Stand. Immediately to my left are around 12 seats all with the name of a single individual attached to the underside. Even for a top grade game such as Saturday, there were 4 seats empty. For normal matches, 8 or 9 of the seats are empty. This is disgraceful and is denying true fans the chance of a ticket. Sean – if anyone at the club is interested I am quite happy to provide exact seat number details.
    Finally, the security searches on the bridge that I crossed worked very well and was certainly a vast improvement on last season.

    • I didn’t go to the Spurs game but I can fully understand those who left at 0-3 and I have done the same at times. You cannot say that they are not true West Ham fans. They may have been regular attenders for decades and just find it hard to take much more on a particular day. The ones who walk out could argue that the ones who stay behind are simply not as passionate as they are or just want to see as many goals regardless which side score them. Not me of course.

  9. Sensationalism journalism there😉

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