Sunderland Boxing Day

How can we sell out but can still pay on gate? Or am I being thick?

 

Assume City have sold out their requested allocation, but still capacity available

 

Yes, isn't there a cost implication to the selling club if tickets go unsold?

 

What do away sides get at Sunderland?

 

Yes, effectively City buy at a discounted price and take the risk on sales.

 

A point if they're lucky

 

Around 3k.

 

Away fans (in theory) have the whole North Upper available to them, which is roughly 3-4,000 seats. It's been rare this season for a team to bring more than 2,000. This season, the Upper Tier for home fans has been closed due to lack of demand (much to the amusement of Newcastle fans), so there's no actual segregating barrier between fans up there, it's more a limitation of entrance / exits, stewarding, etc. To be honest, it makes the atmosphere a bit crap, because away fans are tucked out of the way with no-one to have any back-and-forth with. The roof is really low up there and the acoustics are crap; so you get little rabbles of away fans (500 - 1,000) who claim they were "probably the loudest the stadium had ever known" and yet we wouldn't hear a peep out of them. Will be much better long-term to get away fans back in the lower bowl.

Boxing Day, the upper tier is open again, so there will have to be a upper limit on pay-on-the-gate away fans, as there will need to be a segregating barrier with the home fans up there. My guess is that you'll probably get an extra 1-2,000 tickets. Which would take you up to the edge of the North West Upper. Not sure what they'll do if more than that turn up.

 

Cheers for that.

I was wondering what would happen if more turn up but we don’t always have the biggest away following but generally a solid 1000 at most “nearby” games.

I reckon around 3000 will make the trip.

Had your lot down to win the league at the start of the season. Still fancy you to do it. Do you?

 

3,000 usually.

We've sold 40,000 tickets and selling around 1,000 a day (expected to be 43,000+ SAFC fans) so they've might capped it short to fit the demand for home fans. Either that or BCFC doesn't want to take the risk of getting more tickets which could go unsold.

Yes. 2 games in hand on Portsmouth. Portsmouth this weekend. Only 2 points behind if we win. Keep the faith.

 

We're grinding out wins without necessarily blowing teams away beyond little spells; first 30 minutes against Barnsley we were 3-0 up and it was "Olé!" football, but then we made it really hard for ourselves. Some quality players in the team (Maja has scored 12 goals from 16 shots on target), and some big players like Watmore & Wyke heading back from injury, so the expectation should be for us to be there or thereabouts. If it all clicks into place, and that first 30 mins v Barnsley becomes the norm rather than the exception, then we should cruise away with it. At the moment though, it's the slog I think we were all realistically expecting.

Game against Portsmouth on Saturday is a good test of where we're at.

 

A mackem colleague has been saying that geordies have been frequenting the away end at the Stadium of Light on a regular basis this season - is that true? I went to a Sunderland match against Liverpool when I was studying in Newcastle and they managed to make a decent bit of noise so hopefully busier home and away end adds to the atmosphere as a whole.

Sunderland are the latest in a long line of clubs like Wolves, Bolton, Blackburn who are on decline and "bottom out" when they reach L1. Always expected you guys to be up there and with the injured players that you mention coming back, I think you'll have more than enough to finish top 2. Wyke is definitely likely to score if he features - has a good knack for scoring on an occasion i.e. debut, big crowd, Sky game etc.

 

One of our fanzines (Roker Report) have a Twitter thread going where they add new photos in each game. Mags in away end at the SOL or in the home end at away games. Was a fairly steady stream earlier in the season. I don't get it myself. I try not to think of them up the road too much; if they want to put money into our club, let them crack on.

Hope so.
We've not really seen Wyke yet. Bought him injured, he came on a month or so into the season against Oxford and looked off the pace (still scored though), and then got completely wiped out with a crazy tackle by Burton's goalkeeper a few games later. I don't think anyone quite expected Maja to be as clinical as he has been, so it's an interesting challenge for Jack Ross to accommodate Wyke when he's fit. He'd probably have to change the system to play them both up top, which is a bit of a risk.

 

Tell you what John. If it seems a bit of a risk to pair up Maja with Charlie boy when he is fit, just send him back down to us on loan for the rest of the season, we will look after him for you!

 

Beat Scunthorpe with a performance like against Walsall and easy 3k will travel. Nice for those who might have been undecided to have the option on boxing Day and thinking, "I'm not that hungover, might go watch City turn Sunderland over"

 

Lad whom I work with, through a friend whom works directly at bcfc ticket office, said full allocation is 2,800 with segregation involved.

Just short of 2,200 sold.

 

Top man ! Much appreciated think I’ll stay the week

 

Look what happens when a big club comes to town.