24/02/07

I raised the issue of the lengthy queues at a board meeting on Wednesday.

I argued that after the Yeovil game the club gave an undertaking to ensure the long queues would not happen again, the Orient game had similar size queues.

We had a lengthy discussion and the following points came out.

The Yeovil game was different as there were issues with the ticketing system and a lot of people turning up did not have there ST's this lengthened the queues.

If the Orient game was an ordinary game with no £5 special tickets the queues would not have occurred, the main reason for delay was that ST holders buying their guests £5 tickets obviously wanted to get their seats as close to them as possible, this extended the length of transaction time.

As this was a night game the time of people arriving was condensed into an approx 2 hour window, although all windows were open the ticket office struggled from approx 7:15 when there was a walk up of over 1000 meaning each window had to carry out 100 transactions in 30 minutes.

The tickets had been on sale for approx 4 weeks if people took the offer up within that period it would have lessened the problem, I pointed out that an offer like this that was payable on the night could lead to floating fans attending at the last minute, that is why I felt it was key to continue to allow tickets to be bought on the night.

I along with other fans felt the original apology put out by the club was trying to apportion blame on the MSC and fans, I asked if a further statement could be put out explaining the events of the night and clarifying when tickets for future special games would be on sale, the club put out a statement titled Q Tips (naff name if you ask me)

We discussed how to overcome the problem

In future stop sale of the cheap tickets in a day in advance, I argued this will stop fans who want to walk up on the day, therefore it was agreed that the tickets will go off sale at approx 90 minutes before special offer games.

Some ideas and responses how to shorten the queues were discussed as below

• More windows open
• All windows were open and manned
• Window in the marketing dept open
• There are no ticket machines available
• Cash at the turnstiles (For security reasons this cant happen)

If anyone has any good ideas as to how we can tackle the problem drop me a line and I will pass the ideas on.

I also had several letters complaining about customer service from the ticket office on the night, the correct procedure is to write to Rick Bradbrook C/O The Den, Zampa Road, London SE16 3LN

As I have had a fair few I have passed them on directly, obviously we as fans deserve to be treated with courtesy when dealing with the club, on the flip side staff at the club work under extreme pressure at times especially just before kick off, so if there are any issues I believe it is best to raise them in the correct way.