Remember when Amanda Staveley in the early days following the take-over committed to having the best supporter engagement in the country? And on his appointment, CEO Darren Eales made much of United being led by supporters in the development of the club under the new ownership?

I think we all became optimistic that the rancour and division which had calcified around Newcastle United under Mike Ashley’s toxic ownership would fall away and notwithstanding the controversies attendant in being 80% owned by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, we’d crack on albeit compromised, supporting the club, happy with its sky high ambitions etc.

Well, bubbling under the surface has been a growing dissatisfaction with how the club manages the sale and distribution of tickets which threatens to alienate a section of United’s hardcore support.

It’s probably not a good idea I share some of the comments made in a Wats App group I’m in with regulars at away games about United’s policies, attitude and tone deaf behaviour about ticket allocations. Comments about allocations for Luton (a) would likely burn the paint off the ceiling.

This is an area of the club’s operation that continues to fester and grow ever more toxic.

Before I dig into the nuts and bolts of what United is doing with ticketing, let’s say something about the practicalities. The move to a digital ticketing operation has created delays at the turnstiles and afforded no measurable benefit to supporters. None whatsoever. The exhortation to get to games earlier in order to cope with a new system isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of its success or a particularly great example of customer service. For many it’s a nuisance.

Then there’s the operation of the Box Office itself. Telephone calls take an inordinate time to be answered which suggests there is insufficient numbers of staff working there (and/or lines). That exacerbates the limitations of the club website and its weird idiosyncrasies which don’t exactly make life easier for supporters purchasing tickets online.

I’ve mentioned previously how appalling it is for supporters to be put through the ringer at away matches in proving their identity and I won’t forget quickly chatting to a middle-aged Mag at a city centre pub in Manchester, so anxious about not being able to prove he was the legitimate holder of an away ticket for the game at The Etihad he’d brought his passport to prove to persons unknown he is the right person in the away end. That just can’t be right. This is no way to treat the heart and soul of the club.

It can’t be right either that in the club’s desire to increase its membership numbers (widely viewed as an effort to scrape marketing data) with no concomitant increase in SJP’s capacity, it should introduce a ballot scheme with zero reference to previous ticket and season ticket buying history and thus make a mockery of Darren Eales claim on Wednesday evening to value local / loyal supporters.

There was reference to Borussia Dortmund having 180,000 members ‘ that’s great for them ‘ they also have a stadium with a capacity of 80,000 whereas ours is 52,000 so an unlimited membership scheme succeeds only in reducing the chances of members of getting tickets.

Although I got an invite to Wednesday night’s doo, circumstances prevented me from attending but I have to say the questions I submitted previously got nowhere near being answered concerning:

• numbers of tickets for aways going to staff, players, sponsors and corporate
• the weird and wonderful ways of the club website
• protection of supporter data and the quality assurance systems in place to ensure it is managed by those with the professional qualifications and experience to do so.

We did get some worrying references to what comes next and the priorities for the club in courting international fans (or tourists as we refer to them when they’re walking up to Old Trafford, Anfield, The Etihad et al burdened with merchandise from club shops).

All of that is very well when the stadium has capacity and I’m never going to argue about visitors coming to the city-region and the economic benefits that brings. I am going to take issue with it if it means local lads and lasses from the NE are priced out and can’t get into see the club of their birthright performing however. I will never apologise for insisting Newcastle United is the cap badge of our Geordie identity and belongs primarily to the people of the NE and its diasporas. I’m sorry if that upsets anyone and they want to take it personally (it’s not meant to) but I’m too much of a long in the tooth, legacy fan to think differently. It would sadden me greatly if the kids of Tyneside are further excluded from SJP on match day as they are from Salford, Bootle etc at Man Utd and Liverpool. I won’t be alone in these sentiments either.

Yes, we do need a bigger stadium but we can at least mitigate against a problem the club has largely created with an unlimited membership strategy which pays no heed to previous support – even in the last five years or some such.

I’ve been looking forward to the implementation of the Fans Advisory Board but I’ll confess to my heart sinking when I saw this reported from NUST in their update:

Fan Advisory Board (FAB)

Prior to the panel discussion, Head of Supporter Services, Sarah Medcalf, announced that the club would be releasing information about the FAB on Friday 24^th‘November. There will be an online application process for the open places available on the FAB, followed by interviews held on 12^th‘December. NUST will have two co-opted positions on the FAB.

I hope I’ve picked this up the wrong way but this is going pear-shaped right from the off. Worse it looks horribly like the risible Fans Liaison Committee which operated under the North Korean-style instruction of Lee Charnley, which had zero credibility.

I baulked at the point that Sarah Medcalf (Head of Supporter Services) would be interviewing potential members of the FAB. There is rich irony in this given Sarah was appointed to her current role (from a previous one with the Foundation) without fulfilling any selection process against a job description/set of objectives or indeed was interviewed for the post. The same is true of Yvette Thompson who has management responsibility for ticketing but appears to have a phobia to be a visible leader at Newcastle United. That they can apply a greater level of selection for the FAB’s voluntary roles is breathtaking. I should add neither has held a similar role to those they currently do at Newcastle United. All a bit weird compared to the headhunting of proven operators in other areas of the club.

Just a mad idea of mine but NUST should have been involved in the selection for the Head of Supporter Services role and the SLO (Supporters Liaison Officer) given the principle is engagement with supporters required to submit to a hoop jumping charade.

NUST will have two members on the FAB which is better than it was under Ashley-Charnley prior to it being binned off but that is an exceptionally low bar to measure anything against. I fear this is a re-hash of all of that.

It is crushingly disappointing as a group of supporters we don’t have any accountability (beyond NUST) it seems for a body with advisory in the title. This is so far away from what was hoped for and falls way short of the best practice adopted at other PL clubs (Liverpool for example).

I work from the basic premis that those who speak to the club as supporters should be representative and accountable to us. Right now only NUST fulfils that requirement though I’d support the specialist interests represented by NUDSA (Newcastle United Disability Supporters Association) and United With Pride being part of FAB to speak to those specific concerns.

Already, those outside of the NUST delegation have had a doubt cast over them as being compliant, place-men and women who will be giddy at sitting around the table with executives at the club, delighting in drinking tea from NUFC crockery once per month or whatever. We’ve had that before and it was an insult to us.

But back to ticketing ‘ no discussion about the rows of empty seats at aways with supporters who are desperate to travel away, stuck at home.

A curious response came regards tickets for sale on third party sites to suggest they are fakes. It might have been useful if this news had been shared earlier to prevent supporters being scammed at worst and angered at least. Though I’ll remain sceptical about that as it jars with the experience of some I know.

Likewise to my understanding there was zero reference to NUST’s survey about supporter experience which somewhat dilutes claims about listening to supporters.

And that’s before we get to a survey testing the water on what fans want with St James’ Park expansion or relocation to a new stadium.

I’m sceptical about what comes next for us as the rank and file supporters of Newcastle United in good times and mainly bad.

This isn’t what it said in the brochure as a certain KK said to Sir John Hall some thirty one years ago.

Prove me wrong United, please!

Keep On, Keepin’ On …

Michael Martin, @TFMick1892