Planet Swans ArchivesI can genuinely see both sides of this argument. It makes my blood boil when people take this club for a ride but I can also understand that there are now people who genuinely will struggle to get into matches. The club have acknowledged that it is the genuine cases who will suffer the most. The main problem appears to have come from the fact that you only have to be on a part time course to get the necessary student card. This has been the case for quite some time – I had a student card when I was about 23 or 24 as I was doing a course in college for work. I wouldn’t necessarily class anybody in this situation as misusing the scheme more that they are just using a student card to take advantage of the scheme. I do remember I’m sure that the season tickets for students could only be purchased on production of something to say you were undertaking a full time course.
I fail to see or understand how a passport to leisure can be misused but I guess that there must be a way somewhere. As with most schemes no matter how fool proof you believe they are there is usually a way around it somehow even if it isn’t always legal!!
I don’t believe that anyone should take advantage of the club but surely there must have been a better way around the situation. The best one that I have read is to make discounts only available for tickets purchased before match day in the club shop. This could work with people having to show the necessary documentation to buy the ticket where a couple of minutes is easily spent checking that it is a genuine case. What we could implement from then on in to ensure that each person then doesn’t have to do the same every game I do not know. It does seem a shame that we may lose some people from the gates because of the abuse of some and there are genuine cases that should maybe be looked at.
However, I would also add that there is little we can do about people getting in cheaper than they should. I know that the board has done a lot of work in stopping complimentaries being given out willy nilly and obviously there is this but where do you stop. Lets not forget that 17 and 18 year olds get in for under 16 prices (and I defy anyone out there to say that they didn’t at least try that once!) but you can’t stop it. Maybe we just have to accept the fact sometimes that it happens and providng it doesn’t get too widescale then so be it?
I accept the fact that there were around 500 people for the Oxford game and that has cost us £2500 in gate income. But we now need over 270 of these to come back on Saturday at full price to prevent us being worse off.
As I said at the start I can understand why the board have done it and no-one should take advantage of the football club but I honestly don’t think they could win with this decision – it was always guaranteed to bring criticism. And most certainly you will never stop some misuse somewhere at the turnstile or something or other.
It’s a bold and brave move by the board – lets hope that they come up with their solution for the genuine cases and if you have been taking advantage then pay the full price – its still the same Swans after all.
Failing that buy some student accommodation in William Street – at least you get one more season 😉
