I RECEIVED an email this morning. Some of you may have received the same email. If not, you may have possibly noticed it mentioned in passing on Twitter. To be honest, I found out about it from Twitter before I saw the email. Don’t check my emails that often at the moment, they only ever seem to be trying to sell me something.
Ironic, that. Really. Fucking. Ironic.
The tweet came from Mathilde Delamotte. You’ll find her on @Delamotte_m. I don’t know Mathilde, I’ve never met her. I follow her on Twitter, although I didn’t realise that I did until I saw the tweet.
So #LFC prevented fans from taking main stand seats at the last game, just so they could sell them 200£ a few weeks later…
— Mathilde Dlm (@MathildeDlm) July 9, 2016
I was prepared to knee-jerk. I’m quite happy to knee jerk. Ask anyone. I held back; thought: “Well, there’s no confirmation and stories like this keep doing the rounds.”
I tweeted back: “Are they selling them? Thought they’d all been skipped the day after. I’d have happily bought mine on the day.” Then I decided to do some digging. Surely an idea this ludicrous could only be scaremongering. Like the anti-Brexit arguments. EXACTLY like the anti-Brexit arguments, if you get my drift.
I found an image. An image of a seat in a box. A red seat in a box. A seat with the number 134 on it. Not sure how many people sat in seat 134. Loads of them. How many rows were there in the Main Stand? I’ve no idea whose seat 134 this was. Nor do the club. It’s just a seat, isn’t it?
And you can own this seat. This fairly random seat 134 in its nice black presentation box. This “limited edition product” in its “Iconic Presentation box” with its “Certificate of authenticity” and a “Main Stand history booklet” which will be “Despatched in a protective delivery sleeve via DPD (UK) with the “Product to be despatched from week commencing 15 August”.
The product. The fucking product.
The price should be £225 but the “Season Ticket Holders & Members Price” is £200. Which is nice. Saving £25 there.
The last home game of the season. Remember the last home game of the season? I’ve got to be honest, if you had asked me about it I couldn’t have told you what it was. Had to check the closing chapters of my book (They Say Our Days Are Numbered out August 14). And, yes, I do understand the utter irony/hypocrisy of me getting in a plug for my book while I’m about to rail, and I mean really RAIL against unbridled commercialism, greed and lack of consideration for the human spirit but sod it, I need the money a hell of a lot more than Liverpool FC does).
Chelsea. 1-1. Can’t really remember the game, can’t be bothered checking. It’s not important. What’s important is this: It was the last day of the old Main Stand.
We knew this. It might not have received the worldwide coverage that the last day of the ‘storied’ Boleyn Ground garnered but, God knows, it saw a hell of a lot more glory.
We’d waited for announcements all season. We’d had our chance to pick our new seats and, if desiring, remain as close to our current location as possible. I desired to, I did. Some of us were lucky. We thought there may be a chance that we may be able to buy our seats. Take them home with us. Display them, cherish them, keep our memories.
We thought that the club may have the foresight/sense/wisdom to sell the seats to us. Let us pay in advance and reserve our seats to be collected. OUR seats. Not just seats but OUR seats. The actual seats that we sat in, that our hearts belonged to. OUR part of Anfield. We thought the club may charge, say….£50, donate all proceeds to Alder Hey or some other, club-linked, charity. No. Nothing. No word at all.
As the game ended, you heard the noise start. A cracking. A splintering. The sound of those who had chosen to take their seats. You may have seen the newspaper coverage the next day, the next week. West Ham fans had “sought souvenirs from the Boleyn Ground” in as romantic a manner as possible. Us? Thieving Scouse Bastards as per normal, thanks.
The announcement came. “This is a public service announcement for all supporters in the Main Stand. Unauthorised removal of club property is theft and you may be arrested.”
Theft. So the club agree with the Daily Mail on that one. The ones further back were undeterred. Seat backs vanished into jackets and wended their way through Stanley Park to a permanent home. I’ll be honest, if I’d been more prepared I’d have had a tool kit with me to help disassemble my seat. I wasn’t. I didn’t. And the steward standing 10 feet from me and staring at all around made my mind up. Still, I hopped over the seat back and flexed my knee against it. Just to see if there was any give. Any subtle give. There wasn’t.
And I thought: “This was my dad’s. This seat was my dad’s. This season ticket was my dad’s. He wanted me to have this and I have it. I’m not losing my dad’s season ticket for a piece of wood.”
So I took a photo of the seat and I took a photo of the view from the seat, because the view next season will be slightly different, and I headed to a traffic jam leading to a recording of The Pink. I’d half-thought that I would enter the studio with a seat in my hands as a conversation starter. I didn’t. We spoke about Eden Hazard’s goal instead. I didn’t get my dad’s seat.
Main Stand. Turnstile U or V 1-4 Block M8 Row 6 Seat 92. My dad’s seat. I’ve told this story before but for those who didn’t read it, I’ll recap. We lost our dad in November 2013. He’d attended his last game some time before. West Brom. Hoped for the Real game, hoped for the Chelsea game. Couldn’t do them.
When he saw his last game he didn’t know it was his last game. He thought he’d seen his last game the season before. He wasn’t well and his eyesight was going. He considered not renewing his season ticket but he kept it. He kept it in the hope that I could continue it. Because that’s important isn’t it? That legacy, that passing on of the torch, that instillment of passion? That’s what we’re about, isn’t it?
And I kept it. I sat in it all last season. My first season as a season-ticket holder in my own name being the last season that seat would be there. I found something quite poetic in that, something that spoke of transition while retaining history.
And you know what? Anfield were brilliant. To be precise, the Anfield ticket office were brilliant. There were stories that warned that you shouldn’t admit to the ticket change, that you should keep your mouth shut and just keep going, that there were people in the Main Stand who were still miraculously match-going at the age of 125. But the light on the ticket thing at the gates? Flashed amber instead of green. So I rang the club. I rang them in January and it took them until August but they did it. They changed the ticket into my name. It didn’t go to a tour company, it didn’t pass on to somebody different each week, it passed on to me. As it should, as he wanted.
I don’t know how many times the Main Stand has been redeveloped since the early fifties when my dad started his lifetime pilgrimage to Anfield, I don’t know how many times he moved seats. I know that he sat in this seat for as long as I can currently remember. I know that the grooves on the edge of the seat back come from his back along with the feet of whoever sat beside him. I know that the seat held his weight. I know that he sat in it, rose from it, sat in it, rose from it, acclaimed glory and endured defeat for decades.
Taking that seat home would be taking a part of my dad home. And there are lots of parts of my dad here. His photo is to my left, I have his watch, his ties, some of his books, a suitcase he used for holidays before I was born. I have him. I always have him. But the seat? The seat was a link. It was a link to Liverpool and to what we shared. Specifically, what we shared. We shared that view and that seat and the camaraderie of those who sat near us. And I know that those who sat near us have the same stories. I know that pretty much every season-ticket holder has a similar story. Every single seat has a story. Every single seat is personal.
Don’t get me wrong here. Anfield are capable of doing fine things. Sorting my season ticket obviously but the stones in the new walkway? They’re great. The stones are great. I’d hoped that the club would do something along those lines from the day that my wife organised her father’s stone at Goodison — it’s genuinely a beautiful thing to have. Buying the stone was obvious. And the message our kid decided should go on it? Magnificent.
This though? This selling of ‘a piece of LFC history’? It’s disgusting. It’s a new low from a club that I thought couldn’t show itself more insensitive to the fans’ feelings than it did over the ticket price fiasco. This is worse. To me, this is much, much worse. This is a disgrace. This is a sign that there is somebody in the club’s commercial department that doesn’t get it. Or, that there is simply ABSOLUTELY NOBODY who DOES get it.
There’s a lack of understanding here that is staggering in its depth. There’s a lack of empathy to what this club actually MEANS to the fans who have paid for season tickets for decades. There appears to be nobody at the club who has had the foresight to realise that the seats have value to the fans who have sat in them. All they have seen is that these seats, these generic seats, this fucking PRODUCT has generic ‘value’. There is money to be made here. There’s no place for sentiment. There’s money to be made. It’s as wrong-headed as business ever gets. It’s as lacking in humanity as commerce manages.
And, again, don’t get me wrong. Thirty years in retail. I know how to sell stuff. I’m bloody good at selling stuff. I understand that we’re viewed as customers by the men who run the business. Not fans; customers. And I’m genuinely okay with that idea. I’ve defended the club on that concept quite a few times. “We should be told what’s going on behind the scenes.” Why? Why should we be told? Because we’re fans, because we give them money? Justin Bieber fans will claim the same allegiance to their love as we to ours. And, yes, they’re completely bloody different because theirs isn’t going to transcend the ephemeral and enter history while ours has, but we still have no say over how the business is run, how the money is spent, who gets the top jobs.
And I’m fine with that.
These seats aren’t about commerce though. These seats are about having the chance to show that the club can do the right thing for the fans. They did the right thing for me with my season ticket, I applaud them for that, I make sure — in my own little way — that people know that they did that; that they’re not as heartless as they’re often painted.
This was a chance for them to show that on a large scale. £50 for the seat? Money to Alder Hey? Sound, where do I sign? Will cash do? Sorted. How beautiful gesture would that be?
£225 for A seat. Capital A. A seat. Just A generic seat, one of thousands. A seat in a box with a booklet. Hideous.
And there are people on Twitter who agree with this viewpoint. And there are those that don’t.
I've got a genuine picture of my seat and 30+ years of memories in my head. So, thanks but no thanks @LFC.
— Andrew Molyneux (@appm77) July 9, 2016
…My mates dad sat in the same seat in the Main stand for donkeys years. Them fans should be given their old seat.
— Peter Simpson (@PeterSimmoYNWA) July 9, 2016
alternatives: Give away? Allow people to rip them out on the day? STHs bought football, not a seat. Optional. Relax.
— Gurthie Aperture (@FreakinLickem) July 9, 2016
I don’t know if it breaks down by location, I’ve not looked. I’m not going to, I’m not interested in us vs them, Scouse vs Wools — I’m not here for that. There are those who say “why do you want it?” I hope I’ve explained that. I hope I’ve explained it on behalf of a lot of us because I know, I bloody KNOW, I’m not alone. There are those who say “but you’re just renting that seat”, that you have no ownership. There are those that point out that we’re being asked to pay £225 for a seat that we’ve already paid thousands for but it’s not even that.
We’re not being asked to pay for THAT seat, we’re being asked to pay for A seat. For SOMEBODY’s seat. Not ours. There are those who think FSG are appalling. I don’t agree with that, I think they’ve got this very, very wrong and I don’t think there’s any way out of it. And there’s the old “if you don’t like it, don’t buy it”. And that’s also not the point.
The point is this: seat 92. Show me a seat 92. Show me one of the, what, 70, 80, 90, seat 92s? I reckon I could pick mine out. But you can’t. It’s in an iconic presentation box in a warehouse.
Seat 134. That seat you’re using to advertise this whole bloody thing? Whose seat 134 was that? Which row was it in? Who sat in it? Who was his favourite player? What was the best match he ever saw? Was his name ever called on the tannoy? Did he ever have to leave the ground for a birth or an illness? Did he stand on it for St Etienne or Chelsea or Dortmund? Did he slump on it against Arsenal? What did he feel? What did he see? What did he remember? You have no idea, do you? On every conceivable level you have no bloody idea.
We’ll sell you a seat. You can buy a piece of history. And it’s not like selling the bricks from the Kop. I’m not having that one. And I didn’t want a brick from the Kop. I didn’t stand on the bricks, I didn’t touch the bricks. Each brick was one of thousands. Millions. Many. Each seat wasn’t. Each seat was worn down by us, by our loved ones, each seat held the magic. And you pulled them apart and threw them on the ground and you put them in storage and then you placed them in iconic presentation boxes and called them product. They’re not fucking product. They’re people’s lives and hopes and memories. They’re the moments that they loved and everything that they gave to the game and the game gave to them.
So, the season ticket holders and the members get the first chance to buy A seat from the Main Stand. And you can get my seat and I can get his seat and he can their seat and somebody who is a member but hasn’t been lucky enough to get to the game yet (and there’s nothing wrong with that, that’s all tied into not having the foresight to go big in the nineties) can have your seat.
But that’s okay, isn’t it? Because they’re all just seats. They’re all just product.
I love my club. I adore Liverpool FC. I’ve never been as disgusted by anything that the business of Liverpool has done as I am right now.
They just don’t get it do they?
“I’ve never been as disgusted by anything that the business of Liverpool has done as I am right now.”
They did the same with the Kop when it was changed. Sold off bits in glass boxes with a plaque.
I’m not defending them but let’s not pretend this is something new.
Never posted before to be honest but felt compelled to after reading this,totally agree mate they just don’t get it,they should have offered the season ticket seats up for free to those who wanted to take the option up,Let’s be honest there are thousands of other seats in the main stand which could be boxed up and sold on, I think it comes down to owners/management being on a totally different wavelength to the man on the street/shop floor simple as that,right said my peace time for Jim beam…..
“I’ve never been as disgusted by anything that the business of Liverpool has done as I am right now.”
Don’t remember Hicks and Gillet then and their idea of business (in Liverpool’s name) and what they did to the club?
Roll on the real matter of football and football matches.
Enlighten us on exactly what Gillet and Hicks did?
Tell us what you know about RBS’s involvement and any details of the hearings held in private, and of the settlement FSG paid out?
There are a number of excellent books on the subject in addition to SoS comprehensive website but this Echo article should be brief enough to give you a flavour:
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/hicks-gillett-living-nightmare-liverpool-10269266
I would say that the decision by LFC to take on debts totalling £30m a year in interest was a poorer decision with far greater ramifications. I was more disgusted by that, and the people that LFC sold itself to, than I for one am by this.
Not one to normally get on the club’s back quickly but this is a disgrace. After the ticket fiasco this was a chance to prove they’d learned, that they knew how importance the role and bond supporters have is.
They should have given them away to Season Ticket holders. Instead they’ve scored another massive own goal.
Absolutely brilliant piece mate, shocking some of the decisions made at our club, the fans should have offered to buy their seats with an offer to buy them boxed if required for and cost but deffo a donation to charity would have been great…
Yes The Kop was sold off – albeit on a tacky wooden plinth with a glass dome – but the proceeds went to charity. As a 15 year old kid I managed to get a piece of my actual spec on The Kop all because the fella standing next to me at the Norwich game had brought a hammer and chisel with him. He got me a little chunk of the step I used to stand on. Still got it to this day. Looks just like a little halfy next to the telly in my living room, but I know what it is and so do my kids.
Which brings me onto my seat in the Main Stand. Seat 236. I got my season ticket in time to see Houlliers last season. Granted its not as gloried as Ian’s Dad’s seat but it was mine and it meant the world to me.
I seen Rafa conquer Europe, stayed behind to protest against the cowboys, feared relegation under Hodgson, rejoiced at The Kings return and held my head in my hands when Stevie slipped. All from that very seat. 13 years to be exact.
When I heard the snapping noises near the end of the Chelsea game last season I knew I had to have a go at getting mine, because I knew if I DIDN’T then I would be telling the same kind of story that Ian so eloquently told above. It was an absolute fucking cert the club would pull this stunt. Nothing they do surprises me anymore. So with 5 minutes to go I stood up and WELLIED it off its hinges. By the time the announcement came over the tannoy I was halfway down Oakey with my seat tucked under my arm. The first time I’ve ever left the match early but I got it.
I use it as a tray to have my tea on my knee. MY seat. 236.
Yours for £150 if anyone’s interested ;)
Seat 236 eh sunshine? The Five-oh are on thier way!
What row mate? And it’s not in my name. Unluckeeee
Superb!
This comes back to culture.
As most clubs are now under foreign ownership, the trade off for injections of billions of pounds and better players is the erosion of that local club culture. I don’t mean that ‘small club’ culture. Big clubs can still have it. Barca, Bayern, heck even Newcastle. We know the clubs who have lost ‘it’ and those that haven’t. Plastic flags are a small clue.
As LFC continue their rise towards world domination, embracing foreign owners, worldwide commercialism and a worldwide fan base, the club must, like all clubs should- and don’t- be very careful about preserving the core culture of the club. The essence of the club. And no formula can help with that. And in the UK, these aren’t franchises. These are clubs. With local heartbeats.
Ian, I’m hearing loud and clear that this particular commercial drive has worked against the culture of LFC. And this can only indicate a group upstairs who haven’t bothered to work out the most important part of buying an overseas organisation: Understand the culture. Know the culture. Become the culture. Then make your big decisions. Otherwise you will get your decisions wrong. And you will erode that core. And eventually the thing which made it what it was, will be no more. And before you know it, plastic flags appear.
I write from Australia but for me to really understand LFC, I’ve had to embrace the Scouse and their worldview. To try, at least, to understand what makes them tick and the culture from which LFC grew.
I hope FSG and the other office staff spend more time in the streets learning the culture than in towers playing with figures and selling products. Well written. @whitey757
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you, but wouldn’t it have been impossible for logistical/pragmatic reasons? How many seats have only ever had one person/family sit in them? Is it many? Why should a current season ticket holder be given preference over a past season ticket holder who sat in that seat?
For example, suppose that before your dad sat in that seat, someone else did for years and before her, her mother and grandfather sat in that seat. What if she only had to give it up (to your dad) because her family fell on hard times and she couldn’t afford to renew? (if the club *really* cared and understood what it meant to her, maybe they should have just let her attend for free every year?). What if she thinks of it as HER seat? And now the club have gone on and sold her seat to you. Either way, isn’t the club losing here?
That’s what I don’t get: why is it YOUR seat? Why do you have some right to it? I’m not even making the rent/owning argument you reference. I’m just pointing out that other people might have an attachment to those seats and if the club give preference to you, who currently sit there, might that not also cause problems? How can the club hope to win here? (Beyond, as you say, donating all the money to charity; I agree, that probably would have been best. But perhaps they still will?).
That would work as a logical argument (in my case and many others) only if my dad hadn’t started attending the match pre-Shankly when there was no queue for season tickets. If you can find the person who sat in that seat from 1895 to 1955 then we need to have a conversation. And it’d be one hell of a conversation ;)
I really want to like these owners but fk me they seem to score more own goals than Jamie Carragher , who makes these decisions WHO??? ,and Well done Paddy Dalton
Is the issue here that they’re being sold as memorabilia, or that they’re being sold as memorabilia for over £200?
Both, and the very specific fact that there is no way that they can be sold to the people that sat in them. They’re seats in boxes. Nothing more than that. There are about 70 ‘seat 92s’ in a warehouse in sealed boxes.
A man in Australia, he’s never been to Anfield to see Liverpool play. In fact he’s never seen Liverpool play live anywhere. But he loves Liverpool. He loves them more than you do. Why should he not be allowed to have this piece of memorabilia?
This piece shows a lack of empathy to what this club actually MEANS to the fans who can’t pay to go watch the games.
Another question: how is selling them any worse than them being skipped the day after the last game?
It’s an emotional reaction. Melissa Reddy solved the whole argument in less than two minutes at the end of today’s (free) Anfield Wrap show. It could have been sorted in the same way a long time ago.
12, 000 seats in the Main stand, 6,000 season ticket holders. Ask the ST holders if they want their own seat first, sell everything else. Rocket science.
The guy in Australia who loves Liverpool more than I do – and I’m not entirely sure which scientific test we established this with – gets one of the 6,000, everybody’s happy.
And the piece wasn’t about empathy to those who can’t go to the game; it was about my desire to be able to retain the seat that my father sat in for fifty years.
The selling them is worse than skipping them, for me – and it can only ever be my opinion, I only have mine – because the idea of selling the people who sit in those seats first chance to buy A seat, not THEIR seat which is what they want, is an insult.
I don’t have a dog in the fight either way – so take this with a grain of salt (or ignore it). The logistics that would have had to go in to organizing something like what is being suggested would have been very complex and would have taken quite a lot of time I presume. Knowing that the job of getting the stand done and ready for August would have had them focusing on getting the seats out and moving on, rather than cataloging and organizing. This could have been an after-the-fact opportunity – and granted, one that didn’t take in to account the very specific sentimentality.
I’m not in your position, so obviously can’t speak from that perspective, but I would hate to think they were disposing.
£150m a year on a tv deal. Money for nothing.
Sunderland this year. A walk out. Weasel words of contrition about how mistakes have been made, and we now value the fans.
And now this.
These people are not our friends. They are a group of moneymen who have no idea or interest in knowing about the cultural heritage of LFC and the emotional ties we have to it.
They want to take you for every last penny you will give them, then when they’re done rinsing you, they’ll move onto rinsing the next person.
These people are not your friends.
Yes it called modern football. You can either accept it or reject it but if you accept it don’t bitch about it.
Why not?
That makes no sense at all. ‘Modern’ does not equate to ‘stupid’. This was a poorly thought-out idiot move. Hopefully you do not blithely plod along at the will of idiots.
Good article apart from the Partridge esque “I’m bloody good at selling stuff” line.
Sorry, but it’s a fact. I am. And I wouldn’t have done this because it damages the brand.
Doesn’t damage the brand in my eyes. Fact. People feeling they have the right to steal damages the brand of the supporters. Fact. Brands are tricky things. Just like subjective statements passed off as objective. Fact.
Dave….. Dave….Dave, Dave, Dave…..DAVE!
Agree totally. I’ve sat in the same seat in the Main Stand since 1981. And like yourself it has huge sentimental value as my dad sat in the seat next to me when he was alive.
I wrote to the club at the start of last season asking would there be a chance I could buy my seats as they have sentimental value more than anything. I got a generic ‘we are looking at this’ crap reply from them.
Then when I received that email we all got I considered it until I read the bit ‘seat numbers cannot be selected’ why would anyone want to ship out £200 for a random number. Once again OUR club trying to bleed us for everything.
What’s the next email? Buy a brick from the old Main Stand with a certificate for £150?
I wouldn’t be surprised.
When will people realise this isn’t the LFC of old.
Liverpool Football Club is a sports franchise of FSG and exists for the same reason any other American franchise does: to make as much money as possible.
Just as McDonalds does not exist to win food awards or Michelin stars, LFC does not exist to win trophies.
It exists to sell the wooden seats we have been sitting on for generations.
Wholeheartedly agree.
I’m very surprised to see how many people just don’t get it.
I think it’s largely down to widespread commercialism in many other countries, especially America where the culture is different.
They have dropped the ball on this one.
Bs move for sure. And the type of thing that will continue to happen until one or several Liverpudlian billionaires buy the club……
Or tens of thousands of not so billionaire supporters..
Great article Ian.
I understand your view wholeheartedly.
I am of the opinion that the club needed to simply ask the incumbent ticket holders “do you want to keep the seat?”
Some will have said yes(like your good self) and some would have said no thanks…..
The seats which aren’t taken could then have been sold if that is what has been decided by the club.
The word that springs to mind is disregard.
Scant disregard for the lifeblood of the club…. The season ticket holders.
And it is very worrying.
First the ticket prices, now this…..
The excuse that they do this type of thing in America holds no sway with me either, they have been here long enough to have worked out what will work and what won’t work with our fanbase……. Apparently not.
Any way to guarantee the number of seats sold corresponds to the number removed from the old stand? If the demand is there what’s to stop the club getting a few ‘replicas’ knocked up?
Fucking brilliant this Ian. One of the best pieces on the site, even though I expected this still can’t believe they’ve done it.
I’m assuming the club didn’t discuss this with the supporters committee. Of course they didn’t. Why the fuck have a committee if it’s not for asking their opinion before doing something like this?
Another PR shambles.
I would love to know who made this decision. I’m not so sure it was the evil Americans, even. They were ripping out the seats with a crane. That does not indicate that they intended to sell the seats initially. It was a stupid, ridiculously unnecessary PR failure, and it seems an ad hoc decision. Is there not some journalist who could get down to the bottom of this?
Ian Ayre is supposed to be a local boy, but that doesn’t mean he knows how to talk to people. Find out who the hell is making these idiotic decisions, please!
I initially thought was fans looking for something to complain about. This gave me an insight into why and I couldn’t agree more it’s shocking season ticket holders should be given the opportunity to buy their seat not some random one.
Must admit, as an American Red I was originally intrigued by the idea of owning a piece of Anfield. To have it sat next to me in my own private space, for years to come, as I watch Liverpool from abroad. After all, I feel as connected to the club as anyone; simply with the misfortune of being born 3,000 miles to the West.
Then I read Ian’s testimony here. Buying this packaged merchandise seems wrong. It seems like cheating. Seems to ignore the very “human” element of it all. Therefore, I have been convinced not to consider a Main Stand seat. I’d much rather spend my money creating my own memories (which I will do with an upcoming ticket to the Roma Friendly in St. Louis).
My one qualm with it all, however, is that the outrage always seems to outweigh the praise. As it tends to do in business and in life, bad publicity trumps good publicity 7 days a week. Customers are quick to complain at a restaurant, on a plane, or in a shop–much like people are more inclined to protest and to raise of fuss over mistreatment than they are to recognize altruism and goodwill when it occurs.
My question to everyone so furious about the packaging of Main Stand seats is this…
If FSG did decide to give them away to season ticket holders, or in fact donate proceeds to a charity as this article suggests, would their decision be met with an amount of praise equal to the descent currently on display? Would we be hearing about this deed on TAW? In the Echo? Would we give credit where credit is due?
Anfield Road is a two-way street.
Well written and I can feel the emotion of your sense of LFC as much more than the business of present day football.
But, (knew this was coming, eh?) I can also see how the logistics of letting some fans come and get their seat backs before the demolition might be a challenge.
The club allowed you to keep a season ticket and you compliment them on how well you were treated but your goodwill goes out the window when you can’t take a seat back to reify Anfield. What about the people who were on the waiting list for season tickets when you took over your dad’s?
You seem to think that if the issue is about you and your feelings, (and your platform to whine about it) that’s what matters. But you and others like you who keep a hold of tickets you didn’t wait for deprived others of their chance of making the same memories you want to retain. Nice.
Sickening,
Another wedge driven between we ‘customers’ fans and our avaricious owners, something very wrong with those ppl responsible for this total ripping off of their ‘customers’, it’s a absolute disgrace seeing our club being dragged down to this level,
Might be time for another walk out protest first home match of the season 1min 34 secs after kick off?
SICKENING indeed!!
YNWA
Hats off to you mate, superbly put.
My heart sank when I saw that email the other day. So I posted something similar to you, but not so eloquent, on the LFC website forums and got slaughtered – “just cos you pay for a train ticket doesn’t mean you get to take the seat with you” etc etc.
A lot of people, not just FSG’s marketing morons, don’t seem to Get It any more.
But you are right. Absolutely f****** right.
Just listened to the podcast where this topic is discussed.
Great point made that the £2m they club lost on the ticket prices they will now get back by doing this.
I am as passionate as Ian about this. I sat there with my dad since 1981 and kept my dad’s ticket after he died.
My seat 149 and my dad in 148. Not any number but 148 and 149.
If the club want to know how much this seat actually means to me, when I decided to get a tattoo in honour of my dad a few years ago I got the number 148 included in it as that is where we shared so many great times.
I had written and emailed the club before last season asking could I purchase my dad’s seat. One generic reply was all I got.
And then THAT email asking for £200 for a seat not number 148 just a seat.
I’ve been going on about this all last season saying they would do something like this.
Huge own goal Ian Ayre hope it is your legacy.
We’ll all still be there every week but once again we feel anger towards the way we are treated after we thought they really cared when they backed down over ticket prices.