Away Tickets - What's the magic?

[Dogtanian]

What you have to consider when it goes to STH’s at 5pm is that there could be 27,000 fans trying to purchase a remaining 100 odd tickets. So it’s always going to sell out with what would appear to be 2-3 seconds.

My lad was 7 when we got promoted, he was on 0 aways, I tried for Spurs, Arsenal, Palace no joy, and then got Norwich by tickets being returned on the Thursday. Back then ticket office was open, so I placed in my basket, purchased and drove straight to Villa Park to collect.

I started like that, it would always sell out, but I’d be on the site every day and different times. I managed to get about 7 aways in. We lost every game apart from Norwich & Burnley. We went to Etihad knowing full conclusion that we’d lose. But I decided, win draw or lose, we’re going. It’s a day out.

I did all the cups, missed out on barrow, it is what it is.

By the 2022 my now 9 year old has been to every away game.

I work most weekends so I book them off, we travel on school nights much to his Mums disapproval. Our holidays are all planned around Villa games. We travel from holiday to the game and then go back.

We’ve even caught a flight back to watch a game. This is what you do if you want to go each week. Should all aways be back to zero to give a fan who has just decided he/she wants to go…? No they shouldn’t.

Is it a closed shop? - well no if a 7 year old had 0 aways, it’s clearly not.

My advice is to monitor the site all the time, often tickets drop. The only thing I will say, is they drop to the criteria it sells out which I disagree as I recall palace away where Lansbury scored & it got cancelled, I remember tickets dropping but it had sold out to the category above (I’m sure it was that game) but I recall being prevented on that basis. Phoned Villa, said I’d booked the day off, would like to go, nothing they could do. And even on the day of the game, tickets were still available. So I think come 3 days before a game, any returns should go out simply to anyone with booking history, STH/Members.

The ballots work too - I managed to get Watford in the ballot. Lost miserably 3-0 but again, you can’t pick and choose, we were crap and lost each week but I just wanted to go away with the lad.

I used to go u set MON days, stopped to have a family, kids grew old enough where I could take one.

Keep the faith guys, it’s a life circle. There will become a time where I stop going, and my son and the next fan. UTV

Exactly! 

[Flamingo Lane]

Some of our away followings in the 1980s were embarrassingly small, I remember in particular standing behind the goal at Highbury the season we were relegated, and just wondering what had happened to everyone.

[Nev]

Charlton was my second ever away game. I recall us singing the funeral march, doing a conga on the terrace and the few fans in the seats in the Arthur Waite stand joining in.

[VillaTim]

Charlton was my second ever away game. I recall us singing the funeral march, doing a conga on the terrace and the few fans in the seats in the Arthur Waite stand joining in.

is this Charlton game the one we lost 0-3 at Selhurst Park around 86 ? I was at that one , pretty much knew we were down after that. Plus on the way home to cap off a cracking day, my Uncle decided he knew a short cut home that involved driving through central London. Think we got in about 10pm

[Nev]

Charlton was my second ever away game. I recall us singing the funeral march, doing a conga on the terrace and the few fans in the seats in the Arthur Waite stand joining in.

is this Charlton game the one we lost 0-3 at Selhurst Park around 86 ? I was at that one , pretty much knew we were down after that. Plus on the way home to cap off a cracking day, my Uncle decided he knew a short cut home that involved driving through central London. Think we got in about 1am

Easter Monday '87.

[Marlon From Bearwood]

Charlton was my second ever away game. I recall us singing the funeral march, doing a conga on the terrace and the few fans in the seats in the Arthur Waite stand joining in.

is this Charlton game the one we lost 0-3 at Selhurst Park around 86 ? I was at that one , pretty much knew we were down after that. Plus on the way home to cap off a cracking day, my Uncle decided he knew a short cut home that involved driving through central London. Think we got in about 1am

Easter Monday '87.

Wasn’t it a morning kick off? I was at that game - my dad came up with the bonkers idea of a) driving to Selhurst Park and b) attending two matches in one day by going to watch Oxford United on the way home (that must have been a 3pm ko I think).

By the time we got to the Manor Ground it was half time but we still went in to watch the 2nd half.

[VillaTim]

Yeah i think it was noon KO. The only part of the game i can really remember is Andy Gray going for a diving header missing it completely and the ball ended up lodged under his chest and the turf.

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

It’s obvious, the small allocation grounds should not be balloted.
There is no perfect system but there are too many disadvantages with the current set up.

So instead disadvantage the fans that have been going up and down the country for years no matter how bad we were at the time

The disadvantage of having a closed shop has been done ad infinitum on here.

Where were these people complaining when we had Mcliesh, Lambert, Sherwood and Garde... Same allocations that we get now and the tickets were sold using the same system they do now, but strangely no one was complaining about it being a closed shop then?

Well I don’t know about anyone else but I wasn’t complaining because I had some fantastic awaydays with a great group of mates during those times. It was pretty straightforward to get tickets so there was no reason to complain. I used to find that going to about half a dozen over the course of the season was good enough to go to the last awayday of the season every year. You didn’t used to have to go to them all to get a ticket.

I don’t argue with the right to priority for those who have gone to the most games, but please don’t presume that those of us that can’t go now didn’t bother when we were shit.

The first season it became pretty much an all or nothing deal was the first season back after the Championship, but that wasn’t because we were glory hunting Premier League, it was because there’d been twice as many away tickets most weeks the year before.

Actually, that was when a lot of people who’d been occasional attenders developed a regular habit, and when the market shrunk back down again when we got promoted, we suddenly had an entire allocation full of people who went every week. We had never had this before when we were circling the drain in the Premier League, but when we were on the march in The Championship, we suddenly had a load of new regular away fans who have kept the habit, some of them possibly as much out of necessity as desire.

Great post amfy.
You've hit it spot on.
There was a noticeable surge when we went down because, I think, we all thought we'd bounce back...it eased off because we were a bit shit but that 3rd season saw a big increase and we sold out almost every way game, regardless of venue, time, day.
And that's when my mate from Tewkesbury bought his ST....there was no waiting list etc, he just went to VP, had a look round and bought one.
Since then we often get about 2,500 instead of as many as we want and there is a list of 30,000 for STs apparently.
A simple case of supply and demand but massively influenced by the system we have in place.

[AV82EC]

You could see what was about to happen in the promotion season with STs, we averaged over 40k for the last 6 or 7 matches that season. I sorted my ST as soon as we got back from Wembley which proved to be a good move as the ST waiting list started about 5 or 6 weeks later.

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

What you have to consider when it goes to STH’s at 5pm is that there could be 27,000 fans trying to purchase a remaining 100 odd tickets. So it’s always going to sell out with what would appear to be 2-3 seconds.

My lad was 7 when we got promoted, he was on 0 aways, I tried for Spurs, Arsenal, Palace no joy, and then got Norwich by tickets being returned on the Thursday. Back then ticket office was open, so I placed in my basket, purchased and drove straight to Villa Park to collect.

I started like that, it would always sell out, but I’d be on the site every day and different times. I managed to get about 7 aways in. We lost every game apart from Norwich & Burnley. We went to Etihad knowing full conclusion that we’d lose. But I decided, win draw or lose, we’re going. It’s a day out.

I did all the cups, missed out on barrow, it is what it is.

By the 2022 my now 9 year old has been to every away game.

I work most weekends so I book them off, we travel on school nights much to his Mums disapproval. Our holidays are all planned around Villa games. We travel from holiday to the game and then go back.

We’ve even caught a flight back to watch a game. This is what you do if you want to go each week. Should all aways be back to zero to give a fan who has just decided he/she wants to go…? No they shouldn’t.

Is it a closed shop? - well no if a 7 year old had 0 aways, it’s clearly not.

My advice is to monitor the site all the time, often tickets drop. The only thing I will say, is they drop to the criteria it sells out which I disagree as I recall palace away where Lansbury scored & it got cancelled, I remember tickets dropping but it had sold out to the category above (I’m sure it was that game) but I recall being prevented on that basis. Phoned Villa, said I’d booked the day off, would like to go, nothing they could do. And even on the day of the game, tickets were still available. So I think come 3 days before a game, any returns should go out simply to anyone with booking history, STH/Members.

The ballots work too - I managed to get Watford in the ballot. Lost miserably 3-0 but again, you can’t pick and choose, we were crap and lost each week but I just wanted to go away with the lad.

I used to go u set MON days, stopped to have a family, kids grew old enough where I could take one.

Keep the faith guys, it’s a life circle. There will become a time where I stop going, and my son and the next fan. UTV

Exactly! 

Thirded.

[VillaTim]

When we went down the surge was also boosted by A) some new grounds to go to B) more traditional KO times

[dorsetvillian]

I remember that Easter Monday game at Selhurst. We were beyond awful and everyone knew that we would be down. Depressing times ..

[wince]

Never been to an away day (yep terrible fan) would like to, probably never get chance to. Villa not important enough to revolve my life around and I’m sure my interests are not important to others. I was there for most of the lambert years but priced out and happy to listen to radio.

[Pat McMahon]

Some of our away followings in the 1980s were embarrassingly small, I remember in particular standing behind the goal at Highbury the season we were relegated, and just wondering what had happened to everyone.

I remember that game too. IIRC it was 2 May 1987 so exactly 5 years to the day that we had won the league on the same pitch, though in reality we were in a different universe by then. We had the left section of the Clock end and i reckon there were a few hundred of us - compare that to the 20k ish who were there in 1981.

We all knew what was coming and when we lost at home to Sheff Weds two days later I had the most to drink I have ever had before a Villa game in the Crown & Cushion. It still didn't dull the pain.

[sid1964]

arriving back at Villa Park on Saturday morning at 1am - made me realise that the supporters who go to every away game, deserve all the praise.

The effort, commitment, time and money that goes to watching Villa away is unbelievable - well done to all who do it.

I enjoy the odd away journey to watch the team, but I would not be able to do that on a regular basis.