They've been saying this for years and it really ****s me off. As AlRawdah said, the ground used to be full and it was never a problem. The ground has been half empty for about three years now and it's got progressively worse even though less and less people are going. They blame it on people staying in pubs until the televised lunchtime game finishes and then arriving late. But those games have been going on for years, it's ****ing stupid to keep insisting that people have just started doing this at the exact time they started ****ing about with the turnstiles. And if it really is a problem, they should be asking themselves why people would rather drink beer and watch football at a pub than get to the ground early and do the same there. A normal business would make changes to try and make it a desirable place to go. At City they genuinely believe it's the fans' responsibility to turn up early and spend their money in the stadium, and see it as a real inconvenience to them that hardly anybody wants to. It's like they don't understand supply and demand. The whole thing is just yet another ham-fisted attempt at saving a few quid, which has probably by now cost them more in ticket sales than it saves.
Highly ironic but this must surely be true. They go to the cost of installing a new turnstyle system in order to stop the few cheating the concession system, and in doing so stop the many bothering to go. Only in the totally incompetent world of Ehab Allam. I honestly wonder whether his mum and dad fully realise, and can admit to, how much of a **** up their spawn has truly become.
Years ago at the start of all the name change stuff when Assem met the fans, he apparently did go off on one about what a useless ****er Ehab is.
Whatever happened to new communicative Ehaw that was trumpeted a couple of months ago? Lord Lucan has a higher media profile.
If that's true then he was a zillion per cent correct, but it begs the obvious question of why then is he allowing his stupid idiotic spawn to kill off what he played a big part in creating.
Oh he's doing another video after the transfer window and of course he'll tell us how our wage bill is completitive or whatever. And people on here will be gushing about his honesty and candidness, regardless of whether any of it is true.
****s sake, do you really need to ask that? Even the relatively newly appointed communication manager isn't allowed to communicate.
The fire breathing braziers by the side of the pitch were impressive last night, ditto the big flag wavers. Why's everyone moaning?
We missed the first Wolves goal stood in the snaking queue outside North Stand. What pissed us off was after the Burton game you could not go through the area where the Burton fans were leaving, but the police and stewards were quite happy for the North Stand queue go right through the Wolves entrance area last night. The club is run by an absolute set of ****ing jokers who employ Yes men to do their dirty work with no authority to have a thought of their own. Having not been for a couple of seasons, I was shocked at the way the stadium is looking vast areas of the iron girders were exposed, paint peeled off and rusting in places. What sort of maintenance and safety checks are in place.....erm....none is probably the correct answer.
Usually for evening matches the East queue goes back past the shop. Walking from Argyle Street I saw the South queues first and thought "here we go, situation normal", but was pleasantly surprised that there were no East queues and I could just walk straight up. Yes the numbers are down but I had assumed there was some kind of tweak or change to the turnstile software as it did seem to be quicker to go from Enter to Present Ticket. Quite smooth infact. Whether it worked smoother because numbers are down, or queues are shorter because it was working smoother is something I can't tell but it wouldn't take an IT genius to work it out.
It was easier to get into the East, where there were no queues, as everyone's sat in the North and South.
I was at the ground 20 mins before kick off, the earliest I could have got to the ground. It shouldn't take more than that to gain entry to the stadium. The scan system is completely inadequate.
It's more noticeable on night matches because...shock horror...lots of people have to work to afford a ticket, and work often occurs during the day before the game!