Poor from SAFC and it's not often I say that ...

... but some things are so rotten the stench permeates every corner.

This is a post, on RTG, I was sent, and sums up this situation perfectly.

I'm so sickened by this but I'll let 'Stortford' explain ...

"This is spot on.

Right here goes. Me and my lad are part of the 65 (Newcastle derby tickets cancelled by the club.)

The person in question sorts my tickets out as my wife isn't well (grade 4 brain tumour) and Tuesday is often a full day at the hospital which is pretty gruelling. He sorts our trains out, I live down south so I don't travel with the main group so its a extra hassle for him, but its never any bother to him. I wouldn't like to try to guess how much money he has saved me personally over the years but will be over £1000, could easily be double that. I have missed 1 away game this season as my Mrs wasn't well and I didn't want to leave her (so I guess my ticket will have been passed on). I normally get to about 12-15 home games a season (I live south of Cambridge and work so midweeks are difficult for me) though with the situation with my Mrs I have probably only done about half the games this season so far. I rarely miss an away game and am on 80+ points.

As others have pointed out he spends hours doing match tickets, train tickets, refunds and has the big private account with LNER with dedicated account manager to help loads of people get cheaper rail fares and tbh some of the younger lads he helps out I doubt would be capable of getting there by themselves and he does this without taking a penny for himself. Also as pointed out earlier, those he helped with match tickets who were folks going in League 1 days and in those days the club actively pushed extra tickets onto him so they could brag about "another sold out away end". Yes he has broken the rules but there was no prior warning from the club.

I should also mention that away from football he has helped my lad on numerous occasions as he had a few teething issues when settling in at Uni. A couple of examples was driving him from Durham to the eye infirmary in Sunderland 3 times in a week when he my lad had a serious eye infection needed urgent attention. He also drove my son down with all his bags when I was under the pump at work and couldn't collect him and he had too many bags for the train. A 500 mile round trip and wouldn't take a penny for petrol. There are several others I could mention. The bloke is as absolute diamond. The club should be hiring him to sort out travel for more fans rather than banning him for 2 years. I am absolutely gutted for the lad as SAFC and helping people is his life.

I am also gutted for my lad, who I dragged round once he was old enough, for back 2 back relegation seasons then 4 years of dross in League 1 for him to then miss the away derby in over a decade, again he has 80+ points, he doesn't deserve to miss out.

As you can imagine I am raging at the club, my appeal fell of deaf ears and I wasn't able to join the fastest finger first race today as was back at hospital with the Mrs and wifi there is ****.
I haven't renewed our tickets yet and am giving serious consideration for just walking away, never thought I would say that. It's not an easy decision as the football provides one of the few areas of normality in my life at the moment and it's a great stress reliever to meet up and have a few pints with the lads i go to the matches with, some for 35-40 years. Not going Sunday is hard to take and I have a very tough decision regarding renewal."

Apologies for it being a bit of a ramble but a lot to get off my chest.

This will lead to the slow death of the village/town/branch support that's sustained SAFC through some very dark days.

Our away support has always stood up to be counted, I'm not sure it will hold up now.

Hundreds of individuals may travel to away games if their club is based in London, Midlands, Manchester, etc ...

... but this is a club in the far NE whereby travelling alone, or in twos, isn't quite the same.

People in Sunderland who can purchase a ticket for Brighton away are more likely to go if there's a train/coach/whatever organised. That's helped us maintain our great away support at places like Bristol, Norwich, Cardiff, etc.

Relegation would have the club asking branches to help shift away allocations as they did in the Championship.