How not to treat your fans...
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by user Matt
First, some quick background.....Dec. 30th 2006, an English Premier League game, Watford vs. Wigan Athletic is called off after 56 minutes due to a virtually biblical downpour rendering the pitch unplayable. Under FA rules the game must be replayed, from the start, as less than 70 minutes had been completed.....as fans leave the stadium the announcer urges people to "hold onto your ticket stubs for the replay".
So, the date has been re-arranged, Wigan is some 200 miles from Watford and the replay is set for a Wednesday night in February. Wigan decide that it's only fair to lay on free coaches to get their fans back down to Watford for the replay - a fantastic, but not massively costly (in the greater scheme of things to a football club) gesture.
So what do Watford fans get for clinging onto their ticket stubs? Given that the stubs themselves say that the ticket is valid for any re-arranged game you'd imagine it'd be a case of turn up and take your seat, right?
Nope - Watford set ticket prices at £20 for the replay. If you've got a stub then you get in "half price" at £10. If you were at the first game and (like most people) binned your stub as soon as you were through the turnstile, then that's your problem, £20 please. This last point is despite the fact that you have to be on the database to buy tickets at Watford, so they know exactly who was at the original game and who wasn't. Absolutely unbelievable.
Yes, they have to pay everyone again, the turnstile operators, the stewards, the police, the spotty food kiosk freaks - but in a season when the club get £30 million just for turning up in this division and are on the verge of selling a player developed by the academy (i.e. a player who cost us nothing) for another £10 million - then it doesn't seem too hard to find the money to let people back in for nothing.
This is simply a disgusting case of greed by Watford and they're trying to spin it off as "a decision made on sound business sense" - I thought the hideous days of PLCs ruling football were on the decline, but clearly not in Hertfordshire. Yes, WFC is a business, but most businesses would realise the importance of customer service, I hope this absolute abortion of a decision comes back to bite Chief Executive Mark Ashton on the arse big-time in the future.
