Category Archives: Footie

Birmingham City Football Club Ticket Sales – A Lack of Transparency

This Christmas I thought it would be a nice surprise to take my family to the Birmingham City v West Ham football match on Boxing Day. Unfortunately, the BCFC ticket policy means they would rather I turn up alone than with family.

Below is an extract of an email sent to Birmingham City Football club describing the lack of transparency of their current system. No reply was received by Birmingham City, and since my original e-mail I’ve become aware of others that have been denied ticket sales. Many thanks for your response over Twitter regarding purchasing a ticket for the West Ham game on Boxing Day. I was trying to purchase a ticket for my wife and I for this game.

From your comments and my wife’s telephone conversation with the ticket office on Thursday, my understanding is that I am allowed to purchase a ticket for this game as I have done so in the past. However, I cannot a purchase ticket for my wife as she has only registered recently.

As a football club that makes many claims about being family and female friendly, a family visit to St Andrews on Boxing Day seems an appropriate activity. Indeed, I expect many Blues fans who live outside of Birmingham are likely to be in the area over Christmas and would want to attend. However, the current system is actually stopping families from attending. I can attend on my own, but not with any family members.

1. The e-ticket registration confirmation email is sent from welcome@email.bcfc.com and invites you to “hit reply to this email” if you have queries. As per your note on Twitter this appears to be invalid so I believe that my wife’s emails to this address have gone unread. Would it be possible to correct this initial email to give the correct address someone can reply to?

2. I have not been able to find anything on the website about the tickets for West Ham being only available to prior members. You mention this is advertised as being the case, so please could you provide me with the link that states this. Part of my frustration is that it’s not clear who can/cannot purchase tickets – clicking through the ticketing website states that they are “on general sale”.

3. My initial attempt to purchase tickets was online on Sunday night. Originally, I had planned to get the tickets as a Christmas surprise for my wife. However, after selecting the seats the site stated that “Not all items in your basket were assigned to members. Please use “assign” to do this, or remove the offending items using “remove”. My natural response was to create an account for my wife and submit her details. That also meant the tickets were no longer a surprise as she soon received the welcome email. Believing that I would now be allowed to purchase her ticket, I assigned her seat and was then shown the message “Unfortunately, one or more items in your basket is assigned to a newly registered client, which is not allowed”.

This process was most frustrating and at no point was I made aware that despite registering my wife she would still not be able to accompany me.

4. During my wife’s conversation with the ticket office, a number of different reasons were cited as to why she could not purchase a ticket. These included the steps were taken “to stop West Ham fans buying tickets”, “at the Board’s request”, “at police request”, “you registered at a London address, if you were in Birmingham you would be allowed to purchase tickets”. In relation to point 2, if the intention is stop West Ham fans from purchasing tickets, please can you clarify what process you are using to decide who can/cannot purchase tickets. I am a legitimate fan, but I am unable to make a purchase despite the tickets being advertised as being “on general sale”.

5. If I ask my mother to visit the ticket office to purchase tickets, or I visit the ticket office on Christmas Eve with my wife, would we be permitted to purchase tickets?

In closing, this problem appears to have affected others, as described here:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8f8gY21EWkgJ:birminghamcityforum.co.uk/index.php%3Fshowtopic%3D2790%26view%3Dgetlastpost+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=firefox-a

Of course, the users in the above post could be West Ham fans trying to sneak into the game, and I appreciate there’s a need to keep the stadium safe, but it just seems to me that the current approach in screening ticket purchases does not work, is not family friendly and is not transparent.

Birmingham City – Back In The Premiership!

We are Premier League!
We are Premier League!

Birmingham & Sunderland promoted – Reuters
Birmingham & Sunderland promoted – BBC

Well, what a difference a year makes! Exactly 365 days ago it was doom and gloom! But now we’re back where we belong on the first attempt!! Well done Brucie – back in the Big Time! Bring on the Vile!!

Blues go down, Blues go down
Blues go down together
Come back up, win the cup
Kick f*** out the Villa!

Believe!

Wowsers!!!! What a game!!! A vital 3 points to haul us back out of the relegation spot!! There’s still 3 matches to go…. and more twists and turns still to come! Next up – Everton away on Saturday!! It’s shown with a 2hour tape delay on FOX Sports World so it’s going to be a communications blackout for me on Saturday!

Keep Right On…..

Believe

Villa Jokes

Time for some Friday funnies ahead of Sunday’s big match! These are from the Joys And Sorrows Website – check it out – it’s a great site!

Q: What do you say to a Villa fan with a good looking bird on his arm?
A: Nice tattoo.

Q: Did you hear that the British Post Office has just recalled their latest stamps?
A: Well, they had photos of Villa players on them – folk couldn’t figure out which side to spit on.

A man desperate at the Villa’s current situation decides to top himself. In his living room, alone, he prepares to hang himself. At the very lastmoment, he decides upon wearing his full Villa kit as his last statement. A neighbour, catching sight of the impending incident, informs the police. On arrival, the police quickly remove the Villa kit and dress the man in stockings and suspenders. The man, totally confused asks why.
The policeman simply replies, ‘It’s to avoid embarrassing the family, sir.’

Q: What do you call a Villa fan with lots of girlfriends?
A: A shepherd.

Read on for more……………Q: What’s the difference between a Villa fan and a trampoline?
A: You take your shoes off to jump on a trampoline.

Q: How do you kill a Villa fan when he’s drinking?
A: Slam the toilet seat on his head.

Q: What do Villa fans use as birth control?
A: Their personalities.

Q: Whats black and brown and looks good on a Villa fan?
A: A Rottweiler.

Q: What do you call a Villa fan with no arms and legs?
A: Trustworthy.

Q: What’s the difference between a dead dog in the road and a dead Villa fan?
A: Skid marks in front of the dog.

Q. Why do Villa fans whistle whilst sitting on the toilet?
A. So they know which end to wipe.

Q: What do you call a Villa fan in a 2 bedroomed Semi?
A: A burglar

Q: What do you get when you offer a Villa fan a penny for his thoughts?
A: Change!

There’s a rumour that Villa have lined up a new sponsor – Tampax.
The board thought it was an appropriate change as the club is going through a very bad period.

An new Oxo Cube will be introduced early next year in tribute to Villa.
It will be called ‘Laughing Stock’.

The seven dwarves are down in the mines when there is a cave-in.
Snow White runs to the entrance and yells down to them.
In the distance a voice shouts out ‘Villa are good enough to win the European Cup.’
Snow White says ‘Well at least Dopey’s alive.’

Q. What’s the difference between the Villa ‘keeper and a taxi driver?
A. A taxi driver will only let in four at a time.

Q: What’s the difference between OJ Simpson and Villa ?
A: OJ Simpson had some sort of a defence.

Q: What’s the difference between Villa and a teabag?
A: A tea bag stays in the cup longer.

Q: What is the difference between Foot & Mouth and Villa?
A: Foot & Mouth got into Europe.

EPL Theme

So, 5 games to go and the big derby at Villa is waiting for us next Sunday at 7am NY / 12pm UK. Shouldn’t really be counting on other teams, but we really need Arsenal to do the the business against Portsmouth on Wednesday. I’m currently looking at the table and hoping that’s the position we finish up with in 4 weeks time. It’s gonna be a long 4 weeks. Waiting for the EPL Review show to come on and catch up….. but grrrrrrr it’s delayed ’till 9pm! I have the darned EPL Theme tune in my head, so here’s the trailer from You Tube! Keep right on……… SOTV!!!