The problem with the club telling steward to go down the line would be that this was obviouly the first week they had tried it. Next game, the operators will be more used to it, the spectators will be more used to it and their may be fans who come earlier and hence stagger the flow. If they had "abandoned" it today, come next game there will be problems that they hadnt identified/ironed out and the fan base would simply think "ah well, sooner or later they will just go back to what they did last time"

But there is no need for it. There were big queues 45 minutes before kick off. How early do they expect us to come.

The only two reasons I can think of to enforce this are there are problems with snide tickets or that people are touting season tickets.

To be honest I can't see that there is an issue with either.

In previous seasons when you got to the turnstile with 45 minutes to kick off, there are between 0 and 10 people in front of you. There is no reason to make you queue for 20-30 minutes.

I got there later than usual due to my lads rugby match kick off being 11.45 . Arrived at 2.10 saw the queues for the South stand and waited about 10 mins to get in, knew that the booklet had to be taken as I was warned by thr shop on purchase and read the warnings. South Stand near full then at 2.30.

Met up with the usual bunch in the area we always stand and then all the late attenders came in and packed the area as usual.

For those who sit in the pub and expect to waltz in hard luck get there earlier simple and for those who can't be d to read the season ticket rules ...hard luck.

but if people are tearing their tickets out in the queue that means they have brought their book with them ??
so what are they tightening up on....unauthorised ticket separation...???

Thatchers Britain

It didn't help only having 3 out of the 4 turnstiles open at South West corner either.

They are tightening up on adults gaining entry with a junior season ticket. People have bragged about doing so on here before and I guess the club have done what we always ask and listened!

It was a joke yesterday but that's what happens when you do things on the cheap, surely replacing the operators with a machine and a couple of stewards near by would be the best idea or any system where the tickets are not easy to copy.

Don't get me started on the stewards inside the stadium

I think the problem is with idiots who cannot think for themselves and, as Milly says above,
rip the ticket out themselves in front of the turnstyle operator hand it over to him and enter - simples.

Why do idiots have to hand their whole book to the turnstyle operator? Are they incapable of finding the ticket themselves and ripping it out?

You've hit the nail on the head there. There are people on here who complain about anything the club does that is different. They are doing this with the season tickets because some people are basically conning them. The reason we don't have electronic scanners is the cost. Do you want to spend money on players, or do you want to spend a significant amount of money on scanners? Even if we got scanners in we woukld still need to have people on the gates so the long term saving would not be worth it.
If people can't be bothered to read the rules on the tickets, then they can't complain when the rules are enforced.

Yesterday I think it was mainly due to the steward outside saying "Leave your ticket in your booklet and don't rip it out". He also said that if you ripped the ticket out next game then you would be refused entry...

i dont understand the link between that and the thread, but i found it abosultely hilarious nonetheless!

me neither.... i just wanted to post it.

Are enough people conning them to justify the delay that happened yesterday. Surely an easier method would be to just ask people who hand in junior tickets for ID if they look over 17. Just like if they were trying to get on the bus for half price or in the cinemas. It's not as though they even looked at my book yesterday, they just took it off me, fiddled around to get the ticket out and handed it back to me.