I have forfeited my season ticket for the remainder of 2020. I did mention what would happen to fans should limited number be allowed in

My initial plan was to wait on what the club was going to do over letting fans back in before I made a decision on what to do with my season ticket, however the season ticket dealine passed before the decision to allow some fans to attend . The letter I sent to the club follows and some of my concerns still apply -

I have taken the time to read the from the Wigan RL Chairman Ian Lenagan. In the letter it asks if we would like to contact the chairman personally regarding the content of the statement. I have a number of questions that I would like answering and would probably have more once I have been contacted regarding my 2020 membership.

My reasons for ongoing support and season ticket purchases are – The pleasure of watching my local team which has over the 50+ years provided me with countless memories the majority shared with my family and friends.


• One of the difficulties facing the club will be how to allocate seating should the current Covid 19 restrictions be eased and Wigan are allowed home games with limited spectators

• Limited attendance seat allocation. I would like to see what the clubs plans are before I make any comments.

• I attend with friends and would not enjoy the games if I located away from the group that I normally attend games with. Watching Wigan RL is as much a social event as a sporting one. There will be a lot of fans who have the same feelings

• Families attending- Could a stand or two if needed be allocated as the family stands as families will be allowed to sit together but if there is still need for social distancing between family groups allocated stands may make this easier.

• Some fans like to sit in a certain stand that may not be possible and could upset some. I would sit in any stand if that means I remain with my usual group of friends

• Games staged at neutral grounds – Personally I accept this is outside the clubs control and would not want any recompense

As previously stated I would have questions when I see what the club is proposing to season ticket holders. I do not envy the decisions that the club will have to make and I can foresee some fans not being happy and dependent on what the club proposes I may be one of the unhappy ones. If we are all in this together then that makes any decisions made more palatable to me I do not want to hear of groups that are given “golden tickets” and do not have the potential upheaval of other fans. This should be a transparent process that offers favours to all or none.

Personally I would have preferred the season to have been cancelled as that would have made the decisions a lot clearer for the club and fans. My overriding concerns are that all season ticket holders get a fair shout at any home games that have a reduced attendance.

I would like to have contact with the club once the plans for the 2020 season ticket holders is revealed to fans

Corporate sponsors will get first dibbs

It would no doubt upset a few people but if it was to be essentially a raffle draw of STHs to make up the crowd (which seems the most likely and fair system IMO) then the club could exclude children from the draw, as to flip your final example on its head it would be little use allocating a ticket to a child who won't be able to attend without a parent when that parent didn't get a ticket. Allocating group tickets wouldn't be so simple as family members from the same house either. Not all groups that go or buy STs together will be close family or from the same household. I buy one for me and one for my nephew (a child), he lives in a different house but in terms of ST purchasing we are a family unit. Some people attend in groups bigger than 4 too. I can see your reasoning for different categories but I would expect that tickets will be allocated singly.

The club could also find that people allocated a ticket then declined to attend for health reasons, age etc. meaning that they don't want to risk attending and potentially catching Covid so it may be that those eligible are asked whether they would attend or not before the tickets are allocated.

It may also be the case that 100 or so of the tickets are allocated to Saints, some of the cricket test events featured small allocations made to away spectators.

Well I'm in work so somebody can have mine for a small fee

I don't envy the club having to decide who gets tickets, going to a lot of moaning!

Saints fans on twitter moaning that it isn’t 500 each club! Ha ha ha.

Saints have said it’s only Wigan fans getting tickets.

Draw 1000 season ticket holders out a hat. Well, the modern equivalent. If they turn it down draw another etc etc until all 1000 are gone.

Because they'd give us 500 wouldn't they

I thought they may get 50 or so but you can see why they’d get none. They’ve had their advantages in spades playing games at their home ground.

Here's my suggestion:

All season ticket holders who didn't request a refund (and who want to go to games) are asked to form groups with whoever they would like to attend games with (groups are 1-6 people). I'm sure it would be possible to do this on the ticketing site. So you'd end up with somewhere between 3-5,000 groups I'd guess.

Groups are drawn at random one by one and everyone in that group gets a ticket to the game. Keep going until 1,000 tickets have been allocated.

Next game where fans are allowed in same process again with those groups that went to the Saints game being excluded. Keep going until everyone had been to a game them start again with all groups back in.

Fairest way I can think of.

I don't want to be pessimistic believe me but I'd be really surprised if this went ahead. Wigan has just been added to the Covid red alert list and the situation nationally looks worrying at present.

Yea it’s not looking good is it?

It won't happen but the club's greatest financial interest would be served by selecting all the fans who have asked for a refund (probably around not more than 1,000 given the %s stated by clubs). The refunds will be based on games they can't attend, so the more games they get them into, the more of their ticket money they can keep.

I agree it makes sense to get that group into any league games that limited numbers of fans can attend.