Dear Roker report,
As a long-time Sunderland supporter (born in Blackpool and now residing in London), my match opportunities have always been limited to a couple of visits per season to Roker Park and the Stadium of Light, supplemented by several away games within a couple of hours of wherever I was living. This worked perfectly fine for many years, and I could completely accept that it wasn’t possible for me to travel to home games on a weekly basis because the travel time and prices were prohibitively expensive. However, it has recently grown more difficult to travel to away games.
The club’s away ticketing policy is absolutely fair, but it suffers from a mix of relatively low away allocations in the Championship combined with our massive season ticket fans, who are ready to travel to away games in sufficient numbers to consume our full allocation game after game. I would urge the club to modify the policy using the many supporter branches across the country, at least while we are in the Championship (PL rules regarding away allocations may be more useful for a team our size).
As far as I understand it, there are normally only a few hundred applications from a supporter branch in the region where an away game is played. However, under the existing procedure, just a few tickets are frequently allocated (possibly depending on Black Cat Points). Please allow the relevant supporters’ chapter to have first priority on an allocation, as for many devoted fans, these few games are the only ones we can attend, and with a Sunderland-mad son now wanting to go, he’s losing out. For practically all allocations, there would still be a significant number of tickets (approximately 1000-2000) remaining for the existing policy to distribute fairly.
We’re all aware that Sunderland is a really unusual club. The degree of support is an important aspect in this, and there are supporters all throughout the UK who would love to attend a few games each season. We’re not looking for the best or biggest games, just the ones we can get to. If we want to remain a major club in terms of support, please do not exclude those of us (and our families) who are trying to get tickets, given that there is no longer much potential for away tickets through friends and contacts as there once was.
It also exposes many supporters to online frauds, which is unfortunate because the utilization of supporter branches might be a simple and effective approach to ensure that the whole fandom sees the Lads play live.
Dear Roker Report,
I normally only write in with complaints, so it’s been fantastic to have nothing. I can’t think of a better team to support, with an entertaining style of play, a financially sound club, and a youthful squad that all appear to want to be there. The videos that the club has released of the Lads being questioned on random questions are also really pleasant. We have a pretty excellent crew there.
With that in mind, the Stoke result was disappointing, but in the big scheme of things, it is bound to happen from time to time. Even Liverpool loses games from time to time, and I believe it is common for football supporters to overreact after losing. It’s natural, so I don’t blame anyone, but the last thing I want to do is criticize Eliezer Mayenda for missing a few sitters; it happens. Erling Haaland scored his first goal in what feels like five years the other day, and he’s probably even better than Mayenda!
I was reading some of the lineup answers and came across the phrase ‘Alese is rubbish’. After the goal against Stoke, it was ‘Luke O’Nien and Chris Mepham are awful,’ then Mayenda misses a few chances and is also ‘bad’. To be honest, I don’t know what people desire. We’re still a few points behind the leaders, and who saw this happening at the start of the season? Who saw Jobe transform into his brother, or O’Nien into Rio Ferdinand. I’m extremely inclined towards Sunderland, and I never expected us to perform as well as we have this season.
I believe we will be in the Premier League next season, and I am sure we will be much more discouraged after games because we will be in the strongest league in the world as underdogs, so enjoy the ride this season.
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