Articles

Kilmarnock’s Empty Seats Were An Insult To Every Celtic Fan Who Couldn’t Get A Ticket

|
Image for Kilmarnock’s Empty Seats Were An Insult To Every Celtic Fan Who Couldn’t Get A Ticket

One of the direst consequences of Ibrox’s decision to cut our allocation is that now every club in the top flight is listening to the most radical voices amongst its fan-base and slashing the number of away tickets left, right and centre.

Yesterday that reached its inevitable, and horrifying, conclusion at Kilmarnock where hundreds of Celtic fans were standing outside trying to buy tickets from one another, whilst inside the ground there were many, many, many empty seats.

I was shocked when a mate of mine asked me, after the game, if I knew what the capacity at Kilmarnock is and what the attendance at the game was. The capacity is nearly 18,000. Yesterday’s attendance was 8,201.

There were near enough 10,000 empty seats in that ground yesterday.

Ten thousand. At £30 a ticket the home club might have left a couple of hundred grand at the very least on the table yesterday and if they can afford that great.

Factor in two visits a season from us and from the club across the city though and that’s a potential £1 million they don’t have to spend on players and on salaries and on a halfway decent coaching team.

Which is quite possibly a factor in why they are sitting just above the drop zone right now.

So who benefits from this insanity? Not the club itself. Certainly not Scottish football.

It was embarrassing to watch that game on the telly yesterday with all those empty seats. Denying Celtic fans two stands or even three … was that a measure proposed, at first, to stop us turning an away match into a home game? Was it supposed to result in us dropping points or something? We had scored 4 inside 30 minutes … so how did that turn out?

What we are seeing at some of these clubs now is nothing short of blind intransigence and outright stupidity, and all the while people who would have been willing, paying customers are stuck outside holding up their money, begging clubs to take it.

Is Scottish football sufficiently wealthy – are these clubs sufficiently wealthy – that they can turn up their noses at the hard cash on offer?

In the meantime, every now and again you get some halfwit at one of these clubs suggesting that the “fair” way to distribute wealth in the league is to divide ticket money evenly between all the teams!

In short, your season ticket money would go to propping the Kilmarnock’s and Motherwell’s up even as their own stands sit empty and our fans stand outside.

The continuing insult done to our supporters is hard to stomach, and whilst I don’t know any Celtic fan who wants to see SPFL clubs dropping like flies (we are not the seriously disturbed supporters of Ibrox who thirst for vengeance for phantom sins) I know that the general attitude amongst many of us is “hell mend them.”

Watching those scenes yesterday, it is very difficult to argue with that, and what’s worse is that the papers only want to write about Ibrox’s temper tantrum over our fans and our very rational, lucid reaction to that.

But the bigger problem shows a far greater insanity on the loose, and the genuine disenfranchising of away supporters.

And it sometimes seems to me that nobody in the press wants to cover that story at all.

Yet they should. This is what a genuine crisis looks like … and the clubs are inflicting this damage on themselves to nobody’s benefit. There need to be hard questions about that, and a search for some sensible solutions.

Share this article

0 comments

  • Tony B says:

    These people appear to take no pleasure in the game, as exemplified by their torn faced manager.

    I suggest that if you hate it that much then get the fuck out.

    I agree that the lead has been set by The Cancer Man himself, the Glib and Shameless Liar, who is a blight on the sport; a sociopath who would burn everything to the ground if it accrued even the slightest advantage to himself, ably supported by the fawning lackeys in the Scottish media.

    Shame on them all.

  • Voice of Reason says:

    The Killie stance was set bcoz of the Knuckodraggin SCUM FILTH that wreck their Toon when they shuffle down there! Sadly they have tarred us wae the same brush & unlike when Clarke was in charge the locals are NOT interested in watching DROSS!! By all means take this stance when the Zombies are in Toon but we should be given at least 2 stands!

  • Charlie Kelly says:

    Yes I agree can’t understand the logic behind there thinking,again all they need to do is try giving us two/three stands,if our supporters don’t behave then just drop allocation back down.Then only ones who suffer are us,maybe they just don’t like us celebrating

  • Scud Missile says:

    Not giving those extra tickets that Celtic fans would have snapped up will come back to haunt Killie should they get relegated,just think about the extra income lost which will be even more should they go down,and let’s all hope they do.

    Affter all they are only a mini-sevco indiscuise with even less money than the gypsies,trampsand thieves from ibrox.

  • Martin says:

    Clubs can choose to sell tickets to away fans or not. It doesn’t really bother me. But I would say clubs should work on filling their own stadia before they start bleating about getting money from Celtic fans at Celtic Park.

  • Ninesecondmaradona says:

    This is a tricky one in the sense that it is farcical that any club in the SPFL should give 2 or in some cases 3 stands to away fans, that’s ludicrous and you won’t see that in any other League in Europe, I understand why their fans don’t want this as you are effectively giving up home advantage, that said other than the Clarke era Killie in particular have so many empty seats and such a low take up for the 2 big fixtures and that is absolutely a financial headache in terms of lost income, this is a very different debate to the Sevco 700 nonsense, 2 clubs have zero right to demand another clubs stands but until the day comes when said clubs can fill those seats this debate is going to rage on!

  • Finbar muldoon says:

    It’s a moot point anyway. This time next year they’ll be in Champioship, playing in front of 2,000-3,000. HH

  • Kevan McKeown says:

    Thought that yesterday. Was like watchin an English lower division game. Klinsmann must’ve been sittin lookin at it around him thinkin ‘wtf, is THIS Scottish football ? It’s just makin our game look even more sub-standard. Just done theirself out if thousands of pounds. Where’s the sense ?

  • Stevie Bhoy says:

    Biggest problem here is the attitude of the managers as you pointed out in your earlier post.
    If managers and clubs treat games against us as a write off then why as a fan would you pay to go watch it??
    The whole of Scottish football needs a revamp and it doesn’t take a genius to see the basics that need changed.
    Unfortunately we have a system where small minded men are in it for themselves and damn the rest of us.

  • Peter Gemmell says:

    Clubs should live within their means and it’s up to the coaches to adapt to the money they operate with. You can’t just sell tickets to every part of the ground for security reasons It’s not just you the other lot are treated the same I do think they should look at the main stand and make a third available at the away end

  • JimBhoy says:

    Why have an 18k seated stadium in the first place if your home fans are around 5-6k max and you give less than 4k tickets to away fans.

    It’s not just ticket money that’s lost here. Money coming into the local community is also lost.

    Crazy set up that impacts budgets and will inevitably see teams fighting relegation when they could be showing a bit more desire to be able to compete at a higher level with more quality in their squad.

    Anyhoo I wonder how what the attendance was after 30 mins?

  • Johnno says:

    When such shite club’s as kille are prepared to take such a finical hit then it’s there choice and deserve getting relegated.
    This nonsense of receiving less money and yet persisting with such a shite playing surface still only highlights the mentality within that club.
    Believe that the majority of there points gained is from that surface, so again only confirms what a shite team they remain, and can’t play on grass where the game is meant to be played upon.
    Scottish football as a product can’t and won’t grow when you have the likes of kille along with livingstone and there rancid managers still wanting to keep Scottish football in the dark ages still.

  • John says:

    We know sevco are in dire financial trouble and potentially trying to bring scottish football to its knees. Do you think sevco facing media are going to highligh the issue. No we will go back to 2012 when they prophesied the death of scottish football.

    I hope teams like killie do die as they are definitely sevco loving?

Comments are closed.