THE away day is a big part of football fandom.
Is there anything better than seeing your team win at a rival’s ground, out-singing their fans for 90 minutes and chanting while they trudge out as you wait behind?
It makes the searches on the way in and, sometimes being directed away from your car by the Public Order Unit on the way out, all worthwhile.
The popularity of the away day has risen with the growth of the League of Ireland, which has created a new problem.
It is a good problem but a new problem nonetheless. Demand is often outstripping supply for away tickets.
That provides headaches for fans who follow their team home and away.
If you are reading this hoping there is a solution coming soon, there is not.
But whatever fix you want implemented, rest assured.
Clubs have thought about it too and are finding it as big a headache.
SunSport contacted several club officials this week to talk about having a problem that they would have wished for a few years ago.
Quite a few mentioned how crowds used to be so sparse that ‘switching ends’ — to always be behind the goal your team was shooting into — was the norm.
Segregation was introduced on a stricter basis around 20 years ago without any issues given that there were few sellouts back then.
But with many grounds now in need of expansion or redevelopment to cope with the demand from home fans, the away allocations have also felt the squeeze.
Clubs must provide ten per cent of capacity to visiting supporters.
Those that provide more do so largely because of the configuration of their grounds.
But — most commonly around Dublin derbies with the shorter travelling distances — there are simply not enough away tickets to satisfy demand.
That has led to frustration among fans and clubs looking for the fairest way to distribute the tickets.
How it currently works is that clubs with membership or patron schemes give those fans first dibs, followed by season ticket holders.
For the more popular games, tickets rarely go on general sale.
But there have been instances when online portals have crashed due to the volume of traffic.
SunSport understands this has most often happened on the rare occasions when the home club has not password-protected away tickets.
Either way, it has led to a scramble where the fastest fingers win, a situation that pleases no one.
LOYALTY SCHEME DRAWBACK
Loyalty schemes or points systems similar to those based in England have been suggested by some supporters.
But more than one club official argued that is logistically difficult given there are three providers for LOI clubs — Future Ticketing, TicketCo and Ticketmaster.
Measuring loyalty is also a minefield.
As one club pointed out, the league was crying out for new fans a few years ago so to measure loyalty of years of attendance would punish those who have helped to create the LOI buzz.
The age profile of crowds has also dropped dramatically.
In some cases, you would actually be punishing people for simply being young.
At a members’ club, an official highlighted how all members are equal and it would need a vote to decide if some members are more equal than others as regards away tickets.
Another club official spoke of their knowledge of English points systems where ‘ticket squatting’ — to get the points when not going to a game — can happen.
A fallout from the lack of away tickets is that there have been visiting fans looking to buy tickets for home ends.
Even with segregation, it used to not be a big problem when crowds were smaller.
Plain-clothed visiting fans sat in the home section without ever drawing attention to themselves.
But when social media is abuzz with away fans going to the home end, as has happened at some Tallaght Stadium and Tolka Park derbies over the past three years, clubs have to act.
What it means is that getting an away-day ticket for the bigger games will remain stressful and fastest-finger-first for now.
Whoever figures out a better system will be a hero.
