GTFC Explain Their Student Tickets Policy

By: Steff Keightley
Date: 26/05/2001

GTFC, having announced their Student Season tickets, may be about to change the name of it as they feel it may be a little misleading to full-time University Students around the country, who were hoping to cash in on the £152.00 tickets.

Steve Wraith, GTFC Accounts Manager told The Fishy, "We have been thinking of this for several years now, and I have received several e-mails regarding this from disgruntled Parents."

He explained "It is aimed at a section of the market that is not yet catered for, and with receiving e-mails saying, for example: 'Our daughter is going to College, for 2 years, but will receive no grant and all we have is her Child Allowance to help keep her through this period before going to University. We have been paying for her Season Ticket and feel let down that she has to now pay a full adult price.'

"This helped to swing it; said Steve "I agree that calling it a Student Ticket is a bit misleading, and feel that is should be something along the lines of a Sixth Form Ticket, as that is the target audience we are aiming at."

Working out to only £6.60 a game, these tickets will soon become very precious indeed. Steve said, "We can only offer 200 of these tickets; we wish we could offer more, but we have to strike a balance of Season Ticket holders and people buying match day tickets."

Steve added "With the balance we have to make sure that there are enough match day tickets available for those people who cannot afford a season ticket, but who come along to the game, from locally or from other parts of the country"

Adding, "This balance is very important, as the Season Tickets help to keep the club running during the Summer Months, with the match day tickets keeping the club floating during the season, so we would like to keep it balanced". He also added "We would love to only have 3,000 Season Ticket holders for a game against Man City, but then we would prefer 5,000 against someone like Crewe."

Steve then went on to say "If we released it to all Students then I can't really see those up in Newcastle or down in Plymouth travelling to BP every other weekend to see Town play, they either don't have the transport and/or money for the train fare"

Steve finally commented that, "We do Student match day tickets, they are £8.00. All people have to do is come along and buy the tickets, after showing a valid National Union of Students (NUS) Card. It's the same as an unemployed person would. So its not as though we don't cater for Students, we are just trying to cater for a section of the market that is not catered for"

Steff says: I understand where the club is coming from and I applaud the club for what it is trying to do and, as a student, I understand the need to cater for the differing markets out there. As full-time University Students, we are catered for in match day tickets only.

If we wanted to buy a Season Ticket, we would have to pay full price, and include our travel costs, but with a slightly subsidised version, it would help Students from around the country, and entice them back to the games.

Students can come home, but not watch the match, even though it is only £8.00 to get in, because we don't get a decent enough grant to help alleviate the problems that modern Students face today; But that's a different kettle of fish altogether.

Last, but by no means least, I would like to thank Steve Wraith for the time he spent explaining the reasoning and thought that has gone into this offer.

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