United’s Season Ticket renewal period ended at 1,414 on Friday evening, with reservations opening for general Season Ticket sales from 10am on Monday morning.
Chief executive Nigel Clibbens spoke tonight about what had been a busy few weeks for the club.
“With just over 1,400 Season Tickets reserved, I have to say that’s excellent when you consider the circumstances,” he said. “We’re really pleased with that. It’s a great start and I’m sure there will be lots more interest from new Season Ticket holders on Monday.
“It is probably the right time to repeat what I said a few weeks ago. As restrictions start to ease, and fans are allowed back into stadiums, there’s a real risk that games on Saturday afternoons will stop being streamed, at the same time as social distancing measures remain in place.
“That means that having a Season Ticket remains the best chance fans have of watching our games. If you haven’t got one, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to watch it on a stream, or that you'll be able to buy a walk-up ticket.”
Monday morning brings an opportunity for fans who have never had a Season Ticket before, or who perhaps lapsed last season, to secure their place for the 2020/21 campaign.
“Season Ticket holders who haven’t renewed, who were maybe waiting to do it at the same time as a fan who is getting a new Season Ticket so they can sit together, can obviously still do that on Monday,” the chief exec explained. “From Monday, tickets will also be available for general reservations for new Season Ticket holders.
“Again, I must stress, we won’t be taking any money at this stage, it's purely for reservations at the moment.
"What I would advise is that the best method for fans who want to reserve a space on our terraces is for them to send an email.
“Make sure the email tells us which zone you want to be in, within the Paddock or the Warwick, and our staff will process that email and reply to you in due course, to let you know when that reservation has been noted.
“If you want a seat, the best option is to phone or come along in person to the ticket office. Currently all of the spaces available in stands B, C and D have gone. There isn’t much room left in the A stand, and the EWM stand is set aside for commercial and hospitality use.
“That leaves the Pioneer Stand, and within that sections 5 and 6 in the middle have nearly sold out. There is some space in section 7, but not a lot. We’re now looking towards the away end, and the possibility of putting our fans in that area.
“As we sit here now, and from discussions with other clubs and with the EFL on Thursday, I think the direction we’re going in is that there won’t be any away fans in Brunton Park, or in most other stadiums, while we have restrictions in place on what we can do with home fans.”
“I’ve said all along that we have a big advantage here at Brunton Park in terms of the size of our terracing, which means we can get more people in,” he continued. “There are a number of clubs who will get nowhere even close to getting their normal Season Ticket numbers in.
“Quite simply put, they need their full capacity to help those fans, therefore their priority will be home fans over away fans. Additionally, and if you think about it logically, in these current circumstances do we really want a couple of hundred of our fans going to Cambridge on a coach, just as an example, or for Cambridge fans to have to make that journey up here when there is still so much concern and uncertainty around the transmission of the virus.
“I don’t really think we want to be encouraging that, and particularly not when all of the games are going to be shown on iFollow anyway.
“What we all hope is that this will all only be in place for a short time because fans are integral to the match day experience. Short term we must take a hit, but I think everybody understands why that has to be the case.
“We have to make some sacrifices and changes, but by taking that decision on what we will do with away fans means we get more home fans into the stands, because we lose the need for away segregation.”
In the next part of our update from chief executive Nigel Clibbens, on the official website on Saturday, he’ll be talking about when fans who have made Season Ticket reservations can expect to start the payment procedure, and how that process will work.
When reserving please tell us your preferred block and section (see Map):
Call 0330 094 5930 (option 1) to speak to our ticket office staff.
If you need to make your reservation in person, please use the hand sanitiser provided in main reception and follow correct social media procedures at all times. Please reserve by phone if you can.
Terracing Season Tickets can be reserved by emailing ticket.printing@carlisleunited.co.uk with your full name, address and terracing block you would like to stand in.
