We tried to be fair to fans over Chelsea tickets – Devlin

Brentford chief executive Mark Devlin says the club tried to do the right thing by their regular fans in the sale of the tickets for the FA Cup tie against Chelsea.

With only 48 hours until the game, just a handful of the 12,200 tickets reserved for Bees fans, which were sold under strict criteria, were left unsold.

Only season ticket holders, members of the club’s various groups or previous purchasers were eligible to buy two tickets each.

Lots of supporters had lengthy waits and Devlin told West London Sport: “It took too long to serve the queue and this was partly down to the club trying to be as friendly as possible.

“While I’m at Brentford, season ticket holders will be the number one priority.” – Mark Devlin

“It would have been a lot simpler and a lot speedier if we had only sold one ticket per season ticket holder – but by offering two, people were taking their time to choose their additional seat if the one beside them wasn’t available.

“They were choosing another and in some cases that meant moving stands completely. I am pleased with the staff response and we tried to be as fair as possible to everyone who wanted access to get a ticket.”

Devlin admitted that the club’s operational set-up had found it hard to cope with the demand for such a big match.

“It is fair to say that the systems and infrastructure creaked,” he said. “Even though we have got an okay ticket system, it is clearly a system designed for League One and Two clubs.

“As it was we were planning a massive upgrade in the close season and this has proved that it needed to happen.

“Having said that, I am absolutely delighted with the way the ticket office staff responded to the huge workload put on them immediately after the Southend game.

“It took until 12.40am to serve the last fan in the queue [for Chelsea tickets]. I thought we might sell up to 11.30pm but not for the life of me until that time.

“The staff had to get home after that and then come back into work for two days of selling until 9pm.

“They have been magnificent and are absolutely exhausted but they will enjoy the day on Sunday although they will be glad it is all done and dusted.”

Fans were only able to purchase tickets from the ticket office itself and online booking was not available.

“The only place we could locate terminals which you could use to purchase a ticket was in the ticket office,” Devlin explained.

“We managed to get an extra one in preparation for if we had beaten Southend and it was the most we could do to cram that in there.

“We couldn’t sell online as we couldn’t prevent opening doors to anybody who wanted to just register and book.

“In future, in a similar situation, we will be able to offer online sales and control who buys tickets and where they buy tickets.”

The tickets were sold under the club’s Customer Charter, which was set up following errors in the way tickets were sold for The Bees’ FA Cup fifth-round tie at Southampton eight years ago.

However, Devlin hinted that the Charter may be changed in the future.

“It does need looking at,” he admitted.

“We are dealing with season ticket holders and then lists from outside organisations – well-meaning supporters groups which are third party lists.

“While I am at Brentford, season ticket holders will be the number one priority. They should get the best prices and the best levels of service and priority in purchasing tickets for home and away matches.

“They show their loyalty at the start of the season when they don’t know how it will pan out and that has to be respected.

“We probably need to look at the rest of it and perhaps reintroduce a membership system that the club can control which will make it slightly easier.

“The club must have control over the data that we are dealing with and having lists from outside parties has been a little bit of a nightmare.

“We will probably need to have difficult conversations with Bees United and BIAS and we wouldn’t take a decision in isolation but not having all of that information at our fingertips did cause us some problems and we need to take responsibility for all of that data.

“We tried to please everybody and when you do that, someone will always be upset.”

Devlin’s prediction, when pushed, is a 2-2 draw – which would of course lead to huge demand for tickets to a replay at Stamford Bridge.

“That would be nice and easy!” he said. “We would get 6,000 tickets which would come as one big pre-printed bundle.

“The process of selling those tickets under the Customer Charter is so much easier with people not buying specific seats.”

It is a problem Devlin will hope to have to think about by the middle of Sunday afternoon.

Follow me on Twitter at @ianwestbrook

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