I'm normally a fairly prompt and organised person. I give myself more than enough time to get somewhere. I plan in advance what is going to happen when I get there. I make sure that I cover any feasible reason for delay. Maybe that makes me sound like a bit of a nerd but it's just the way I am and have always been.
The recent match between Glory and Phoenix, for a variety of reasons (i.e. trying not to be too rude in leaving a Fathers' Day commitment and getting a friend with a broken leg to the game- hi Al) saw me experiencing match-day the way the "other half" do it. Instead driving in nice and early to get a good park, I was stuck paying $6 to park a 15 minute walk from the ground. Instead of getting to the ground well before kick-off, I rocked up pretty much on kick-off. And instead of waltzing in with my usual pre-purchased tickets I lined up with my friends to buy them at the gate.
Never again!!!
The ability of staff to get willing customers into the ground at or about kick-off was nothing short of disgraceful. Every purchase of tickets seemed to take at least a couple of minutes and in the end a line of about 30 people took as many minutes to get into the ground. This of course meant we all missed Mile Sterjovski's opening goal and a subsequent disallowed goal (which I still haven't seen replayed!).
There seems to be no logical reason whatsoever for gate sales to take such an amount of time, particularly when most people are purchasing general admission tickets rather than reserved seating and the ground was nowhere near being sold out (barely half capacity although quite how you could squeeze as many people again into NIB Stadium is beyond me). Not so long ago, one didn't even need to purchase a ticket but could simply pay the admission fee at the turnstile to receive an entry stub and enter the ground. Whatever the new system is, it is simply not adequate! Making things worse, fans pay a premium to buy tickets at the gate rather than pre-purchase on the internet. What, one has to wonder, are they paying for exactly?
On top of the ridiculousness of having to line up for so long in a relatively short period of time, the Perth Glory response to the masses of fans missing the game was hardly impressive. Despite arriving at the ground pretty much on kick-off, my friends and I missed about a quarter of the match. One might've thought some sort of discounted entry fee might've been an appropriate measure to placate frustrated fans, but instead we weren't even offered an apology. It seems that in the eyes of Perth Glory, Ticketmaster and/or NIB Stadium staff it is the responsibility of fans to behave in the usual nerdy manner and expect to suffer because we couldn't arrive well in advance of kick-off. One wonders how many people having experienced that have decided not to bother with attending Glory matches anymore.
Grizzle aside, it was in the end another very pleasant outing at Glory as the boys secured (equal) top spot on the ladder. While certain quarters of the media might be getting all excited about the European style of Adelaide or North Queensland and praising the influence of 'educated' Ange Postecoglou, David Mitchell has far and away impressed me most of any coach to date. He has developed a team with both the technical and physical ability to win games, and has them completely playing to their strengths. He has started getting the best out of stars Sterjovski, Fowler and Burns but is also drawing increasingly impressive performances from 'second tier' players like Howarth, Pellegrino and Neville.
After five unbeaten games Glory are (equal) top for a reason, and surely opposition teams (if not the media just yet) are taking them seriously perhaps for the first time since the A-League started.
