"HELLO and welcome to this special one-off National Lottery Live draw, live and direct from the Riverside Stadium .
"Dale Winton couldn't make it tonight as he had a pressing engagement in the Permatan spray shop so it is me, ubiquitous Teessider Mark Benton, stood outside the old Ayresome Park gates. And remember it's 'new customers only'.... woah, fella, put the gun down, it was only a joke. And none of that chew about giving my balls a shake neither.
"Earlier today a random member of the public, a Mr Keith Lamb of Eaglescliffe, selected lottery machine Juninho and set of balls number two and we have a special guest adjudicator Mr Ray 'Robocop' Mallon to oversee fair play for this keenly awaited draw, a bumper ticket fest with 9,200 lucky winners. Will you be one?"
Tonight's draw for Eindhoven tickets should be beamed live to homes across Teesside. It would be gripping, it will be dramatic and it will be emotional. Viewers would be in a state of heightened emotional turmoil and every twist would pile on the tension. Where is Boro TV when you need it?
That the decision on whether life long fans get to see their heroes in the UEFA Cup final action comes down to ticket office staff pulling envelopes out of a sack behind closed doors is an invitation to conspiracists and bitterness. There is no doubt that the dark whispers will begin almost immediately. That friends of officials or Bulkhaul employees won eight each while Joe Soap's envelope never even went in. That envelopes with certain postcodes or marked 'club flight please' were favoured. That paranoia is inevitable.
But there is no other way of doing it. Given the timescale and the lack of precedent or specialist equipment what else can Boro do? Even starting at patron number S000001 and working up is flawed because the digits actually mean nothing, other than the order the envelopes were opened on that fateful day back in Year Zero. Besides S000001 might be in the same envelope as T23889. Then what?
An open draw is the only way. But maybe it should be really open? Open to scrutiny. Maybe Robocop really should be there as an adjudicator. Maybe supporters and the press should be there to ensure fair play. Maybe the Boro should sell tickets. There would certainly be enough interest.
The next problem is notification. Are the ticket office going to make 9,200 calls over the next few days? That would prompt a wave of absenteeism in key industries and Teesside would grind to a halt as anxious fans sit by the phone. Cold callers offering low interest loans and mobiles are going to get even more abrupt refusals than normal. Annd telecoms companies will be inundated with angry demands that they "check this bloody phone line now".
Maybe the club plan to put the list of lucky winners on the world's biggest press release to be printed in a GCSE results style eight page supplement in the Gazette. That would be some sales boost.
Or perhaps they could pin the chosen names to the Ayresome Gates as in some medieval proclamation. It would be like radical German Godbotherer Martin Luther banging his troublesome list on the church door at Worms only it would cause more European turmoil and bloodshed.
However the club do this there will be thoudsands of diehard fans with legitimate grievances. They know that and ticket staff will be dreading the phone starting to ring over the next few days. But they must listen. These people are th emost loyal and valued fans and can't be given short shrift. The club should put in place a sympathetic complaints procedure and should announce they will do their utmost to correct any anomalies.
There will for instance be cases of legitimate S and T winners handing their ticket on to family and friends who are not entitled to it. They are are in effect cynically stealing the dream moment of glory from someone with ten years Red Book service and loyalty who deserve it more.
The club should stress with every ticket that goes out that they are NOT TRANSFERABLE. Anyone who is caught breaking that stipulation should be denied future priority and the tickets seized. Anyone who later finds they can't go after all should be encouraged to hand their ticket back. They can go back into the pot for a clearing system redraw with any returned by Sevilla (unlikely admittedly) a few days before the game.
This process is going to hurt a lot of people. Everything must be done in the most transparent and fair way possible to minimse the pain of the losers and maximise the number of tickets that get into the most deserving hands.
- Post to:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
Nowpublic
Reddit
« Previous | Home | Next »