Nineteen Eighty wrote:The Trust membership, is the only Membership scheme we have. It allocates a membership number starting with the first to join to those who joined today. It shows how long you've been a member. Ok it not perfect and doesn't reflect your past 30 - 40 etc supporting years. But its a start. And I can imagine a time when ticket allocation will be based on the first thousand or so trust members on day one etc etc.
The fact that you spend more money in the shop or on tickets or not, does not make more or less a supporter. My grandad who supported the club all his life, couldn't afford to go to away matches and home games weren't too convenient in later years, but a truer supporter you wouldn't find.
Ticket allocation based on trust membership *number* is also a terrible idea. It guarantees privilege long term irrespective of recent contribution. The only fair way to allocate tickets is on a season-by-season basis:
> Season Ticket holders
> Membership (whether Trust or another club membership scheme, but makes sense to be Trust membership as it already exists)
> Individual match attendance
> General sale
There's an argument that overall club-related purchases should count, which is fine because that reflects ST holders as making a big one-off investment and they're also more likely to buy goods and merchandise due to more regular attendance too. That reflects this model but also offers the opportunity for people to increase their priority by buying "stuff".
The other question is whether home season ticket holding should be a priority for away ticket purchasing, but as that's never been an issue it's a bit moot - in fact most of this stuff is moot because we only have about one match needing these measures every two years or so.