No Need For Aston Villa Fans to Panic About Wembley Final Tickets

Aston Villa Wembley Tickets

Judging by the amount of messages that MOMS has received from supporters over the past few days regarding Aston Villa Wembley tickets, I thought it was worth posting this…

Villa fans wanting to go to Wembley for the Play-off Final, who haven’t got a ticket yet, shouldn’t get too anxious about not getting one, if they have at least booking history for this season.

While the number of remaining tickets will become clearer after this weekend, there’s several factors to take into consideration before panic sets in.

Bigger Allocation

The allocation of 38,144 for the play-off final is a lot bigger than for the allocation of Villa’s last couple of Wembley trips during the FA Cup adventure of 2015.

It’s over 6000 more than the semi-final against Liverpool, which had an allocation of 31,799. For the FA Cup final, the allocation was even less, around the 25,000 mark.

So there’s 13,000+ more tickets than the FA Cup final against Arsenal, and during that  season the average attendance of Villa Park was higher, so there would have been more supporters with better booking histories than this season.

Championship Level

Step away from the hype machine that is social media, especially Twitter, and there’s a more pragmatic view to the game in reality. For example, the mood in the Aston Social after the second-leg, wasn’t outright celebration. Several fans I spoke to said they weren’t bothering with going to the final.

The game’s importance has been pumped-up by the media over the years, simply because of the TV rights money the winner is then privy to. Yes, it’s potentially better for Villa as a business, but in terms of an actual football prize in itself, it’s small potatoes.

You won’t see many Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, Spurs, Manchester City and Chelsea fans longing to win the Championship play-off final.

While the modern day fan devalues the FA Cup, it’s still a proper final, steeped in history and leads to European football. So, when it comes to wanting to go, it’s a bigger day out for most supporters.

Criteria

The fact that the club had a loose three+ home game criteria after season ticket holders, shows there are plenty of tickets. Every fan with a booking history of three homes and more, who wants to go, will get a ticket.

Villa fans that were getting salty over fans with just three game under their belt this season getting the same priority as supporters with say 10 or 14 home games, are just wasting precious moments of their lives typing out their Tweets.

With blocks being sold off in a block-by-block fashion, the seating category availability remains universal.

Again, any Villa fan wanting a trip to Wembley with three games and more on their booking history WILL GET A TICKET.

For the FA Cup games in 2015, there was a lot more staggered criteria stages, so the looser criteria for the play-off final is a clue of which supporters are completely guaranteed a ticket. The club knows the maths.

This means the next criteria of ‘any booking history in 2017/18’ still has a very good chance of getting a ticket, especially if they try to book early.

At this stage, it is obviously down to demand and supply.

Advertising

MOMS has noticed that Aston Villa have been advertising Play-off Final tickets on Google ads. Something they surely wouldn’t have to do, if all 38,144 tickets were going to sell out sharpish.

Neutral

If there’s ever a Villa trip to Wembley that the phrase “where there’s a will, there’s a way” applies to, it’s this one against Fulham.

Because of the moderate size of the Fulham fanbase (their 38,114 Wembley allocation dwarfs Craven Cottage’s capacity of 25,700), Fulham fans can buy up to five tickets each. This suggests their end will have a few neutral mates and daytrippers going along. So, you’d imagine they’ll be a few tickets knocking around if you look hard enough.

With there being no direct News Street to Euston trains in operation on the day of the match, so getting a ticket maybe less stressful than actually getting to and returning from the game.

UTV

While you wait for your tickets to arrive listen and laugh along (& subscribe) to the latest MOMS Podcast episode: