Anyone not looking for a ticket to all Ireland

truman_m

Why should any of us bother to look for tickets for the all Ireland hurling Final (sounds crazy to me as I wright this but its true).
As a Waterford Fan I have been to hundreds of matches over my life time, but when I felt we could make a final last year in 2007 I went looking for a ticket and I covered a lot of clubs in Cork and Kerry. The outcome was no normal Fan will get to go to this game. The GAA does not operate to help out the die hard fans from any county.
The truth is if the GAA wanted to reward ordinary fans they would have introduced a fair system years ago. So the people who stood out in all those wet league encounters would now benefit for the loyalty they showed to their respective counties.
The GAA can easily sell all its Ireland final day tickets so instead of allowing real fans to watch their counties they instead opt to go down the more lucrative corporate road and leave the fans high and dry.
After the realisation of this last year I decided along with my usual match going friends to boycott Waterford matches this year and It showed as many of us never turned up this year to watch the matches. Instead I watched all the games from the comfort of Downey's bar in Dungarvan where we never have to feel disappointed ever again.
This I hope will encourage patrons from other counties to do the same and hopefully one day the GAA may be forced to appreciate the ordinary wet weather fan. Don't get me wrong I still volunteer at my local club and drive the young lads to matches and so forth but when it comes to senior matches I'd rather boycott games until the system becomes more fair.
What does everyone else think?

cruiserweight

truman_m wrote: »

Why should any of us bother to look for tickets for the all Ireland hurling Final (sounds crazy to me as I wright this but its true).
As a Waterford Fan I have been to hundreds of matches over my life time, but when I felt we could make a final last year in 2007 I went looking for a ticket and I covered a lot of clubs in Cork and Kerry. The outcome was no normal Fan will get to go to this game. The GAA does not operate to help out the die hard fans from any county.
The truth is if the GAA wanted to reward ordinary fans they would have introduced a fair system years ago. So the people who stood out in all those wet league encounters would now benefit for the loyalty they showed to their respective counties.
The GAA can easily sell all its Ireland final day tickets so instead of allowing real fans to watch their counties they instead opt to go down the more lucrative corporate road and leave the fans high and dry.
After the realisation of this last year I decided along with my usual match going friends to boycott Waterford matches this year and It showed as many of us never turned up this year to watch the matches. Instead I watched all the games from the comfort of Downey's bar in Dungarvan where we never have to feel disappointed ever again.
This I hope will encourage patrons from other counties to do the same and hopefully one day the GAA may be forced to appreciate the ordinary wet weather fan. Don't get me wrong I still volunteer at my local club and drive the young lads to matches and so forth but when it comes to senior matches I'd rather boycott games until the system becomes more fair.
What does everyone else think?

I see from your post that you are a member of a club. How does your club allocate it's share of tickets? I have never had problems getting tickets through my club.

Many county boards are running loyalty schemes etc where fans are guaranteed tickets to games, the Parnell Pass scheme is one example.

keane2097

truman_m wrote: »

Why should any of us bother to look for tickets for the all Ireland hurling Final (sounds crazy to me as I wright this but its true).
As a Waterford Fan I have been to hundreds of matches over my life time, but when I felt we could make a final last year in 2007 I went looking for a ticket and I covered a lot of clubs in Cork and Kerry. The outcome was no normal Fan will get to go to this game. The GAA does not operate to help out the die hard fans from any county.
The truth is if the GAA wanted to reward ordinary fans they would have introduced a fair system years ago. So the people who stood out in all those wet league encounters would now benefit for the loyalty they showed to their respective counties.
The GAA can easily sell all its Ireland final day tickets so instead of allowing real fans to watch their counties they instead opt to go down the more lucrative corporate road and leave the fans high and dry.
After the realisation of this last year I decided along with my usual match going friends to boycott Waterford matches this year and It showed as many of us never turned up this year to watch the matches. Instead I watched all the games from the comfort of Downey's bar in Dungarvan where we never have to feel disappointed ever again.
This I hope will encourage patrons from other counties to do the same and hopefully one day the GAA may be forced to appreciate the ordinary wet weather fan. Don't get me wrong I still volunteer at my local club and drive the young lads to matches and so forth but when it comes to senior matches I'd rather boycott games until the system becomes more fair.
What does everyone else think?

Isn't there a scheme where you get a stamp or something everytime you go to a league game and you get guaranteed a ticket if you've been to enough?

Or get a ticket through your club.

I've always been able to get tickets through the club.

truman_m

I myself am not a GAA member although I once was, it's my son and his friends who are the lads I take to their matches.
I once worked for Esat Digifone and as they sponsered Cork I was offered tickets to games but never took them as I thought it was unfair to other sets of supporters who's counties had gotten to the final. Although I did take one ticket off Barry Maloney the then MD, for a friend of mine from Armagh to see his county in a final but I excused this as he was up againt the system himself. The system that lets most fans down that is.

Our man in Havana

You would be considered a fair weather supporter. You will have a job to get tickets.

CantGetNoSleep

Bond-007 wrote: »

You would be considered a fair weather supporter. You will have a job to get tickets.

But there are far from enough so called die hards from both Waterford and Kilkenny so far to fill Croke Park

I am in a similar situation, I have played football most of my life but not in the last two years as I've been away a lot. I am not involved in my local club at this stage. But whenever I get a chance to be home I go to a Waterford match, even if it is a league match in the rain in February or March. I usually make it to 8 or 9 matches a year. These are always easy to get tickets for, so I just pick them up from a friends club, from ticketmaster or just pay in on the day. Now when it comes to the all Ireland in Waterford there is no way of rewarding people who have been to matches all year.

Does anyone on here work for a sponsor / could get tickets from their GAA club in a different county that has no interest in this match? Do they want to sell them to me?

As an aside, is it only clubs from counties that compete in the Liam McCarthy cup that receive tickets for the hurling final? As in, could I ask a friend from Kerry to get them from their club?

jackbhoy

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

As an aside, is it only clubs from counties that compete in the Liam McCarthy cup that receive tickets for the hurling final? As in, could I ask a friend from Kerry to get them from their club?

Every club that I know of (in 5/6 counties) get at least a pair of tickets for both football and hurling final. Its the way it's been for as long as I can remember and personally I think its a great system.
I understand that for participating counties it limits your allocation but with few exceptions the number of tickets allocated should easily cover your committed support base i.e. folks who attend all league games etc.

Giving every club tickets means grass roots members from counties that may never get to see their own county participate in an AI final can still experience the magic of AI day. Many don't agree but most club members I know would be of similar opinion.

Btw, for the last couple of years all cork/kk lads I know have gotten sorted for tickets on the day in pubs around drumcondra/fairview and not from touts either.

CantGetNoSleep

jackbhoy wrote: »

Every club that I know of (in 5/6 counties) get at least a pair of tickets for both football and hurling final. Its the way it's been for as long as I can remember and personally I think its a great system.
I understand that for participating counties it limits your allocation but with few exceptions the number of tickets allocated should easily cover your committed support base i.e. folks who attend all league games etc.

Giving every club tickets means grass roots members from counties that may never get to see their own county participate in an AI final can still experience the magic of AI day. Many don't agree but most club members I know would be of similar opinion.

Btw, for the last couple of years all cork/kk lads I know have gotten sorted for tickets on the day in pubs around drumcondra/fairview and not from touts either.

I would say that between Waterford and Kilkenny there are about 5,000 people that have been to every match this year. These fully deserve to be first in line for tickets, but there are another 75,000 tickets left. Some people go to maybe half of the matches in a year, in some counties, this isn't recognised. Others who have not been to a match all year will have just as much of a chance. Who do you feel deserves to get to see the match more?

So does anyone want to help me out by taking their clubs tickets?

Flukey

As a Waterford Fan I have been to hundreds of matches over my life time, but when I felt we could make a final last year in 2007 I went looking for a ticket and I covered a lot of clubs in Cork and Kerry. The outcome was no normal Fan will get to go to this game. The GAA does not operate to help out the die hard fans from any county.
The truth is if the GAA wanted to reward ordinary fans they would have introduced a fair system years ago. So the people who stood out in all those wet league encounters would now benefit for the loyalty they showed to their respective counties.

Come this time of year, this topic always comes up. We all have justifiable reasons that could make us entitled to tickets. There's the guy who goes to matches all year long; the guy who lines the local club's pitch and does a whole load of jobs there; the players; the parents that drive the children around; the people that train the teams. The list goes on and on and on.

There are all sorts of "deserving fans". The problem is though, that all the "deserving fans" amount to far more than the capacity of Croke Park, so they can't all get a ticket. But to say that "no normal Fan will get to go to this game" as you put it, is rubbish. The vast majority that are there on All-Ireland days are ordinary fans. It is just a minority that are questionable. It would be great to have a system that works, but the truth is that there is no fair system, and as I said the capacity wouldn't hold them all. Even judging on something like attendance at league games or involvement in clubs could put you in two groups. In my case, I go to an awful lot of matches, both club and county and not just when my own county are playing, but I don't get directly involved in my club. So on one criteria, I'd be very deserving and on the other I wouldn't have a hope.

So love it or loathe it, distributing the majority of the tickets through the clubs, which is the closest we can get to real fans, is actually the fairest way. Even the majority of the ones that go to the corporate bodies filter down to ordinary supporters too. Many people with big jobs, are ordinary GAA fans too. A lot of the corporates will pass the tickets onto real fans, so it is not all big executives greedily holding onto them depriving "deserving fans". So it is not true to think that everyone in the Corporate box wouldn't know a thing about what is going on out on the pitch.

From any individual's point of view the only fair system is one where they themselves get a ticket, because we all think we are deserving. Equally, if you think you are deserving but don't get a ticket, then the system isn't fair. There is no perfectly fair system, and there never can be, so we just have to do our best to get one of those tickets. Good luck.

djScarey

Tickets arrive in Kilkenny City from clubs all over the country and always at face value separately from the main allocation about 4-7 days before the Final. I estimate about 500-1000 become available. If you're a GAA fan and hang out in those circles/ bars, usually there is no problem chasing down a final ticket. I have often been amazed at the goodwill of those clubs from other counties, as they could just as easy make a fat euro killing as a tout. Glory to those clubs and their members.

GalwayDub2

This drives me mental :mad: You have fans that go to every single match, these are the fans that deserve to get final tickets. When Galway got into the final my boyfriend went up to Pearse Stadium with ticket stubs, programmes, whatever he could find to prove he had been to every match during the year, but they just laughed at him. Then you've people crawling out of the woodwork in September who have never been to a match all year long, and end up with 2!:mad: Its all wrong..

Flukey

It is wrong, but unfortunately there is no perfect system. There are people there on final day who only got interested when they heard the result of the semi-final which they didn't go to, watch or maybe even know was on. They'll say though that they are a native of the county that is competing, and so should be entitled to a ticket. As I said in my last post, even if the most deserving people were entitled to tickets for the final, Croke Park could not hold them all, but we can at least comfort ourselves in the knowledge that the vast majority there on the day are "real fans".

dreamer_ire

I have to say I'd do almost anything for a ticket but as I live in Northern Ireland I get to very very few of the Waterford matches... home or away. I regularly go to football up here but hurling matches are few and far between. Living away from "home" I miss hurling more than I miss Tayto crisps... I even went to the Galway/Antrim match in Belfast to get my fix!! Despite putting out feelers here I'm starting to resign myself that I won't be travelling this year. What I find interesting is that there is never any problem getting tickets for the quarters and semis but the final is near impossible.

Good luck to everyone who gets tickets... would love to be there and won't give up until the morning of the Final! Have to say though, I'd swap final tickets for a Waterford win... it's been a long time coming... Up the Deise!

Goldstar

how much are the tickets for the all ireland this year? and prices for various sections

Flukey

Cork v Kerry, All-Ireland Final, September 2007: A full house.
Cork v Kerry, All-Ireland Semi-Final, August 2008: 35,000.

Need I say more, other than where were the other 45,000 plus of "real fans"?

grenache

Last year i attended the Kilkenny-Limerick hurling final and before the game i saw several tickets being exchanged for several hamburgers, there were shedloads of them going around outside Quinns and further up the road in Fagans. Touts couldn't get rid of them. My sister was sat in the Canal end and had an empty seat either side of her.

I've seen the same every year i have gone to the final, be it hurling or football. Hang around outside Croker before the game and you will most definitely get a ticket.

Rowley Birkin QC

TBH, it's your loss mate. If you want tickets they are always somewhere to be had. I will take them from any quarter, corporate, local club or directly from Croke Park.

To answer the point about the poor show yesterday; it is widely known that Kerry don't travel in numbers to Croker until very late in the season. As for myself I simply couldn't afford it having been to all the hurling matches so far. I will make the trip next week though and will also go to the hurling final. I would actually love to see Waterford beating Kilkenny, it has been long overdue to that team.

Racing Flat

Flukey wrote: »

Cork v Kerry, All-Ireland Final, September 2007: A full house.
Cork v Kerry, All-Ireland Semi-Final, August 2008: 35,000.

Need I say more, other than where were the other 45,000 plus of "real fans"?

I wonder does this mean Cork or Kerry, whoever gets to the Final will only request around 17,500 tickets.

The problem is that a lot of the 35,000 who were there yesterday won't be able to get tickets to the Final if their County gets there.

One of the reasons, is e.g. I know a girl from Leinster who has family on a County Board. So she goes to every All-Ireland Final, football and hurling, it's an occasion, a day out, the showpiece and tradition. But there's no way she was ever going to go yesterday, to a Cork and Kerry match. And there are probably many more like her. A lot of GAA fans who are not from Cork/Kerry/Tyrone/Wexford will be at the Final, meaning there's less available for the participating Counties.

bill_ashmount

Flukey wrote: »

Cork v Kerry, All-Ireland Final, September 2007: A full house.
Cork v Kerry, All-Ireland Semi-Final, August 2008: 35,000.

Need I say more, other than where were the other 45,000 plus of "real fans"?

Where are all the other 80,000+ Dublin fans for their league games or hurling games............never mind the fact that all your games are played in your backyard.

OP. There will be no problem getting tickets for the final. I've never failed to get a ticket and I'm not joined any club. Even on the day if you travel up, people will be selling them (not touts) tickets always become available.

Flukey

Bill Ashmount, that can be said of every county when it comes to the league. None of our away games, of which there are many, are in our own backyard, unless you regard all of Ireland as our backyard. As to 80,000 plus of Dublin fans, you are then saying that when Dublin play that no fans at all come from the other participating counties on the day. So that is a worse reflection on the other fans, not Dublin fans.

Nalced_irl

bill_ashmount wrote: »

Where are all the other 80,000+ Dublin fans for their league games or hurling games............never mind the fact that all your games are played in your backyard.

OP. There will be no problem getting tickets for the final. I've never failed to get a ticket and I'm not joined any club. Even on the day if you travel up, people will be selling them (not touts) tickets always become available.

Bill, he is comparing 2 huge matches in the same code here, not a league game to a championship game or football to hurling. Comparing Dublin league or hurling games to football championship games is completely irrelivant.

blaaaaaa

every club team in lreland gets four tickets for both codes for the all-lreland finals but most football counties swap there tickets.people most remeber that this hurling final is a derby march and that kilkenny people will travel for this unlike in past years just coz its2waterford.Neway waterford and kilkenny only got 22000 tickets between them for the final county boards are hoping for more but not looking good
tickets for final are gona range from 35euro for the hill to 70euro for the stands no family tickets for finals:mad:

CantGetNoSleep

Ok so does anyone want to ask their club for their allocation for me?

Flukey

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

Ok so does anyone want to ask their club for their allocation for me?

I think you know well the answer to that one. There are a lot more members in every club than there are tickets, so ones going to clubs don't get outside of people in the clubs, and at that that leaves the majority of members without one. There are a lot more members of GAA clubs than there are tickets for Croke Park on an All-Ireland Final day.

VH

imho the GAA is unfortunately a cross between Fianna Fail and the Orange Order - a silly club in which arse licking the right people will see your way to the top

many a fan of hurling and football has lost out because of this

yayamark

Flukey wrote: »

Cork v Kerry, All-Ireland Final, September 2007: A full house.
Cork v Kerry, All-Ireland Semi-Final, August 2008: 35,000.

Need I say more, other than where were the other 45,000 plus of "real fans"?

Hi I watched the match in Paddy Murphys pub in Rotterdam. I was on bike trip.

I'll be there on Sunday travelling from Mayo :rolleyes: from a 30th party :pac:

I'll be cheering n the Kingdom and Wexford.:)

Dont know where the other 44,999 were

Waylander

bigkev49 wrote: »

TBH, it's your loss mate. If you want tickets they are always somewhere to be had. I will take them from any quarter, corporate, local club or directly from Croke Park.

To answer the point about the poor show yesterday; it is widely known that Kerry don't travel in numbers to Croker until very late in the season. As for myself I simply couldn't afford it having been to all the hurling matches so far. I will make the trip next week though and will also go to the hurling final. I would actually love to see Waterford beating Kilkenny, it has been long overdue to that team.

I would have thought the semi final was pretty late in the season to be fair. Bill, please explain to me why everytime there is a discussion about something like this, there is always 1 person who will blame the dubs or bring the Dubs into it. I really dont get it.


VH sadly your point is true of pretty much all sporting organisations and their flagship matches, ie the FA Cup throws up the exact same issues in England, I think you are being a bit harsh on the GAA in this instance.

truman_m

Look Dublin I'm sorry for drawing a negative vibe on you. I lived in Dublin once and honest its not so bad.
Just about these all Ireland Ticket - Just to let everyone know were thinking of putting up a big screen in gratton square in Dungarvan on final day and to be honest it will almost feel like being there - remember Limerick during the rugby final.
Anyway I like the orange order / finna fail arse lickers being the only onces getting tickets. It will make me fell a lot better on the day knowing that I'm not a member of this club. Love some of the comments but I don't see so many tickets hanging around Dublin on Final day. It's a long way up to take the risk of watching the game alone in a pub in Dublin.

Michael Dungarvan

Yavvy

thats a great idea Dungarvan would eb deadly Craic on AI final day.

Rowley Birkin QC

Sorry lads, but whats this Orange Order/ Fianna Fail nonsense about?

truman_m

What we are refering to is the GAA and the upright way people have to act in order to get tickets to all Ireland Final matches. It's been the consenses of the argument here.
The GAA basically has no respect for its wet weather supporters and simply takes care of its own arse lickers.

When will they ever bring in a fair method of ticket allocation which rewards fans who attend leage and early championship matches.
The answer is never because its an old boys club and the old network are happy to keep things as they are.
I see some one compared the all Ireland Final to the UK FA cup well in the FA supporters who go week in week out easily get tickets to this final. In the UK supporters are always rewarded with match tickets.
I know maybe people say its hard to go to old Trafford but man utd have over 200,000,000 supporters and any time I have looked for a ticket I've gotten one even though I have no influence in the UK.

The GAA will need to grow up and support its supporters or it may end up with empty league fixtures as it has suffered this year.

byhookorbycrook

I have never had a problem getting a ticket.If you are one of the people who lines the pitch, trains the under tens etc, you will always get a ticket from somewhere

CantGetNoSleep

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

I have never had a problem getting a ticket.If you are one of the people who lines the pitch, trains the under tens etc, you will always get a ticket from somewhere

If tickets were only given to those then there would be no need for Croke Park