I arrived in the east stand at my allotted time. Was a queue on but took 5 mins top to get in. Steward checking our id’s with our cards in the queue and then another scanning at the turnstile. Can’t fault the Stewards tonight (genuinely can’t say that often), they did a brilliant job.
We arrived around 7.45 which was after my time but I was never going to get there earlier than I did. Straight in, no queues. 10 seconds for checks.
We arrived at 7.30, our allotted time was 7.15/7.30. Queued for 5 mins then in with ticket and ID. Felt more normal than I expected apart from there being no congregating in the concourse. I don’t think they’d have batted an eyelid if we’d turned up at 8 to be honest, that’s how it felt to me anyway. Roll on next season in August....
Tried to show my passport to the steward, but he was more interesting in squirting my hands (North stand), and just showed ticket to gateman. (I'm not complaining) Bloody marvellous to be back though.
It wouldn’t have been practicable to check everyone’s ID, nor would it have served any purpose whatsoever It was really well organised, and adhered to, in difficult circumstances
I just can’t stand when someone makes a rule and then doesn’t stick to it. I’ve got a weird thing about it.
ha! I assumed it was the govt’s rule rather than the clubs (they seem pretty good at creating inane rules..) or if the clubs perhaps just a deterrent to prevent tickets being sold on?
Any one saying it was well organised were not in the North Stand where it was piss poor! Allotted time 6.45 to 7.00 (after a 2 and half hour drive) and the gates weren't open until 10 past 7 because there weren't enough stewards! Three attempts were made to open the gate but no one could find the right key! We were eventually let in through the vehicle entrance. Lots of media present at this time so just hope no pictures of the hundreds (not socially distanced) waiting at the gate don't make it into the papers this morning. I know I was lucky to be there at all and had a great night despite the result but things like this can make the club look bad!
Thats how it appeared to me, checking some id's but not all. Just putting the rule out should have served to stop anyone coming who shouldn't. Was all nice and relaxed. We were around 15 minutes "late" no issues at all.
Asking people to arrive 90 minutes before kick off always felt really weird to me, and felt like an official line...dunno if they were our rules or rules that were given to us or what. But having been to Oakwell well over 500 times, I've literally never seen that before and I was confident they were never going to enforce arrival times. I get that some were going to arrive at that time because that's what they were asked to do. Also agree that the Club should have been prepared for people arriving at that time. Not sure it makes us 'look bad' though. Easily avoided but not the end of the world.
