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I’ve just joined the ESTC.

Hi all.

5 Replies

  • David Lilley

    Hello, Matthew, welcome to the club. You've raised a question about general ticket sales on another thread so I'll try to answer it here.

    Home matches

    Tickets for home matches will typically go on sale around 4 - 5 weeks before the match. ESTC members get a short exclusive sales period before everyone else so you can be certain of a ticket for yourself but you cannot buy a ticket for a non-ESTC mate during this sales window. Tickets bought during this window benefit from a £5 discount. There are something like about 5 price categories linked to different parts of Wembley stadium.

    Away matches  -  normal scenario

    The FA will open a register of interest around 6 - 7 weeks before a fixture. Members can register if they are interested in a ticket for that match. At some point, dependent on the host country's FA, our FA will be told our ticket allocation and the price. Often there are not enough tickets in the allocation to meet demand so the FA will conduct a ballot to see which of those members who registered an interest will be allocated tickets. There is then an opportunity to buy. Any allocated tickets which are not taken up are placed into a 'second chance sale' which is open to all on a first come first served basis.

    The ballots are conducted in accordance with rule 6.2 of the Club Rules. Basically, the more caps you have the better your chances of a ticket. Matthew, as a new member with no caps, your chances of a ticket to an away match are generally poor unless we are given a generous allocation. But you can earn caps by going to the home matches and eventually you will have enough to compete for away tickets. It is surprising how quickly you can rise up the caps table if you go to as many matches as you can.

    www.thefa.com/.../estc-rules

    Away matches - the rest of 2021

    We have 2 away matches in September : Hungary and Poland. We could expect these matches to be played in large stadiums and, in any other year, there is a sporting chance that the FA might persuade our hosts to allocate enough tickets for everyone, even someone on zero caps. However, we are in the grip of a pandemic. Both Hungary and Poland are on the UK's amber list and the official UK government advice is that people should not travel to countries on the amber list. It is possible that they might still be on the amber list in a couple of months and the FA might decide not to request an allocation of tickets. If we do get tickets, there is still the likelihood of quarantine on return to the UK.

    Later in the year, we have San Marino and Andorra away. They have small stadiums and, even if the FA request an allocation of tickets, it would be unlikely that a low cap member would be successful in the ballot. But we can't even be certain that there will be tickets available for this match. The pandemic could still be around as there is usually a wave of respiratory diseases every autumn / winter.

  • David Lilley
    To give you an idea of how many caps you need in order to be guaranteed a ticket for an away match, please see this thread which shows what has actually happened in the past. Because we are in unusual circumstances, be careful about assuming that this information will apply during the pandemic.

    englandsupporters.thefa.com/.../89054
  • Matthew Massey

    In reply to David Lilley:

    Thank you for the info David. Much appreciated. I’ll have to start adding caps to my name.
  • David Lilley

    In reply to Matthew Massey:

    This thread is also very useful. Matt Isle updates it regularly and you need to go to the end of the thread where the latest table is shown.

    englandsupporters.thefa.com/.../14306

    The table tells you how many tickets we would need in our allocation in order for you to be in the 70% who are guaranteed tickets. For example, if you had 20 caps then the 6th column shows you that there are 2133 members on 20 caps or above. The 5th column shows that there would need to be 3047 tickets in order that everybody on 20 caps or more would be guaranteed a ticket.
  • Naheed Sarwar

    In reply to David Lilley:

    Hi David many thanks this is really helpful information
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