Brentford to prevent replay of ticket farce

14 April 2012

Brentford hope to appease their most loyal supporters with priority access to tickets for next Tuesday's FA Cup replay against Southampton.

The move is a clear attempt to make amends for the administrative fiasco which meant hundreds of the club's season-ticket holders and supporters' trust members were unable to go to St Mary's for the thrilling 2-2 draw.

Tickets for the Griffin Park replay go on sale today but their distribution will be tightly controlled.

Last week's free-for-all saw Brentford's 3,200 allocation sold out in three hours. This time, replay tickets will.be available only to season-ticket holders and official fans' groups until Thursday. In order to avoid multiple buying, even they will be restricted to a maximum of two tickets per person.

Brentford have also abandoned their internet sales system which resulted in 500 tickets being oversold for Saturday's fifth-round game. Bookings will now only be taken in person or over the telephone.

At 3.10 pm on Saturday, an embarrassing week looked to be heading for a humiliating conclusion. Not only were Brentford already trailing 1-0, but to make matters worse the 2,000 supporters who went to Griffin Park.for a beamback of the game missed the opening 10 minutes because the big screen was not working.

Amid boos and jeering from the Braemar Road stand, technicians restored the feed in time for the fans to.see Brentford concede a second following a goalkeeping gaffe by Stuart Nelson.

But suddenly things took a turn for the better. Isaiah Rankin's superb solo effort reduced the arrears before Sam Sodje headed in a deserved equaliser midway through the second half.

Sodje today revealed that most of the players had followed manager Martin Allen's lead and given up their own ticket allocation to supporters. He said: "The fans have played such a big part in our season. It was not good that so many of them were not able to see one of the biggest games in Brentford's history."

Allen had warned of possible crowd trouble because Brentford fans would buy tickets on the black market and "invade" the home section at St Mary's. Although the League One side's goals did spark a number of ejections - from a crowd 8,000 short of capacity - there were no serious incidents.

Before thinking about the replay Allen must prepare his side for tomorrow's game at Hartlepool. "It's another big challenge for us," he said.

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