Mark Catlin delight with fan response to novel Portsmouth season-ticket policy

The Blues opted for a different League One approach to resolve the issue of renewing season tickets in a behind-closed-doors environment.

October is pencilled in for the return of supporters, albeit a proportion of the fanbase and socially distanced.

Crucially, it remains unclear when all followers will be admitted into Fratton Park in 2020-21.

That scenario will inevitably impact upon season-ticket take up, especially with a club which last term had a capped tally of 14,500.

However, the club reported sales of 4,000 flexi-season tickets on Monday’s opening day.

And Catlin is delighted with how the concept is being received.

He told The News: ‘The reaction has so far been very positive.

‘The vast majority of correspondence I’ve had with supporters involved most wanting to buy their season ticket for the year, even if they didn’t attend.

‘You are never going to please all of the people all of the time, but what you try to do is please the majority of the people the majority of the time.

‘I feel, in this instance, that’s what we’ve tried to do.

‘A lot of the work we’ve done is specifically League One, because you can’t compare any League One club with the Championship and the Premier League.

‘The TV money they get dwarfs anything they receive on a match-day. It’s a relatively small percentage of the total income of the club which comes via gate receipts by the time you get into the Premier League.

‘Whereas Pompey and a lot of League One clubs are more or less solely reliant on their match-day income.

‘The majority of League One clubs I’ve been speaking to have basically sold season tickets for the season and then said any games you can’t come to then you’ll get the iFollow stream.

‘That is something we naturally looked at, but felt it would punish multiple people in one household, also people that didn’t really want to come to a game at the moment and those who don’t like watching it on a stream.

‘So, for a variety of reasons, we have offered what we felt was the fairest and most equal option for supporters in regards of there won’t be any ballots, you get to keep your seat and you can come in on a rotational basis.’

Introduced purely for existing season-ticket holders, the £25 flexi-season ticket reserves seats for the 2021-22 campaign.

It also allows fans to attend selected games this term when allowed back in, calculated on a rotational basis.

The concept was approved by the Tony Goodall Fans’ Conference and Heritage & Advisory board before its introduction.

Catlin added: ‘If you take that time to consult other groups, go back again, get some more feedback, you can finetune it.

‘So when you are actually ready to put it out there, you’ve ironed out a lot of the niggles because they have already been picked up.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

Thank you for reading this story. The dramatic events of 2020 are having a major impact on our advertisers and thus our revenues.

The News is more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription to support our journalism. You can subscribe here for unlimited access to Portsmouth news and information online.

Every subscription helps us continue providing trusted, local journalism and campaign on your behalf for our city.