Many Newcastle fans have asked the question "why so many away tickets have been supplied for the Newcastle v Nottingham Forest match at the end of the month".
Forest have revealed that they have an initial allocation of 2,315 tickets, which no doubt will go up to the maximum 3,200 if they ask for them.
Newcastle fans expressed disbelief when it was announced they had been given such a low allocation of 2,002 tickets, with the actual figure turning out to be even less, Forest announcing the crowd on Friday night as 21,317, including only 1,866 Newcastle fans.
I was sat in the Forest end, and unlike Hull in the League Cup, Forest didn't quiz my North-East home address. I got tickets no problem.
Hull was more difficult. They refused to send me tickets so I got round that by getting a friend from Doncaster to order them.
If the two clubs had given us the tickets we had asked for there was no need for this ... and neither ground sold out. There was plenty room to give us another 5,000 if we asked for them!
The City Ground has a capacity of 30,445 and on average usually has around 10,000 empty seats, Friday night seeing ‘only’ the 9,128 empty.
EFL rules state at least 2,000 (unless you have a capacity under 20,000) away tickets have to be made available, so Forest gave the bare minimum.
They were never going to get close to selling out to home fans, the last two home crowds had been 20,043 (v QPR) and 16,539 (v Cardiff), the highest so far being their local derby with Burton which attracted 23,012.
Like Hull City, Forest’s intention wasn’t to try and sell out the stadium to their fans, rather it was to keep a bare minimum of Newcastle fans.
Newcastle United should have given Forest fans 2,000 tickets and not a single one more than they are obliged to.