Help Sitemap Home Skip Navigation Contact Us Disability Statement

 
 
Saturday, 22nd November 2008

Premium Article !

Your account has been frozen. For your available options click the below button.

Options

Premium Article !

To read this article in full you must have registered and have a Premium Content Subscription with the n/a site.

Subscribe

Registered Article !

To read this article in full you must be registered with the site.

Rugby Round-Up . . . with Aidan Corr



Click on thumbnail to view image
Click on thumbnail to view image
Click on thumbnail to view image
Click on thumbnail to view image
Click on thumbnail to view image

Published Date: 02 July 2008
SALE Sharks have launched the opening salvo of price competitiveness that is expected once participating clubs sit down to decide on their ticket charges for this season's Heineken Cup.
The Edgeley Park club is inviting fans to enjoy the magic of the Sharks meeting with European Cup champions Munster for a paltry £8.76 (adult) and £3.47 (junior).
This is, of course, if you buy a season ticket for £149.
Still it's good value. Incl
uded are tickets for home games in the three Heineken Cup pool games, 11 Guinness Premiership home games, two EDF home cup games against Leicester Tigers and Cardiff Blues and a pair of tickets for the pre-season friendlies.
Added to that, Sale season ticket-holding supporters are guaranteed the right to buy tickets for knock-out cup games, play-off matches.
That works out roughly at £8.76 per game.

Munster supporters
Members of the Munster Supporters' Club will share 3,000 tickets for Heineken Cup games at Thomond Park next season which is an increase of 1,000 despite the stadium's increased capacity to 26,000.
The decision has not particularly filled Supporters' Club chairman Glen Flanagan with joy: "We have over 9,000 members with over 4,000 waiting for full membership of the club and there are a lot of disappointed associate members at present. We now have an allocation of 3,000 for Thomond Park and that works out at €254 each for a season ticket for full members which gives them admission to five Magners League games and three Heineken Cup pool games."
Thomond Park's sales and marketing manager Glyn Billinghurst countered: "Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world and we have to work within our own parameters here at the stadium."
Compared to other big sporting events in this country, Munster's ticket prices for the three Heineken Cup pool games are moderate.
"They are certainly in line with the market," Glyn Billinghurst told us and with Sale Sharks, Clermont Auvergne and Montauban visiting, the three ties are guaranteed sell-outs.
Prime stand tickets will be selling at €50 each with other stand tickets costing €40. Terrace tickets are expected to cost around €30. For the Magners League, tickets for home games at Thomond Park will cost fans €40 for prime stand, €35 for other stand tickets and €22 for the terrace, but Munster will play only five league games at the venue with the other home fixtures being staged in Musgrave Park.
Including the visit of the All Blacks in November, Munster look set to play only nine competitive games in the new stadium in its opening season.
No decision has yet been made regarding the price of tickets for the Munster v All Blacks game, but there will be so much hype about that fixture that even a €100 per ticket (including your name perpetuated on a brick in the stadium confirming your attendance) would not be a deterrent.
Sale Sharks still offer better value than Munster for season 2008-09. A Thomond Park season ticket under the umbrella of the Supporters' Club works out at just over €31 per match compared to the Sharks £8.76. Sale also offer admission to 18 games compared to Munster's eight. A season ticket that includes all the Thomond Park games plus the four Magners League games in Cork next season costs €330 for Munster Supporters' Club members. This brings the per match cost down to around €27.50 per match, but it is still almost three times the Sale cost.
The Munster Supporters' Club has significantly added to the province's success story. The club also contributes to the Munster coffers and with the target of 10,000 members within sight the province looks set to reap further cash from this source.

Declan O'Connell
Charleville fan Declan O'Connell was the first chairman of the Munster fan club.
That was in 1999-00 and he soon became an iconic figure at Munster. The then Munster Branch secretary Dermot Kelly and Gethin Lewis were also founding fathers, but it took two years before the club had boosted its membership to 500. By 2002-03 there was a waiting list for membership and they set up an associate membership list in 2004 followed by the junior membership the following year.
According to the current chairman of the Munster Supporters' Club, membership is now open for new members, but it is no secret that there is considerable disappointment among associate members that the ticket allocation for Thomond Park has been increased by just 1,000 in view of the 13,000 extra tickets now available to Munster for their home Heineken Cup games.
The challenge that the Supporters' Club now faces is to retain the attractiveness of their associate membership whose members now have little immediate hope of breaking into the elite and HC ticket guaranteed category.

Supporters Club AGM
Officers elected at the Munster Supporters' Club annaul general meeting last month were Glenn Flanagan, chairman (Limerick); Sean Meade, vice-chairman (Co Tipperary); Ian Buckley, secretary (Limerick); Elaine Blackshields, treasurer (Cork); Ger Harrington, PRO (Cork); Eileesh Buckley (Co Clare); Noel Stewart (Limerick) and Darren Desmond (Cork) and the disappointment being felt by those who strive to keep the membership content has been felt over recent weeks.
There is little that the Supporters' Club can do. Their hands are tied and Heineken Cup tickets will continue to play a central role in the Supporters' Club's relationship with the parent body.
In good faith some months ago the supporters expressed their hope that up to 5,000 associate members may slip over the threshold for next season. That proved to be a false dawn.
"As we never had confirmed numbers of full members in the new Thomond Park, we could never guarantee the number of full members in the 2008-09 season, but the wording was always that our hope and objective for the club was 10,000 full members," a statement on the Supporters' Club website recorded.
"Unfortunately, we have recently been advised that our understanding was incorrect.
"As a committee who has given much time, energy and enthusiasm to the club, it is extremely disappointing that this understanding was not clarified to us before now."

Key to continued success
Munster's fans remain key to their continued success.
The team is continually energised from the terraces and that support in the Heineken Cup is guaranteed for the considerable future. The newly-developed Thomond Park is an achievement to be very proud of.
It is the biggest sporting development in the history of this city, but the next 12 months will ive us a clearer picture of the true sincerity of the Munster support.
Packing it out for the pool games in the HC is not the challenge.
It may not be as easy to match Leinster's home attendance figures in the Magners League.



The full article contains 1155 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 02 July 2008 3:20 PM
  • Source: n/a
  • Location: Limerick
 
 
  

 
 


Sister Newspapers:
Press Complaints Commission

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Press Council of Ireland’s Code of Practice. If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the Office of the Press Ombudsman by clicking here.