FA Cup Final Ticket Scandal

City took about 35,000 fans to Wembley for their semi-final clash against Barnsley. Granted, the "genuineness" of some of these fans considering the average home gate at Ninian Park is about 13,000 must be questioned, but at the end of the day, another 22,000 found enough of a fan within them to make the trip to Wembley. There's no doubt that these 35,000 fans made a hell of a lot of noise and helped the Bluebirds to that fantastic and historic win on Sunday

Mini-Stats of course (pictured) like his old man is a long time season ticket holder and was there, although he had to make the trip without me because of my recent knee op, and I can't even begin to explain how tough it was not to be able to go - but I will be there for the final!

Now I see that because of corporate hospitality demands and ticket allocation to "Cub Wembley" members, City will only get 25,000 tickets for the final. That means 10,000 who forked out a lot of money and made the trip last weekend will be disappointed for the biggest event in City's history for 81 years. Personally I think that's terrible on a couple of fronts.

1. It reinforces that it's all about money and - not about the people who support the clubs and make everything possible by handing over their hard earned to see 22 men kick a bag of wind about every Saturday.
2. It means the atmosphere will be less raucous at the final as there'll be close to 20,000 less (I'm assuming of course that Portsmouth will also have a proportionately reduced ticket allocation) "real" fans in the stadium, but proportionately more people imbibing of prawn cocktail sandwiches etc. who aren't remotely interested in Cardiff City (or Portsmouth) but who are just there for the occasion courtesy of some corporate outing.

Bah humbug. Much as it riles me to see an extra 22,000 alleged City fans come out of the woodwork just because the team's got to Wembley who can't be arsed to turn up on a cold Tuesday in January to see us play Scunthorpe at Ninan Park, I'd rather have them at Wembley singing and cheering than a bunch of corporate ne'er do wells who can't give two hoots about the match or what it means to both clubs.