Firstly we would like to thank our travelling fans for their superb support at the Valley for tonight’s League Cup tie against Charlton Athletic - but also additional thanks to almost one thousand supporters for their incredible patience in accessing the stadium.
We fully appreciate there were long waits to collect duplicate tickets, as a result of circumstances which were completely out of our control; nonetheless thanks to the patience and cooperation of our fans and a fantastic effort from Brighton & Hove Albion staff who’d travelled to South London, the vast majority of fans who followed advice and arrived early were able to get in ahead of kick-off.
However, we are aware that was not possible for all supporters, due to work or other commitments.
The mail strike and current chronic backlog of post meant almost one thousand fans had not received their tickets in time for the match - despite being dispatched in what usually would be more than ample time.
In order to minimise the need for collections tonight, it was essential duplicate requests were only made on the day of the game.
We requested that Charlton reprint tickets and then eight of our staff, who’d travelled up to the Valley, sorted and issued these from the six-windowed ticket office outside the away end from 5pm this evening.
Charlton were very accommodating, although problems were exacerbated for some supporters whose duplicates were not provided, and some arrived having not requested duplicates.
This resulted in those fans having to wait for tickets to be printed which took additional time.
This was also something out of our control, and an unprecedented situation for the home club.
Nonetheless we’d like to thank both our supporters for their incredible patience and support tonight, and our staff for their hard work to resolve a very difficult situation in the best way possible.