It's agiven that the season ticket waiting list has steadily got unweildy and out of control, over the last ten years or so.
From 1996 to the early 2000s, it was probably quite well organised.
Any one who had a response had something like: Book 2, Page 8. etc.
Post 2001 and the treble, and even moreso, post 2005 and Istanbul, the sheer amount of bandwagon jumpers went through the roof.
I really havent a problem with band waggon jumpers, just so long as they are serious long term fans, who still go the game now.
The ones who have fucked up the (70,000) list is the flash in the pan, "put your name on a list, then lose interest within 18 months," kind of fan.
It has to be said, that Liverpool themselves havent helped themselves in that time. Different regimes, different TO operating systems, and rules, has just added to more and more chaos within the TO.
As an example. If you bought an LFC shirt or other merchandise from the club shop, from about 2000 to about 2005, the swing tab/label had a detachable part that you could give back to the club with a couple of tick box questions on it, for feedback. One of these tick boxes was' do you want to join the season ticket waiting list'.
The sheer amount of jonny foreigners (no I'm not just blaming the ooters), that must of ticked that box, without any intention of ever wanting or expecting a seasie if one was offered, would be enormous.
In short. This regime has decided that enough is enough. We need to know how many potential cestomers we can expect through the turnstyle on a regular basis, if the seats were available. This is certainly doing that.
If say there is an uptakje of say 50% of the first 25,000. Any remaining seasies will then be offered to the next batch of say 10,000, and so on and so forth, untill all available seasies have been exhausted.
The admin fee is a great idea, because it weeds out the serious "I want one", brigade, from the "I just ticked the box, for the sake of it", timewasters.
As has been said, though. I think that the £5 admin fee is still probably too low. £10 would of made more sense, but then the club would of been accused of profiting from their fans, and taking advantage, so the £5 fee is the minimum set.
At least this set of owners, are doing things in the right way, with actions, and not hollow words.
For years, many of us have said that there should of been dynamite put under the ticket office, in order to shake it up.
...... maybe now, I can put the C4 and detonators, back under the bed.............. for the time being.