Often there's a rationale for such decisions but in this case I really can't think of one. The guy has obviously been instructed to say no and it just seems mean.
Yep, I'm sure he's been told to say no. Maybe the club are paid for the seats by the company that makes the pellets out of them? I don't really know.
Is it because they just don't want people turning up all the time asking for them?
To be honest, it just feels tight arse to me. Genuinely, if I were the club I'd let fans take them willingly, one seat per person. It's little things like that which help fans feel valued just a little bit. A tiny bit of goodwill that costs nothing.
If they were going to a lower league club to help them out, I could understand. If they were being sold or auctioned off, again, I could understand. But they're just going for scrap. I think what really pissed me off was that I'd just been in the club shop at the ground and would love to have bought the black away top but I'm priced out of doing so. I mean £125 for a shirt. It's insane. Then you go outside and politely ask if there's any chance of an old seat that's going for scrap, and it's a "computer says no" moment. It's a bit sad really. No big deal in the scheme of things, of course. But it sort of strikes you that you can pay into a club for fifty years or more but they still won't even give you piece of scrap plastic. To a lot of fans, they're scrapping pieces of our history. Bits that many would love to have as a souvenir of their lifelong commitment.