Blue Watch: Ticketing beset by bureaucracy

Nov 8 2007 by Mark O'Brien, Liverpool Daily Post

Ticketing beset by bureaucracy

REMEMBER, don’t get caught out like Gordon Jackson in the Great Escape.

If, when going through the turnstile in Nuremberg, a policeman says, “Enjoy the game,” in English, be sure to just nod and carry on walking.

Obviously, the official line is always that people shouldn’t travel without tickets, and that they shouldn’t try to sit in the home end for these games, but everyone knows what happens when the likes of Everton get a European draw in an easily accessible destination.

The rumour was that Nurnberg, on realising just how many Blues had tickets for the home sections, were planning to rearrange the seating and have an extended away area to accommodate the thousands of travelling Scousers.

This seemed like a sensible plan – people who have booked transport and accommodation are clearly still going to travel – but UEFA have knocked that on the head and there is now talk of a danger of hooliganism. Given Everton fans have a great reputation when going abroad, this seems a tad unfair, and the feeling is that UEFA are more worried about accountability rather than considering what is genuinely the most practical solution.

It is ever thus with bureaucracies.

However, everyone going over seems to be doing it with their eyes open. We all knew that we were chancing our arm in the first place, and we will continue to do so when dealing with the delighted German touts. The one consolation is that the face value for tickets in Germany are so reasonable that even the inflated prices being quoted still work out about the same as going to watch Everton at Bolton or Derby!

Meanwhile, the announcement of Andy Johnson’s new deal certainly came as a bit of a surprise. Perhaps speculation about the England striker being unsettled contributed. As ever, we will never know, but seeing a high-profile player tied down to the club can be as encouraging as a new signing.

Obviously Johnson hasn’t made as much of an impact this season as last, but there’s no doubting what an important player he can be when he’s fit and on form. More good news is that he is back in training too, but he will certainly find it tough to force himself back into the first XI even when he is totally recuperated.

A month or so ago, James McFadden and Victor Anichebe were putting pressure on the likes of Johnson, but in the meantime Aiyegbeni Yakubu has settled in and started to look like a serious striker. Then last week James Vaughan showed that he is back and meaning business with that terrific striker’s goal to crown the dramatic finale against Birmingham City. And if all that didn’t make team selection complicated enough, we have also had the return of Tim Cahill, another who gets goals but who seems to prosper in a five-man midfield, therefore meaning there’s one less place for the illustrious strikers mentioned above.

That might change if David Moyes gets the statuesque midfielder he admits he is after – Cahill might still be able to play his normal game in a four-man midfield if he has the insurance of some sort of beast in the centre of the park, defending when he bombs forward. It’s certainly a position in which the right player would improve the present team.

Right-back is a similar weak spot, and the links with Arsenal’s Justin Hoyte come as no surprise.