Getting Creative

In the US, whenever I’m buying tickets for a game, I generally go to SeatGeek, StubHub, or some third-party site first. Not only is purchasing through a third-party site legal, you can sometimes get cheaper tickets for a low-demand game. This is not the case in the UK.

Because government regulations keep general ticket prices depressed, the UK has laws to prevent season ticket holders and members from taking advantage of those low prices and selling their tickets for a large profit. All that being said, you will find third-party websites selling tickets for games. If you’re thinking of going this route, here are the main things to consider.

For the buyer, their main risk is being denied entry to the game. As you will find, tickets to all of these games will have a name on them, so if you’re buying a scalped ticket, it’s going to have someone else’s name on it. If for some reason someone at the gate asks for your ID to validate the name on the ticket, you’re going to be out of luck. Most of these third-party sites will offer refunds if this happens, but if you’ve traveled all that way to attend a game, getting your money back is only a small consolation.

On a side note, the seller is the one who carries more risk. If for some reason, it was discovered that they were selling their tickets through a third-party, they could lose their season tickets or membership. For that reason, not a lot of people do it, so prices are pretty high going the scalping route.

We did use a third-party for our game to Chelsea. We opted for this method because we had already bought hospitality for three other games and weren’t too keen on doing that again. We otherwise would have gone to a different game, but Chelsea were the only game that night and going the membership route wasn’t going to get us a ticket. We got the tickets a few days before the game, with instructions on the best gate to enter through to avoid a ticket search. Our tickets were still asked to be seen at the entrance, but they just looked at the ticket and didn’t do a name check. Once at the turnstile, we scanned the ticket like at any other game, and everything was great.

All things considered, this did turn out to be a good option for us. Worst case scenario, we would have been turned away and gotten a refund for the tickets. Since Chelsea weren’t a must see (although seeing Stamford Bridge from the inside was surprisingly incredible), it would have only been a small bummer, but if it had been a game we didn’t want to miss, I would have gone with Hospitality just to ensure we got in. After all, you’re traveling all that way, it’s worth more to make sure you see your favorite team. Also, as teams move more and more to digital options with active barcodes and other security measures, touting might become hard in the near future.

 Another method to get tickets to a game without having to shell out for Hospitality tickets is to reach out to a local supporter’s club in or near your town to see if they can help. Sometimes, these groups have access to tickets that they can give you at membership pricing. If they do, you’d likely need to set this up in advance of the season, as they may have to deal with demand or work with the team beforehand to be able to add your name to the ticket.

Another method that works is to reach out to fans on online forums or message boards to see if they can help. In two instances with our trip, both Plymouth Argyle and Middlesbrough had available tickets for their game, but they had restrictions preventing first time purchasers from getting tickets. They were playing Leicester City and Leeds, respectively, so this restriction was to prevent those away fans from buying home fan seats. While my efforts with Plymouth weren’t successful, I got help from a great Boro fan who was happy to purchase tickets for me at the membership prices. I did have to wire them the money first, which takes some trust, but they emailed me the tickets, and we had an awesome time at the game.

When the before mentioned Plymouth Argyle game on April 12, 2024 fell through, since we had somehow managed to book a game every other day, we wanted to keep the streak going, so we found a Non-League game through the help of an app called Futbology. It had the dates of every English football game happening in every division, so we found a team called Lower Breck playing in the Liverpool area that night. Lower Breck play in the North West Counties League Premier Division, the 9th division in the English football pyramid.

A YouTuber called Smiv has an "On the Road" series where he goes to tons of Non-League football games, so we felt like it'd be a safe bet to check out, and I'm glad we did. It was the most unique game of the trip, and it felt great to relax and take in a game while standing around a fence with a handful of other local people. And while Breck is a very small club, there are lots of Non-League teams in the National League and other higher tiers that have great history and large fanbases, and I personally wish we had went to see more of these types of games. Next time!