Members of the club's Travel Group met with Cardiff City officials in the stadium boardroom this evening to discuss the arrangements for forthcoming away matches and a variety of other fan-related issues.
Acting Chief Executive Alan Whiteley introduced himself to the meeting before handing over to Wayne Palmer of the South Wales Police. Wayne revealed that the number of Cardiff City fans arrested at games this season currently stands at just nine (two at home matches and seven away), while only two visiting fans have been arrested at the Cardiff City Stadium. The annual Home Office report containing last season's figures is due to be released shortly and will reveal a large decrease in the number of arrests at Cardiff games.
The police, the council and the club are all delighted by the improvement in the behaviour of our supporters, particularly since the move to the new stadium in 2009. Stadium Manager Wayne Nash revealed that the recent away game at Coventry was a police-free fixture for the second-successive season, and he was pleased to report that there were no problems whatsoever before, during or after Sunday's home game against Birmingham City. As there were no travel restrictions placed upon visiting supporters for that fixture, the club expects there will be no restrictions placed upon our fans for the return match at St Andrews in March.
As was the case last season, there are no travel restrictions for the Cardiff fans who are attending Saturday's game at Millwall other than a rendezvous point for coach travellers in Blackheath at 1:00pm. The bars in the ground will be open and ticket sales currently stand at around the 1,200 mark.
Details of the ticketing arrangements for the Carling Cup semi-final at Crystal Palace were released on the club's website earlier today. Unlike the FA Cup, Carling Cup competition rules dictate that tickets for this competition are available to visiting clubs on a sale or return basis. Therefore, Palace and Cardiff have agreed to make 4,000 tickets available to each other. If Palace sell anything more than 3,000 tickets for the second leg, then two blocks of the Family Stand will be used to accommodate the additional supporters. However, if it seems likely that less than 3,000 Palace fans will travel to Cardiff, then one block of the Ninian Stand will be used instead. The clubs are in regular contact and will monitor this situation closely during the next couple of weeks.
The two clubs eventually had to agree to disagree about the pricing structure for the semi-finals. Palace officials apparently believed that Cardiff's prices were too cheap, while Cardiff officials believed that Palace's prices were too expensive. The only realistic compromise was to agree to let each club set its own prices, hence the difference in the cost of tickets for each leg.
Cardiff officials have been in discussions with their West Brom counterparts regarding the forthcoming FA Cup third round tie at the Hawthorns and it seems very likely that tickets for this fixture will be priced at £15 for adults and £10 for concessions. An announcement with confirmation of the details will be made on the club's website in due course.
Ticket sales for the Boxing Day fixture at Watford currently stand at approximately 725, while tickets for the New Year's Eve game at Nottingham Forest will go on sale later this week.
The subject of fans persistently standing in the Ninian Stand was discussed briefly. The club is still receiving complaints from fans in that area of the ground regarding those who stand up in front of them and officials have been issuing warnings to the supporters concerned. A number of stadium cards have been switched off when those warnings have been ignored and it was made clear that this policy will continue.