First off, sometimes our customer service comes under fire, but hats off to the ticket office and John Speirs. My dad was diagnosed with MS last year and had to give up work. This gave him time to start taking my nephew to games, but that’s hard now with a wheelchair.
He contacted the ticket office last week to ask about how to get disabled tickets, and was quickly put in contact with John. After speaking with John, he was offered two comp tickets for the Spurs game to see how comfortable it is for him.
He will be coming in a mobility scooter type wheelchair, to the West Enclosure disabled section. Is there a certain place he should enter? I’ve not been in the Main Stand in years, but don’t think the turnstile doorways are very wheelchair friendly, so is it off to the Club Deck stairs beside the gates?
Great to hear you have had such a good experience for yourselves mate, nice to get a couple of complementary tickets.
BUT!!!!
As a wheelchair user myself I do have a bit of an issue when disabled people are treated like charity cases and not like regular fans.
As a disabled fan I just want a more level playing field in that I can buy a ticket as easily and as readily as an abled bodied fan (or as damn near it as possible). I want to have a choice of location around the stadium and I’d like to be able to attend with family and friends like other fans do.
The reality at the moment (if I talk from my own experiences) is we have a horrible low down view where a lot of the time from our seated position our view is restricted by police and stewards, if I want to go with my wife and son I can get a companion seat beside me and either my wife or my son have to sit elsewhere in the stadium. Not so much an issue now he is 15 but impractical when he was younger as by myself I couldn’t really look after him properly as my wife cares for us both and obviously my lad couldn’t sit himself in the stand. They try to locate you together but it’s not always possible.
Add into all the the woeful availability of tickets simply down to how few accessible seats there are at the stadium. New build stadiums of our capacity by law need to have at least 160 more accessible seats as we have and that doesn’t include seating for folks with other disabilities such as blind people, autism etc.
The club have made “some” improvements over the years but IMHO only pay lip service to the actual needs of disabled fans. I don’t think they really have made the proper “reasonable adjustments” to adhere to the equality act and I’ve said before on here if the disabled fans got together and actually challenge the club in a court I think the club could be in hot water over the lack of proper provisions. They won’t want to strip out a section of seats and put in proper facilities as it would hit the capacity and profit but in the eyes of many it would be a reasonable adjustment to comply with the equality act properly.
So while I’m delighted for your auld fella that he can attend the up coming spurs match I’m sure you will understand my frustration with the club and I’m sure what your frustration will be trying to get him to more regular games. Throwing in a couple of complementary tickets to disabled fans who enquire about tickets really doesn’t solve the bigger issue that disabled fans get a raw deal at Ibrox and many other sporting grounds.
To give you another quick story. We went to a rugby match at Rugby Park in Kilmarnock where Scotland took on Georgia a few years back. We were put in one of those infamous “sheds” at rugby park that used to be in front of the Moffat Stand (you know the ones that were so rickety our fans demolished them at one match simply standing on the roof.
In my story my wife was injured as they had put advertising boards on the top of them and had put them in with 5 inch nails and it would be lucky if the roof was half an inch thick, my wife stood up in it and got a nail right into her head. I get the idea was to try to keep wheelchair users out the elements on the pitch side but they were sore poorly constructed that they were an injury hazard.
