With a few big games coming up in the next couple of months, Saints are reminding fans that if they want to see the big clubs then they must meet certain criteria for priority booking.
Perhaps the saddest thing in what has been a brilliant start to the season, has been the empty seats at St Mary's. of course people will come up with various excuses as to why these seats have been empty and i can concur with some of them, but price aside perhaps the true reason is that so far the club's that have played at St Mary's have not been the most attractive opponents in the Premier league.
That is all set to change with the arrival of Man City at the end of November and in a four week spell we will not only host them, but Manchester United, Arsenal & Chelsea and strangely enough there will suddenly be a lot more people wanting to come to St Mary's.
Therfore the Club are reminding supporters with plenty of time what the criteria will be for these games.
Perhaps to avoid the issue with away supporters getting into home sections the first criteria to buy a ticket is that you are on the data base as having bought a ticket from 2012/13 season onwards, this should not prove a problem in that if you havent plotted up at St Mary's since we got back in the Premier league, a few exceptions aside there are probably a lot more Saints fans who deserve a ticket before you anyway.
Having qualified to be able to buy a Category A the priority for the Manchester City game will be for supporters who have bought a ticket for a home game this season, again this should mean that anyone who has been to a home game will probably have a very good chance of getting a City ticket, whether the number of games been to required for priority booking will increase for the future Category A games is unclear as is whether tickets will go on a general sale. In the past these games have usually been data base only to prevent supporters of the other side getting into home areas.
If you are not sure whether you qualify then the Club is advising supporters to log on to their on line account to update and check it, the only real problem with this criteria is that there are a small number of supporters who have only ever bought tickets by cash at the box office and not registered an account, if you fall into this category then its time to get on line and register.
All in all I think this criteria is quite fair and its good to see the club is recognising that those fans who have been so far this season should have the first chance of tickets