Friday May 9, 2008
No, Ticketmaster, no, no, no
Is it every little boy’s dream to see their team in a Wembley Cup Final? As a Portsmouth fan, it was certainly mine. I was raised on tales of 50,000-plus crowds at Fratton Park, of the great Jimmy Dickinson and, above all, the victory at Wembley over the much-fancied Wolves in 1939. And all through the years that Pompey languished in Canon League Division Two, I dreamed that one day we might rise from the ashes, become proud again, and appear at Wembley for a Cup Final once more.
I dreamed – but I never hoped.
And now it’s close, so close. Pompey have done their bit, and have made the final. But thanks to a piece of administrative incompetence at a company called Ticketmaster, my moment of joy could have been snatched from my grasp.
There were two 90-minute periods this year that, looking back, were crucial to the success of my boyhood quest.
The first was the time I spent listening on the radio as Pompey incredibly, improbably, beat Manchester Utd 1-0 at Old Trafford in the quarter-final. I lost count of the number of times the ball was kicked off the line, or United missed with the goal at their mercy. Then up we went the other end and scored. Delirium in a Dulwich kitchen. Play up Pompey and bloody hurrah.
The second, even more agonising yet, was the 90 minutes I spent trying to get through to the Ticketmaster hotline to get tickets for the final itself. By the time I got through, I was so surprised I would have signed away my wife if you had told me where to sign. If I had a wife. But you get the point.
“Yes,” I said. “Have an obscene booking fee. Yes, I am on the Portsmouth FC database. Yes, charge me a fortune to send the ticket by Special Delivery. Yes, fleece me as much as you like. Just SEND ME MY TICKET, PLEASE.”
And so to today – when a letter arrives telling me that I am not on the Portsmouth FC database, and my booking is going to be cancelled.
The letter is addressed to “G Aldan”.
Which is not my name.
I ring Ticketmaster. It’s clearly their mistake and their responsibility to rectify it, but they refuse to do anything themselves to help out, except to say I have to ring Pompey. For which, thanks much.
Pompey, on the other hand, are very nice. Apparently there is a lovely woman who is on hand to sort out messes like this and she will look at the database and fix it for me. If I write to her. Which I have.
So now I wait.
They say you need your fair share of luck to get to Wembley. I’ll still be sweating until the ticket is in my hand.
Update 12/5/08: Pompey have now called me and my ticket is apparently on its way. Phew!
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