Fan Letters: Signing Bailey Wright, and a better way of handling the season ticket sales

Dear Roker Report,

Signing Bailey Wright up quickly before others jump in is a must. Him and Willis at the back were brilliant and had it not been for his injury, who knows what could have happened.

Mark H

Ed’s Note [Alex]: Yep, couldn’t agree more. I can’t remember the last time we started missing someone as quickly as we did with Wright; the lad brought so much composure and cohesion to that back three and if it wasn’t for his injury we could’ve picked up just enough points to make the magic happen in that PPG table.

We’ve got four defenders soon to be out of contract and we can potentially snap one up who we know - from first-hand experience - is excellent by this division’s standards. We’d be daft not to try.

Photo by Ian Horrocks/Sunderland AFC via Getty Images

Dear Roker Report,

As usual, SAFC have been reactive and created unrest, anger and discontent amongst our loyal fans.

Here is my proposal for Jim:

Offer all fans the opportunity to buy their season ticket at the offer price until August 31st (with the season expected to start September).

All fans, as a thank you, receive £25 voucher off a home strip and £25 off an away strip (valued at £50).

For any games played behind closed doors, those who renew next season will also receive a credit on their season ticket - instead of a streaming pass. This will then be deducted from the 21/22 season cost.

This will not only sell lots of tickets but bring back the trust, increase merchandise sales and season tickets for the season after .

Neil Burnip, Marketing & Sales Director and Season Ticket Holder

Ed’s Note [Alex]: I like your proposal a lot, Neil. I don’t know how often - if ever - Jim spends time on social media, but should he happen across this article, there is a lot of inspiration he can take from it.

I would personally like to still see some kind of streaming pass included within your bundle - for both home and away games. I’d like to see the streams be of decent quality too; there are clubs in League One with far smaller budgets than ours who stream games with a scoreboard, timer and fully immersive commentary - certainly that’s more than we currently provide!

If the fans have to put up with a reduced standard of live football because the circumstances of Covid are dragging on, then they deserve as many realistic benefits as possible. What you’ve suggested here is far from ridiculous and is a thousand times better (both practically and morally) than the original ‘offer’.

Photo by George Wood/Getty Images