Brighton fans buy tiny proportion of FA Cup allocation – Great news for Newcastle United fans | OneFootball

Work brought me to the south coast, which is why I live amongst Brighton fans.

As well as of course, Liverpool, Man U, Arsenal, Chelsea fans…

Some of my best mates now are Brighton fans.

Just like me and you, they live and breathe football. As well as enjoying a ‘few’ drinks.

Anyway, when the last 16 of the FA Cup was drawn, they were over the proverbial moon.

An excuse for a weekend in our brilliant city.

Taking a half day off work to travel up on the train on Friday, then the 1.45pm kick-off on the Sunday means they can get the train after the match and be back down south for work on Monday.

Obviously a lot of ‘banter’ flying around ahead of this cup match, between myself and these mates who are Brighton fans.

I am flying up to Newcastle tonight (Thursday) to make a longer weekend of it seeing family and so on, but I will be joining my Brighton supporting mates across the weekend, hitting the Toon.

Anyway, these Brighton fans I know who are coming up to Tyneside, have just forwarded me an mail that they’ve received from their club, it is about the tickets they had bought as soon as they went on sale:

‘Thank you for purchasing tickets for the FA Cup away fixture against Newcastle on 2nd March 2025.

Unfortunately, demand for this fixture has not been as high as expected, despite tickets having been made available to all Season Ticket Holders, MyAlbion+ members and supporters with a purchase history and we are therefore no longer able to offer seating in the block you originally purchased tickets for.

As a result, you have been relocated to alternative seating.

We have done our utmost to allocate the best seating we can and anyone you purchased tickets for in the same transaction will remain seated with you.

We apologise for any inconvenience this might cause, and appreciate your understanding in this matter.

Thank you for your fantastic support.’

As you might be aware, in the FA Cup, the competition rules say that the away side are entitled to 15 percent of capacity, so we could have seen just under 8,000 Brighton fans on Sunday inside St James’ Park, some 7,800+ to be more precise.

These Brighton fans who I am friends with, are so embarrassed.

They were talking about the Seagull army taking flight to Tyneside and so on.

Thousands and thousands of Brighton fans coming to back their team, as victory would mean only one more step and a trip to Wembley.

They naturally knew they were never going to be bringing 7,800 Brighton fans but were hoping and expecting it would be at least a few thousand.

It hasn’t quite worked out that way and clearly their club also shocked and taken by surprise at just how few Brighton fans are coming to support their team.

There had been a number of blocks of tickets on sale in the away end when they bought theirs. They had bought them in Block K in Level 7 of the Leazes. The away end starts with Block M nearest the East Stand and so Block K is the third one as you head across to the Milburn.

What the reality is, is that with so few Brighton fans buying tickets, the club have sent an email to my mates and other Seagull supporters, telling them that anyone in Block K is getting moved to Block L or Block M, due to having sold less than two full blocks of tickets.

Rather than the 7,800+ seats they were entitled to, my very embarrassed mates say that they have heard that there could actually be less than 1,000 Brighton fans at St James’ Park on Sunday. They say each of these blocks holds around 600 tickets and looks set to be empty seats in at least one of them, if not both.

Great news for Newcastle United fans of course.

Not sure if these extra tickets have already been released to Newcastle fans that Brighton fans have failed to buy, or whether it is still yet to happen. Guessing it must have as so close to the match now. Whatever the case, definitely a huge bonus that around 7,000 extra Newcastle fans can get to this last 16 FA Cup match, as compared to if we’d drawn a team that would bring a decent support.

IMAGO/Action Plus

I have been very amused to hear of some of the excuses put about by Brighton fans down here to try and excuse such a pitiful away following for a massive FA Cup match.

The day of the week, the kick-off time, a supposed moral stand against the Newcastle United owners, even Brighton fans talking about how far it is ‘up’ to Newcastle, as though it is literally uphill!

Funnily enough, whenever we play down at Brighton, the only massive issue is trying to get a ticket in the Newcastle end, no matter what day of the week, what time kick-off is. Apparently it must be easier for our fans as it is downhill from the Toon to Brighton!

Interesting to look back and for the FA Cup third round match, Bromley brought 3,000 fans, whilst for that hastily arranged midweek League Cup match, around 1,500 AFC Wimbledon fans still made the trip to Tyneside.