Following several complaints from both away fans (visiting Mourneview Park) and home fans (visiting away grounds), Glenavon FC would wish to clarify the below:

Primary School Children

Glenavon FC have a long-standing policy that primary school children gain admittance free of charge if accompanied by an adult. This has been GFC policy as we believe we should be encouraging the younger generation to start to support local football. Unfortunately, there are only a limited amount of other clubs who reciprocate this for away fans. Children as young as 4, 5 and 6 are having to purchase concession tickets for away grounds, and indeed often only have the option of buying full price tickets (see below). This serves as a deterrent for families attending matches. As for a family of four with two young children this can often run to nearly £50, and this is simply too expensive. Despite this being drawn to the attention of other clubs, there has been no change and Glenavon FC are faced with no choice but to charge primary school children of visiting clubs when there is no reciprocation.

Concession Tickets

Since the introduction of ticketing at most clubs, young and older Glenavon fans visiting away clubs have often found themselves having to purchase full price tickets due to the severe limitation of concession tickets available. Before ticketing, if these children and older people were to go to a turnstile with cash, they would only pay the concession entry. Again, this is only serving to drive the younger and older generation away from local football. Secondly, there are several visiting clubs who have non-concession holders purchasing concession tickets. This is to the detriment of those genuine concessions who are then forced to buy full price tickets. Again, these restrictions on the number of concession tickets available are only in place when there is no reciprocation.

We would urge other supporters to check the policies at their own club for visiting fans and would encourage other fans to raise these issues with their respective clubs, as we should be jointly trying to grow our fan bases and not drive people away. Ticketing has been raised with NIFL and will be taken forward by a sub-committee there.