Supporters urge West Brom to rethink early-bird season ticket scheme

The decision to freeze the club's lowest prices for a decade for the 2019/20 season, regardless of which division the Baggies are in, was given a huge thumbs-up by supporters.

But many fans have written to the club to complain about the threat of losing your seat if it's not renewed before the early-bird deadline at the end of April, as well as the extra 1,000 loyalty points on offer for those who do renew.

Richard Jefferson, 51 from Oldbury, is a season ticket holder in the Smethwick End who is on a ticket sub-committee of fan group, the Albion Assembly .

He says these issues could have been avoided if supporters were consulted ahead of this announcement, like last year.

"There's two things," said Jefferson. "I sit with a number of friends. We can probably get ours before April 30th, but other people we sit with probably can't because they haven't budgeted for it. People we've sat with for years may not be there.

"You should have had the option until the end of June to keep your seat. People have had the same seats for donkey's years, it's a community. But the people who we go with could end up being split.

"That's one issue, the other issue is around the loyalty points. You've potentially got people who have only been to a handful of away games getting more points than those who have been to every away game this season.

"It doesn't feel right that you can jump the queue for big games at the end of the season because you can afford to pay for your season ticket early.

"Loyalty should be about exactly that. It's consistency of away travel. It feels like a commercial decision,without any real thought to the effects."

Jefferson was part of a sub-committee that met the Baggies board in January 2017 when Martin Goodman was chief executive.

Goodman was sacked by owner Guochuan Lai a month later and Mark Jenkins was reinstated.

Jenkins subsequently slashed season ticket prices to their lowest level in a decade and has frozen them again this season for early-bird purchases.

But Jefferson is considering quitting the Assembly after the group was not consulted this year.

"Last year we fed in throughout the year about what we would like to see," he explained.

"The main one was the £49 under-11 ticket to be extended to the whole ground, and we asked for an under-23 ticket.

"Those two were included. We felt that our thoughts had been listened to.

"During last year, I kept on saying at the meetings, will we be included this time? I was told we would.

"Come January, we had no invite to any meeting. I know it's changed. Martin Goodman isn't there anymore and Mark Jenkins is.

"But if we were included we could have avoided this.

"It should have been a good news story. These additional things have changed it into a bad story.

"If you're going to have an Assembly, then surely we should be consulted on something like this?

"I'm considering my position now. I'm passionate about it, I think it's a really good idea.

"But if we're not going to be involved in these things, then what's the point?"