‘Tears every day’: The Roosters fans who are feeling crushed

Days before kick-off in the NRL grand final, many Roosters and Knights fans have already been left disappointed, even though their team could still win it all. Because of a shortage of tickets to the big dance, most won’t be at Sydney’s Accor Stadium to see it.

The Roosters are Sydney’s most-supported club, according to Roy Morgan Research, attracting more than 478,000 attendees, with about 24,000 members. If members were able to buy up to four tickets each, the Roosters could fill Accor Stadium without leaving any tickets for Knights fans, who haven’t seen their team reach the end-of-season game in 25 years.

Michelle’s family have been long-time Roosters fans and members, and her children, Kai, 9, and Lucy, 7, have been at every home game this year. But when her partner went to buy grand final tickets on Monday he was left “devastated”. The children are taking it hard, too.

“I’ve never seen him as crushed,” Michelle said. “We’re trying to tell our kids we’ll just have a barbecue at home and watch the game, but they’re not having it.

“I’m not even joking here – my kids have been in tears every day.

“They’ve been online looking [for tickets] but they obviously don’t understand. You know, $1000 for a ticket is wild.”

In a handwritten statement, Lucy described her father buying her a Roosters membership when she was born, like her older brother.

“My favourite player in the Roosters is Teddy [James Tedesco]. Roosters are the best team ever, we should have got tickets for the grand final,” Lucy wrote.

Huge demand following the weekend’s preliminary finals, especially from Knights supporters, led to a rapid uptake of the final allocation of tickets, released at 10am on Monday and exhausted within two hours.

Long-time Roosters member Simon Hemphill said there were 14,500 people ahead of him in the queue when he wanted to buy four tickets for him and his children.

“By the time I’d waited about 45 minutes to an hour to get to the front of the queue, all the tickets were sold out,” he said.

“It’s very frustrating. My kids are heartbroken, they’re pretty angry about it.”

The NRL’s resale platform has given some fans a second-chance at securing a ticket but has come under fire for some of its pricing. Hemphill has looked at resellers and seen tickets in the nosebleed section going for more than $1000.

“I’m a Roosters fan but I’m not about to drop 4½ grand to sit the furthest possible away from the pitch,” he said.

“We’ve just basically resigned ourselves to gather at a friend’s house with another few families who have all missed out and we’re all going to commiserate together and watch it in one place.”

Another Roosters gold member told this masthead he felt very disappointed tickets were snapped up so quickly, and that members did not have a better chance to secure seats.

Roosters superfan Wayne Leong told this masthead he’ll be taking the oft-sighted ‘Giggity Giggity’ banner to the game after he managed to buy tickets from some disappointed Warriors fans on Sunday morning.

“I’m right next to the Knights supporters bay … Roosters will be all over the place because it was so hard to get tickets,” Leong said.

Newcastle Knights fans who missed out on tickets had another option to watch, at McDonald Jones Stadium.

“Fans are encouraged to bring a picnic blanket and settle in on the field to watch the action on the big screen, with food and beverage options and grandstand seating also available,” the Knights said.

Distraught Roosters fan Hemphill said he understands ticket allocations will never be truly egalitarian.

“But I feel like if you’re a member of the club for over 10 years … you should get a bit of a first look or an earlier look, maybe … The longer you’re a member, the earlier access you have to tickets … something like that,” he said.

“For the NRL perspective: less corporate tickets, more tickets for fans.”

News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.