3100 Cherries Expected At Old Trafford - AFCB's Away Support Is Improving!

When AFC Bournemouth sold out approximately 2850 tickets for Manchester City away for the opening game of the Premier League season, and now over 3100 for Manchester United away today, it raised some eyebrows within the fanbase as to the increasing level of Bournemouth's away support.

Numbers of tickets sold for every away game possible seems to be increasing, but why is that?

The first presumption that people may make is that fans will be buying tickets to certain away games to get the away point, without the intention of attending that game. Discourse on X around the Sparta Prague ticket release showed that if you were on 12 points, you could buy a ticket for Ipswich away, get the point straight away and therefore guarantee yourself a ticket at the 13+ drop.

It is believed that there are a select few away grounds in the Premier League which allow Bournemouth's ticket staff to go through the record of who attended the game in the away end, and take off the point that they received when they originally purchased the ticket. 

Despite the tickets sold for Manchester City being higher than seen previously, most if not all of the fans who purchased tickets ended up going to the game. If this trend continues, there should be north of 3100 AFC Bournemouth fans in the away end at Old Trafford today, nearly 3000 Cherries in the Portman Road away end, and of course a sold out away end for Fulham away at the end of November.

With the reward of being one of the top points holders being the access you get to buy Europa League away tickets first, there is a big incentive this season as opposed to previous seasons, where the only games AFCB were playing were in the Premier League, some of which Bournemouth have played at over 10 times since their promotion to the Premier League. 

When performances on the pitch are at a high level, more general fans from the area will want to come and watch. As well as this, the fans that may have been more inclined to spend their money on a weekend away in the Cotswolds will now have a much bigger pull to go to the away games now that Bournemouth are on the up as a club.

Once the stadium expansion has finished, more fans will be able to attend and build up a more personal connection with the club, which in theory should mean that more fans will then want to go to away games, once they realise how much better the experience is at the ground compared to watching the game in a local pub or at home.