Town will not be given any further tickets for the FA Cup third round tie at Aston Villa on Saturday 5th January. The Blues sold out the 2,900 seats they had taken for the game soon after they went on general sale yesterday.
Chief executive Simon Clegg told the club site: "Our ticket office manager, John Ford asked Villa whether it was possible for us to have some more tickets.
"We were looking for another 500 or so which we believe would have satisfied demand, but unfortunately Villa have said they are not in a position to do that, which we can understand as they are likely to have sold tickets to home fans in areas that potentially would have been used for us.”
Away clubs are entitled to 15% of the capacity of the home side’s ground in the FA Cup, but Clegg says Town would almost certainly have lost cash had they taken all the available seats given the terms on which they were offered.
"As John has explained previously, we took the maximum number of tickets we could on a sale or return basis,” he said.
"The next figure available was 4,800, rising to the maximum 6,000 and we would have had to buy those tickets up front. That would have left us open to a big risk of substantial losses if we had failed to sell those tickets.
"Our average travelling support this season is 646 and while we knew that the numbers of fans wanting to go to the Villa game would be higher than that, we believe taking the 2,900 available on the sale or return basis was the right option.”
Meanwhile, Scunthorpe manager Brian Laws is hopeful that on-loan Town striker Nathan Ellington is close to a return after a calf injury which has forced him out of the last two matches: "Nathan has done ever so well this week. He has progressed well and we are hoping he will be available for Carlisle this weekend.
"I will be very disappointed if he is not fit and ready and, if he is, we will have a bit more fire power up front."
Ellington, 31, has made one start and two sub appearances for the Iron so far, without scoring.