Town chairman and CEO Mark Ashton says the club will be introducing new rules to address non-attendance by season ticket holders, revealing that 6,000 fans have added their names to the waiting list launched last month.

Ashton says a significant number of the Blues’ season ticket holders, which number around 20,500, are absent from each match.

“It’s becoming a challenge for the first time. We haven’t really talked about this publicly before, but we’ve probably gone around 10 to 12 per cent no-show rate with season ticket holders,” Ashton told TownTV.

“For the first time this summer, we’ve introduced a waiting list for season tickets, we have 6,000 people on that waiting list and we’ve got to address this.

“We’ve got to look at who the no-shows are, how consistent they are and why they’re not coming.

“We are going to have to put some rules in place that if there are consistent no-shows of season ticket holders, we’ve got to put some rules and regulations in place because actually I’ve got 6,000 people here who want those tickets.

‘What we can’t do is therefore have empty seats on matchdays because that affects atmosphere, which affects performance, which affects everything that we’re trying to do.

“So, look out for that as we move through the rest of the season and into the summer because I think how we operate will change.

“I understand some people can’t come for a game, then we need to be in communication with those fans, they need to be in communication with us, but we want seats filled and we’ll look to address it moving forward. Remember, 6,000 now on a waiting list.”

He added: “Things happen, sometimes you can’t use it, but if you don’t want to lose it, use it, use our resale platform.”

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