Raith Rovers have learned what their ticket allocation will be for April’s eagerly-anticipated Ramsdens Cup final against Rangers at Easter Road, Courier Sport can reveal.
The Stark’s Park outfit have been in talks with their opponents, the SPFL and Police Scotland for a number of weeks in relation to ticket and segregation arrangements, but the club’s board appear resigned to the fact their support could well be vastly outnumbered by fans of the Glasgow giants.
Early indications are that the Rovers faithful will be housed in the Famous Five Stand, and the Kirkcaldy club expect to be handed an initial allocation of 3,500.
If that is the case, Rangers supporters would given the rest of the 20,421-capacity stadium to try and fill whenever tickets finally go on sale, which is likely to be next month.
Talks are still ongoing between all parties before any announcement is made, and Rovers are still hopeful of being given a section of another stand should demand outstrip supply.
“There’s an issue there of course with the capacity of the ground plus the number of Rangers supporters that presumably want to go there, so whatever happens we’re certainly not going to get what we want or what we could have taken,” chairman Turnbull Hutton stressed.
“We await final confirmation.Rangers were not keen to sell any tickets before February, which is why we went with the voucher scheme.
“But we’re heartened by the number we’ve sold we’ve sold around 1,200 so far.The worst case scenario is that we get 3,500 and there are issues with the police because they would like us all in the one stand.
“The stand we’re talking about is the Famous Five Stand, which holds 3,500.
“There was an option where we would get a bit of another stand but that would entail probably Rangers fans above our fans, and that wouldn’t be a happy place to be I wouldn’t have thought.
“We suggested the opposite, but it’s in the hands of the SPFL and we await with interest how many we get.”
Rovers took in excess of 7,000 supporters to their Scottish Cup semi-final against Dundee United at Hampden in 2010 and were hoping for a similar figure for the Ramsdens Cup showpiece in the hope that the club’s first national final for 20 years would capture the imagination.
With that in mind, the club have employed various schemes in recent months in a bid to ensure that regulars to Stark’s Park will be guaranteed a ticket when they become available.
However, with the game due to be broadcast on BBC Alba and home attendances turning out to be lower than expected, Hutton appreciates the fact that the number wishing to head to Easter Road for the game against Rangers on April 6 might not hit previous heights.
“I can see it from the other point of view which is you look at our home crowd this season and it hasn’t been great,” he noted.
“What we’ve done is accommodated the season ticket holders and voucher holders, so the ones who come to Stark’s Park are virtually guaranteed a ticket for the Ramsdens Cup final.
“The fans were allowed two vouchers each so we were working on the basis of 1,500 each taking two, so you have 3,000 plus whatever we need.
“So we can easily sell the 3,500, that’s not an issue.The ones who will mump if we only have 3,500 to sell will be the ones who never set foot in Stark’s Park.
“But there’s a long time between now and April and a lot could happen.”
Hampden Park would have staged the final but the national stadium is out of commission amid preparations for the Commonwealth Games later this year.
Some sections of both clubs’ supporters felt the Kirkcaldy club should have relented and agreed to have the game played at Ibrox, which has a capacity of over 51,000 and would have meant a bigger payday.
But Hutton has stuck to his guns throughout on that issue and reckons sporting integrity had to win out.
“If we had had a bigger venue it would have solved our problem but the only bigger venue was Celtic Park, and there are nine million reasons why the police and Celtic don’t want it anywhere near Celtic Park,” he concluded.
“So we are victims.I’ve been castigated because people are saying I should have agreed to go to Ibrox and made money out of it.
“But it’s a cup final and in my opinion it has to be a neutral ground.”
Rovers progressed to the final by beating Annan Athletic 3-0 at Stark’s Park in October, while Rangers defeated Stenhousemuir 1-0 in the second semi-final two weeks later.