We made sure that we each had a membership (I had one from last year that I had to renew, but she had to get one of her own because membership only allows you to buy one ticket, although multiple people can arrange to buy them together) and found a home game that fit within our timeframe.
It wasn't one of their biggest games, which actually fit even better, because as new members with no ticket history, we weren't allowed to buy tickets for those games, anyway. Tickets for the game went on sale at 8:15 this morning (not only are games limited based on ticket-buying history, tickets only go on sale for groups of games at a time), and we were ready to go.
Hold on ... did I mention that's 8:15 a.m. England time ... as in 3:15 a.m. here on the East Coast of America?
But if it meant getting up at 3 a.m., getting up at 3 a.m. was what we were going to do, and so I was in front of the computer, ready to hit the button at the stroke of 3:15 ...
... to get put in a queue ... a queue that was going to last more than an hour.
Oh well, I was already up and didn't have anywhere to go, plus ticket availability was very good. Of course it was; it's not exactly Manchester United coming to Anfield.
So I did a little surfing on the Internet, tried to find something to watch on TV and realized that TV at 3:30 a.m. is pretty much crap. My wife abandoned the pursuit fairly early, going back upstairs into bed and telling me to let her know if anything changed.
About a half-hour or so into it, I noticed that ticket availability had been downgraded to good, but I wasn't too worried. After all, I had been queued up for a while, and there were still plenty of tickets left. With a little patience, I'd be all set to work on my rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone."
Then the good news and bad news hit at roughly the same time. The estimate of more than an hour dropped to less than 30 minutes, then less than 20. That was the good news. The bad news was that ticket availability had been reduced to very limited. Was I actually going to get up at 3 a.m., sit online for more than an hour ... and not be able to get tickets?
Yes, yes I was. With fewer than five minutes left in my wait, the ticket status changed again ... to sold out. I let the timer run out (what the hell, I had waited this long), and was sent to a page saying that all the tickets were sold out except limited and extremely limited view. which I have to imagine is the different between sitting near a pole and directly behind it. No thanks, if I want to pay through the nose to sit behind a pole, I can do that right in Boston.
I was somewhat miffed at this news, not now-I'm-going-to-become-a-Chelsea-fan miffed, but somewhat miffed.
Up at 3 a.m. to buy @LFC tickets. In queue when it opened at 3:15. Waited more than an hour. Sold out while I waited. #wasteoftime #thanks
— LastHonestSportsFan (@LastHonestSport) July 16, 2014
So now we (and by "we" I mean "my wife") have been looking at options. There's some sort of game-and-lodging package where the only disadvantage is that it would cost an arm and a leg. Apparently, unused season tickets go on sale the week before the game, and Liverpool is on the road toward the end of our vacation.
We'll see what happens.
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