This interview first appeared in the Burton Albion programme
This time round we talked to Mike Hooker, ticket office manager. He and his team are off-the-pitch Luton Town legends, of course!
Mike, there’s probably not a single Luton fan who wouldn’t want to say ‘thank you’ to you and the ticket office team for the way you go above and beyond so often to help us attend games at home and away. From sorting season cards to answering emails – sometimes way out of office hours! – and helping fans who’ve lost or forgotten tickets you’re always there for us!
So, let’s start by asking you about your own history with Luton Town and how you came to work for the club….
Firstly, thanks for the kind comments! I was born in St Albans, and my dad was an avid football fan. He took me along to Clarence Park, St Albans ground, from when I was five or six. I was his excuse to get out and go to football! I’ve got a confession to make here though; I also grew up as Manchester United fan as I absolutely loved George Best. We went to see United at London games regularly. But when I was about 12, dad said come on, we’ll go to local league football now. That meant Vicarage Road, then Kenilworth Road, as he said with us being in St Albans we were between the two grounds. We did that twice then he said now make a choice: which team do you want to go to? Luckily, yellow was never my colour so I didn’t go to the dark side! We then became regulars at Kenilworth Road. I played football too and was a winger, so I loved watching John Aston – it was that era, the early 70s. Then when I was 17, I got a job in Luton just up the road from the ground, worked with lots of season ticket holders and in 1980 got my own first season ticket in the Oak Road. That’s when I really fell in love with Luton and became a fully-fledged fan, home and away, with about 10 of us travelling all around the country in a battered old green minibus. Over the next decade we saw one of the best Luton teams in history with the likes of Big Mick, Ricky Hill, Brian Stein, Preecey – and David Moss, one of my favourites. We were obviously at the Littlewoods Cup final of course, but also those nail-biting relegation battles, surviving on the last day at Maine Road and again at the Baseball Ground, Derby, still one of my favourite games. I then got married, had kids and got various weekend and evening jobs which meant I couldn’t get to many games. But around 2000 the kids were of an age where they could come to games, so they became my excuse to get out to football again. My lad Steve, who was only about 12 loved it from the start, standing in F Block, on his seat, and singing away! In 2004, my daughter Kelly left her job at a gym and when I was going to collect some tickets, I saw a sign saying ticket office assistant required. I told Kelly about it, and she got the job – then 8 months later after 20 years in customer service I got made redundant and for a total change became a postman, which meant finishing at 1pm. I knew the ticket office were busy so offered to work afternoons on a voluntary basis. That became a part-time job and within about a year the ticket office manager left, and I was asked if I was interested in the role, full-time. I jumped at it – it felt like I was going to get paid for doing my hobby! So, Kelly, as she often reminds me, is one year ahead of me in completed years.
How has your role changed over the years?
My first game running the ticket office was a 5-1 win against Leeds in October 2006. We went fifth in the Championship and I was thinking, I could have joined at exactly the right time, dreaming of being in the Premier League. Two and a half years later we were in the Conference! So, that didn’t quite pan out! But those conference days became quite fun to be honest. By the fifth year we were certainly ready for promotion but the first couple of years, going to an away ground and having five times the home crowd and things like that were great. I remember a game at Gray Athletic, I think, where when they announced a sub and our crowd did that ‘who???’ thing and then they announced his name again! We printed tickets for home clubs often too, and I can remember a game where the away support was so low – 13 I think – that we moved them into Kenilworth Road Lower Block A so we could fill the Oak Road with our own fans.
The club was smaller then in many ways – so although I was ticket officer manager, very soon I also became Club Shop Manager and probably fan engagement too, as we were the supporter-facing front of the club. In my time I have also pulled many a pitch cover or cleared snow off the pitch. I’ve even stood in for Happy Harry at fetes and carnivals, a few times! Everyone pulled together, staff and fans because, I think, of what we’d been through with -30 points.
It’s certainly been a roller coaster. A journey I wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on as a fan, but even more working for the club. I think in my 20 years we’ve had four promotions, five relegations, the JPT final, three failed play-off finals and a final day survival and 2 COVID affected seasons. So,15 out of 20 seasons there’s been something massive going on. We don’t ‘do’ uneventful at Luton!
What absolutely motivates us is being here for the fans. We want to give them the best level of service we can, – we are fans ourselves, so I think we understand what they want and aim to provide it. I’ve been here 20 years, Kelly 21 and Holly 15 – and we’ve stayed that amount of time because we’re driven by supporting Luton, wanting to work for Luton and wanting to make Luton fans’ lives easier. We added two new part-time members to our team for the Premier League season – Megan who is a Luton fan too and Issey, who we’re working on!
Let’s leap forward to that Premier League season now…
It was a challenge from start to finish! We had to relocate the Bobbers box holders and the requirements for Sky and the media meant having to move lots of other people too. The Oak Road changed mid-season as well to safe standing, which also involved a lot of liaising with supporters.
Then there was the demand for tickets. We’d got busy as we moved up the leagues but nothing to compare with this. You’d put the game on sale to members, and it would sell out in 2 minutes. Or 2 seconds! We had to stop personal callers coming to the office as by the time they got to the counter we were sold out. Ticketing has changed of course but not everyone can get online and we’ve always wanted to look after them as well. So, yes, challenging.
Something else I didn’t expect at the scale it happens was fake tickets and selling on third-party sites. Luckily, we’d introduced membership the season before to make sure regular fans could get tickets – we needed another layer beyond season tickets as they were fully sold out with a long waiting list. About 800 people took out membership that year: good timing, as it meant they were able to get to all the Premier League games! Membership grew from 800 to 6,800 in the Premier League season. We did, however, have members buying tickets then selling them for hundreds on third-party websites, which we worked hard to stop. We bought the tickets ourselves, tracked them back to the members selling them, and cancelled their memberships. It’s a problem for all top-level clubs. Some have big teams working on what we did with just a few of us. If we get back to the Premier League, we’ll be aware of that from day one.
Do you get to see much of the games?
At home, I probably get in 10 or 15 minutes into the second half. For away games, sometimes I have to sort a few things out pre-match, but I get to see the full game and that’s my day out.
Times have changed now but for the JPT final, where we sold 40,000+ physical tickets ourselves we had to provide two people to work in the Wembley ticket office. But we wanted to be up the road at The Green Man with our fans – so I got my mum and dad to work at Wembley, and I had my phone on to answer dad when he had questions! It was different for the Championship play off final though, all online and digital tickets which meant we were in the ticket office at Wembley until probably 5 minutes before half-time. In their own way these were two games I will never forget and always wonder how we sold the tickets in timescales required.
How do ticket allocations and the sales structure work – and are there any thoughts about a loyalty scheme?
We try to be fair to everyone with our priorities. For away games, the order is away season ticket holders, then executive and diamonds – that’s around 1700, then season cardholders and then members – depending on years of membership if needed. Lastly, general sale, which we like to get to three weeks before a game if we can. For away tickets now, as well as home, there’s a move towards digital tickets.
On loyalty schemes for away games, yes, this is something we’re looking at. I’d like to do it on tenure, so however long you’ve had a season ticket over the last 20 years – you get X number of points. A diamond might get a few more points for each season; members will get points depending on how many consecutive years they’ve been held and then we’d have a rolling last two years’ worth of away tickets that you’ve bought. We feel this would perhaps be a fairer system of allocation. We are looking at the detail, and we propose to work with the Trust and supporters’ group via fans forums on that soon. We want to get things right and we’re always learning.
What about Power Court? Any plans in place for that yet?
I’m looking forward to seeing all our season ticket holders, members and fans sitting, or safe standing, where they want to be at Power Court. People will want to be with their friends they’ve been to games with for years – we’ll, again, aim to work with the supporters’ groups on processes and priorities to make this happen. – and we’ll have room for the many thousands more who currently can’t get into games too. We should be able to meet all demand for home games when we move. However, anybody who contacts us about season tickets now is advised that if they wish to increase their priority for Power Court season cards, purchasing seasonal memberships and match tickets will assist them if they assign all purchases to their unique supporter reference number.
I like many will probably struggle to leave Kenilworth Road on its last day, but Kempy* cannot keep this place together with glue much longer!
(*Peter Kemp, Site & Facilities Manager)
A couple of other points: apologies if there was some initial misunderstanding about selling home tickets in blocks of four games, but fans didn’t have to buy all four, they could just buy one game at a time – obviously, subject to availability. We feel it helps those supporters who can’t get Season Cards’ but may wish to try to book the same seat each week early, whilst not disadvantaging others. It also assists us with planning for games. If some games are selling better than others, we can address this early. Although we are still operating, on average, at over 90% capacity there are some games where we can look to reach out to younger fans and community groups to offer a group booking of tickets at a discounted rate. So far, this season, we have been able to invite around 30 or 40 groups to games. It’s often their first match, and we want them to go home and say, ‘I loved that, can we go again?’ Those words have been the start of lifelong journeys for a lot of fans I guess, and we’ll be able to accommodate many more on that journey at Power Court! If any supporter who may work in schools or local football thinks this may be of interest, please contact ticketoffice@lutontown.co.uk to register your interest.
Fantastic Mike. Finally, any message to the fans from you?
Yes! I am proud to be a Luton supporter and working at the club for the last 20 years has shown me what a special set of fans we can be. There is nothing like Kenilworth Road in my eyes when the place is rocking. We have had a couple disappointing seasons and at times it has been a hard watch. People will all have their own views on why. Football is a game of opinions.
But if history tells us anything, it tells us when we are all pulling in the same direction with the same goals for Luton Town there is no stopping us. Someone once said ‘The stronger the team, the stronger the team ‘. Never a truer word spoken. COYH
Thanks Mike. And thanks again too for being the best ticket office team in the business!
