Got your Wembbley tickets yet?

How does everyone think the scramble for Wembley tickets is going? No one connected to SAFC is impressed with their 38,979 allocation. The club has tried for more, but the matter is out of their hands.

As we knew would happen one day, years of staff trimming have finally caught up and Sunderland are reduced to using Ticketmaster, who last year admitted to a security breach, which affected up to 40,000 UK customers.

The general low opinion of Ticketmaster is being murmured and reiterated around Wearside and online.

They aren’t flawless. But the suggestion that they are now run by Martin Bain is completely untrue and more than a little harsh.

How fairly are the club distributing their meagre share of tickets? The answer to that depends on who you ask.

Phase one of the sale, which ended on Monday, was for the 24,000 season ticket holders who were entitled to purchase one each. This seems entirely fair.

The harrumphing has been mainly concerned with phase two and the remaining 11,000 tickets.

Entitled to apply are people who have bought tickets since the start of last season.

Matters were not helped by a change of mind over making some Wembley ticket purchases contingent on alsobuyingoneforSaturday’s home game with Walsall.

In fact, the decision to muddy the waters by drag ging the Walsall fixture into the mix at all has gone down like a vomit milkshake.

On the other hand, peo

ple who haven’t bothered to attend a game in the last two years can at least pretend to be loyal by attending this weekend and still apply for Wembley.

Overall, the club has been as fair as possible. There is no perfect way to sell tickets for March 31: so it’s a matter of using the least imperfect.

Those who say that attendance of earlier rounds should be taken into account have a point. But the reality is that the seven or eight thousand who attended the first matches are mainly die-hards who have season tickets anyway.

There is also the issue of whether someone who attended last September’s Stoke tie for less than the price of a pint, is more entitled to someone who has attended, say, eight league games at a cost of about £200.

For what it’s worth, my recollection is that everyone I knew who genuinely deserved a ticket for the 2014 League Cup final managed to buy one: fairytales about people who had never been to a match “buying a hundred through business connections” notwithstanding.

But there will be whinging from those with a wounded sense of entitlement. My favourite is: “I had a season ticket for 30 years and only stopped going this season.”

Football must me the only industry where people expect preferential treatment for withdrawing their custom.

And the closer we are to the final, the sobber the stories will become.

All will be prefaced with “I can’t believe it.” To wit:

I couldn’t buy a season ticket because I was in London/Afghanistan/a coma/ prison/the International Space Station.

l The season ticket I cancelled in 2014 doesn’t count. It’s a disgrace.

I’ve watched every home game this season in the pub.

Shocking. My son’s a season ticket holder but they won’t give me a ticket to accompany him to the final. He’s only 27.

I’ve never had a season ticket, but haven’t missed a home game for 10 years. I’m telling you.

I’m not much of a supporter really. I don’t deserve a cup final ticket but have decided to try and blag one anyway.

Actually, I don’t mind that last one. At least it’s honest.