Norwich City fans have snapped up all 5,000 of the tickets made available for next month’s long trip to Wigan – despite the game being moved to a midday kick-off by Sky Sports.
The Canaries announced subsidised ticket and coach travel prices in the wake of the match being moved to a 12pm kick-off, with fans facing an early start on Sunday, April 14 to travel to Greater Manchester.
For those travelling from Carrow Road that is just short of a 500-mile round trip, with club coaches set to leave at 5am.
City had already secured 5,000 tickets for the game at Wigan, with the relegation battling Latics averaging just under 12,000 at their 25,000 capacity DW Stadium so far this season.
League leaders Norwich have averaged over 1,600 away fans this season and took more than 3,200 to Millwall and over 2,600 to Rotherham earlier this month, as Daniel Farke’s team chase a place in the Premier League.
That saw club bosses negotiate cheaper tickets for City fans and then subsidising them further, to £7.50 for adults and £2.50 for under-18s, with £10 knocked off coach travel for a price of £20 as well.
Chief operating officer Ben Kensell spoke about the superb support the club benefits from as that pricing was confirmed earlier this month, saying: “Firstly, it’s been phenomenal support all season away from home so it’s not just about Wigan.
“Wigan for us was a really significant fixture, it’s fourth from the end of the season, it could be a massive game in the run-in. But from our perspective we negotiated with Wigan straight up that we wanted the maximum allocation that we could possibly have.”
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The Canaries are currently four points clear at the top of the Championship table with eight games remaining, ahead of a trip to play-off hopefuls Middlesbrough on Saturday (5.30pm).
Two of City’s last three matches have been shown live by Sky Sports and the Boro battle is the first of five consecutive televised games, including the Wigan match.
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It’s set to be the biggest away following since October 2017, when 8,773 supporters followed Norwich to north London to face Arsenal in the League Cup fourth round, which ended in a 2-1 defeat in extra-time.
It’s also reminiscent of a game at Barnsley in 2002, when around 4,500 City supporters made the journey to Oakwell to roar Nigel Worthington’s team on in their pursuit of a play-off place, a 2-0 success which relegated the hosts.
Tickets only went on general sale for the Wigan trip this morning, after away season ticket holders had all had the chance to claim their seats.
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