SFA promises match ticket ‘shambles’ won’t happen again

Football chiefs have vowed there will be no repeat of the turnstile chaos that marred Scotland’s 1-0 win over Ireland when the Battle of Britain kicks off this week.

The eagerly anticipated clash is a near sell out but Scottish football chiefs have come under fire after thousands of fans were forced to miss the start of Friday’s key qualifying game following a ticketing fiasco.

Celtic FC’s turnstiles are normally activated by barcodes but the SFA lacks the ability to print the lined access codes on its tickets. This resulted in stewards having to manually accept tickets.

With snarling traffic chaos away from the ground, many exasperated fans were forced to wait in lines 40-people deep.

SFA chiefs were last night forced to intervene in the row. They insisted all will go smoothly for Scotland-England and are urging fans to arrive as early as possible.

That failed to appease members of the Tartan Army still desperately upset at missing the early stages of the brilliant performance put on by Gordon Strachan’s battling squad.

West of Scotland Tartan Army spokesman Hamish Husband said: “I missed the first 15 minutes. The whole organisation of the turnstiles and ticketing choosing not to use barcodes has to be questioned.

“Scotland fans have a tradition of turning-up at the last minute. Yet we’re always in the ground on time.”

One irate fan blasted: “It was absolutely horrendous I’ve never seen queues like it to get in anywhere. The queues were so big that people couldn’t move around the stadium. A total shambles is how I’d describe it.”

An SFA spokesman promised that all will be well for Tuesday’s friendly, adding that travel woes in and around the city added to fans’ wait.

He said: “This is an issue that we will factor into our operations meeting before the game against England on Tuesday.”