AS SFC have constantly emphasised that they hold their supporters in esteem I believe that my recent experience will contradict that image and show that, as far as their retail department is concerned it's all about money through the tills and loyalty counts for nothing.

I have supported SFC for over 60 years at least 20 of them as a season ticket holder.

I generally meet up with a group of six or more genuine supporters before each home game and what is particularly rewarding is our group takes in three generations all with a common interest.

As a result of the pandemic I was the only one out of the whole group to renew my season ticket and despite comments like you must be stupid I convinced myself that the club's offer of a £35 voucher, redeemable in the club shop, and a guaranteed seat when restricted crowds are let back in the stadium made it a good deal.

How wrong I was.

On Sept 30th, completely out of the blue, I received an email saying if I didn't want to miss out I had up to Fri 2nd October to use my voucher.

On getting on the site I found that there were several restrictions on spending the voucher the main ones were, the voucher could not be used against the purchase of this season's shirt or against the cost of postage.

The goods were priced in such a way that it was impossible for me to get the full £35 value.

By this I mean the most popular items, the club shirts, all be it they were last season's were priced at £20 which left a balance of £15.

If you discount club shorts at £10 and socks at £5 the only way I could get my full value was to combine a shirt with a pair of £15 slippers all be it they were only available in size 13. After weighing things up I decided to forget the club shirt and go for 2 sport shirts at £17.50 meaning I could get the full value of my voucher.

To cap it all when it came to payment there was a delivery charge of £5 and the normal option of picking up from store for free had been blanked out.

I bit the bullet and entered the code only to have it rejected. On complaining to the club, they apologised and issued a new code.

I then went back on site to re-order only to find the items were out of stock.

There is no sense of loyalty or fair play offered to loyal supporters and season ticket holders.

As far as I'm concerned they have nailed their true colours to the mast and I intend to cancel my season ticket.

Ben Salczynski

Romsey