THOUSANDS of football fans in the south are angry and frustrated at being unable to obtain tickets for the England match against Macedonia at Southampton's St Mary's Stadium next Wednesday (16th).

Saints themselves have 17,000 season ticket holders, but only a few have been able to get a ticket because of the distribution system employed by the Football Association.

The 32,500 capacity ground is sold out for the European Championship qualifier, but tickets were made available first to members of England Fans, the official England supporters club.

The 22,000 remaining were then available on a first come, first served basis from the Ticketmaster agency by phone or email.

But they were available to anyone and no allocation was given to Southampton Football Club as the hosts.

Worse still, ticket touts were able to buy tickets in blocks of four and resell those priced at £22, £32 and £42 for sums in excess of £100.

Chairman of the Southampton Independent Supporters Association, Nick Illingsworth, told me: "It's a fiasco. It's so unfair when some of our members have spent hundreds of pounds on buying a seat for the season and yet stand very little chance of watching the biggest game here for years.

"There doesn't seem much point in taking the internationals to places like Southampton if the host club doesn't receive an allocation of tickets.

"Not only that, lots of tickets are allocated to FA guests and corporate bodies who don't have a lot of interest in the game anyway, but just want a good night out.

"We know the match is being shown live on television, but that really is second best!

An FA spokesman commented: "The ticketing procedure is the same for any of the England matches played around the country.

"Members of England Fans get first crack, but we can't allocate to the host clubs as people from all over the country are keen to attend.

"With stadiums much smaller than Wembley it then has to be on a first come, first served basis.

"We're unable to prevent touts from getting some of them and it's just an unfortunate situation."

The spokesman confirmed that the FA has no plans to change the current policy.

So the first full international in Southampton since 1901 will be seen by a very small number of local fans - despite the inclusion in the England squad of Saints defender Wayne Bridge.

* More than 1,500 local youngsters will be at the game following a misunderstanding earlier this week.

Saints were given 530 tickets by the FA and invited 70 schools and youth groups to apply for them on a first come basis.

But they incorrectly told each group that they could apply for 53 tickets - a total of 3,710 in all.

The FA has subsequently sent out a further 1,000 direct to schools and clubs, while Saints chairman Rupert Lowe has offered ten schools who were unsuccessful before the deadline a total of 530 free tickets for the Premiership match against Blackburn on November 9th.