HEARTS are challenging supporters to fill Tynecastle for next month's visit of Celtic and avoid the club having to issue extra tickets to travelling fans in order to reach capacity.
Officials have brought forward the full open sale of tickets for the match on Sunday, November 2, in the hope of selling out the Wheatfield, Gorgie and Main stands before October 17. Should that happen, they will then release an extra 1000 seats in t
he Roseburn stand to home fans, otherwise these will be allocated to Celtic supporters.
Hearts believe having a home presence in each of Tynecastle's four stands will accord the team stronger backing when the SPL champions visit Edinburgh, and tickets are now available for the three sections mentioned.
Tickets have been on sale for the last couple of months online but the normal 21-day telephone and counter sales period has been extended to 30 days for this match, with Hearts intending to attract as many maroon-clad Jambos as possible to a crowd which should exceed 17,000.
A club spokesperson said: "Clearly we want home fans in all four stands, because we believe it can only help the team and atmosphere. However, the reality is that last season a number of seats remained unsold in the home sections for games against Rangers and Celtic.
"Ideally we want Hearts supporters to take up the opportunity to buy seats across other areas of the stadium allowing us to release these to home fans but, if this does not happen we have to take a commercial view, and ensure Hearts does not lose out on valuable revenue.
"We felt this was the fairest possible approach. We are communicating to our supporters to ask them to book tickets early, back the team and we can fill the stadium ourselves, whilst making it clear that we must consider offering these extra 1000 seats to Celtic supporters if we don't.
"We hope they back the team in this way. We've had a good start to the season, and we want to build on it."
Ticket arrangements for Celtic supporters are being finalised. Celtic tickets will not go on general sale and all transactions will be handled via post. Details will be announced on Monday.
To book tickets for home sections, visit www.heartsfc.co.uk, call 0871-663 1874 (option 1) or visit the Tynecastle ticket centre.
The full article contains 405 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
