Season ticket holder turns up to game to find his seat does not exist

A Gillingham season ticket who turned up to the first game of the side's new campaign sparked amusement on social media after reporting that he had been allocated a seat that in fact did not exist.

Gills fan Scott Byers wrote on X (formerly Twitter) in a now-deleted post that he had turned up for the League Two season opener against Carlisle United - only to find two seats on his row, including the one allocated to him, were missing.

The metal fittings for the seats can still be seen screwed into the concrete steps, but with no actual seat forthcoming, Byers explained that a steward had advised him to 'look out for some other seats this week'.

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The post received over 15,000 likes before being deleted, and sparked a mixture of responses from the aghast to the humorous, with variations on 'I wouldn't stand for that' or 'I wouldn't take that sitting down' particularly popular.

We imagine the unfortunate fan ended up having a grand old time regardless after finding another place to sit.

Gillingham ran out 4-1 winners over newly-relegated Carlisle United, with Timothee Dieng opening the scoring in the second minute.

Jacob Wakeling scored almost as quickly after half time to double the lead before Jon Mellish gave Carlisle some hope of making a comeback after their 349-mile trip to Kent - but that was extinguished by further Gillingham goals from Jack Nolan and Jonny Williams.

Gillingham finished 12th in League Two last season after a four-game winning start turned into a dismal run of form through to Boxing Day.

Carlisle meanwhile landed back in League Two after just a year up in the third tier, where they finished bottom last season.

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