Obviously Crawley Town are going to do well out of getting drawn against Manchester United, and the motorways going North will be full of coaches taking the home supporters up to Old Trafford from the home counties. Apart from the prize money for getting so far there is the cut of the gate receipts and TV rights and the merchandise. [[And then another lot of TV money for the replay?]] If half the Crawley supporters who go to the game decide to buy a replica shirt and lots of them buy official scarves, hats, etc. that could be a quarter of a million quid in revenue.
Not complaining about that, but I wonder if the club and the management of County Mall can come to some arrangement for the football club to set up a stall in one of the many empty units in the town centre for a couple of weeks. Perhaps the ever-resourceful Bob O’Brien can broker some sort of deal?
Any rent would be better than none, and it would generate extra sales for the club. The only problem I can see is that of getting stock in faster than it flies off the shelves.
Even lowly Bradford City, who aren’t in the running for anything apart from, hopefully, staying up in the 2nd Division managed to shift a fair bit of over Christmas. We were selling exclusive scarves and badges (to commemorate the 1911 FA Cup Win) and people actually dragged themselves through the snow to buy them. (And the latest Jamie Oliver, of course…)
Let’s hope they stay up. If they do I might come up to visit for an away game 🙂