Bruce Elliott
Everything that came our way last season from the FA Cup run was a huge bonus for us and that’s why we’re managing to re-invest that money back into the club properly to give us a strong base within the local community.
We used to think of ourselves as a community club beforehand and we were, but the new facilities, added to the 3G pitch for which we’ve now almost paid for thanks to the Cup run, it’s transformed the club really.
It can be used 40-50 hours per week and there are people playing on it all day, every day and because it’s at the main stadium with good facilities, we keep getting people coming back and wanting to play on it again and again.
The juniors play on a Sunday morning and how good is it that they can play at a stadium like this? For the nine and ten-year-olds, the Sutton United juniors, what could be better?
It’s totally different behind the scenes now. When I chatted to Arsene Wenger at the game against Arsenal last season, I apologised to him about the size of the dressing room and he said: ‘Don’t worry, people forget that I came from a very small club in France where the dressing rooms were even smaller.’
So if we ever happen to play against Arsenal here again, they might be disappointed that the dressing rooms are larger!
As we were involved in the FA Cup run, amongst all of the ups and downs and the business of it, I always said that this what we wanted to do with the money so the decision was taken by the board to make sure it was re-invested to make the place safer and more welcoming for spectators in the future.
It did seem strange to look at the bank account and see that, for once, we had some money in there. The TV money and the prize money was unbelievable and by the time we added in all of the extras, it was a substantial sum of money.
When we did our figures, it looked close to a million pounds. There were a few expenses to pay out from that, but from an income point of view, the FA Cup brought in an amount that for a club of this level and a club which has always tried to run itself properly, it was unheard of.
It enabled us to do a lot of the jobs that we’ve wanted to do, but had never got to the top of the list. It’s still an ongoing project for us but a huge amount has already been done and there’s more to come.
This weekend, we head to Paulton Rovers for our first FA Cup tie of the season and it could be our turn to be the Cup upset, as we’re expecting a tough game. It’s away from home and they’ll be up for it.
I’ve spoken to their chairman and they’re expecting a good crowd and obviously we hope to get through, but they’ve done well to get to this stage and nobody reaches this round without something going for them.
Who knows, it could be Paulton Rovers repeating what we did last season, so we’ve been preparing as professionally and normally as we usually do to make sure we’re not the victims on Saturday and we get through to the first round proper.
