£300,000 windfall will mend bar roof!
ANOTHER FA Cup win, another hole in the roof repaired. Sutton United, the lowest-ranked team left in the competition, are keeping their feet on the ground despite their amazing progress to the last 16.
‘We’ve got to the fifth round and the club’s never done that so it’s got to be the best day in our history,’ their manager Paul Doswell said after builder Jamie Collins knocked out Championship highfliers Leeds.
Doswell, who loaned the club the money to pay for their 3G pitch, will receive a slice of the £ 300,000 windfall in payback, but some of the winnings has also been ear-marked to repair the hole in the bar roof. The win over Wimbledon in the previous round allowed Sutton to mend a similar problem in the changing rooms.
‘With the television and everything we thought that this was a £200,000 game,’ said Bruce Elliott, the Sutton chairman.
‘It’s become a £300,000 game now with the winnings. We won’t waste it. It will be well spent.’
Sutton’s achievement, hard on the heels of National League rivals Lincoln City’s victory against Brighton, means that there are two non-League clubs in the fifth round of the FA Cup, the first time this has happened since the Football League was founded in 1888.
Sutton and Lincoln were due to play each other in the league on fifth-round weekend and property developer Doswell has a feeling they could still meet, in a rather more high-profile fixture.
‘Lincoln were an inspiration for us. I can almost guarantee that will be the draw. We’ll have to play them on the same weekend we were due to meet them.
‘I can’t praise the players enough. Every time they’ve been asked a question they have responded. I’ve been talking about making more modern memories and it’s brilliant. It’s a huge achievement by the players and the club to get to the last 16 of the FA Cup.’
Doswell will be back at work this morning. Unlike Lincoln, Sutton are part-timers, the players training just two days a week.
Sutton sit 16th in the National League and Doswell is happy with that. ‘I don’t want to move up, we don’t want to be in League Two,’ he said. ‘If any of our players get the chance to move up, they go with our blessing. We have no ambitions to be a League Two club.
‘I have got no ambition to be going to, with respect, places like Rochdale. What I want is for this club to be the best National League non-League club it can be.’
Asked whether he will reward the players, Elliott said: ‘They get a bonus, but they were asking about it. Paul told all the players, “Have you seen the chairman’s house and the chairman’s car? If you had seen those you’ll know you’re not going anywhere near Vegas”.
‘That’s something to be sorted out but the players will be well looked after.’
Sutton have never gone further than the fourth round in the FA Cup, having lost to Leeds 6-0 at this stage in 1970 and 8-0 to Norwich in 1989.
Leeds manager Garry Monk, who also saw Liam Cooper sent off for two yellow cards, issued a public apology to his club’s travelling fans, after making 10 changes to the side that had beaten Nottingham Forest in the league in midweek.
‘It’s a frustrating result and a frustrating performance but it’s my responsibility. I’m the one who selects the team. I made a lot of changes, it didn’t work and it backfired in that sense,’ Monk said.
‘All credit to Sutton. We wish them all the best in the next round. We didn’t want to see this happen, but it has. I stand by all the decisions I make. Sometimes you’ll suffer with decisions, but that’s life. I don’t regret any of them but when they backfire it is my responsibility.
‘I don’t like losing any game. It doesn’t matter which one it is. I’m not a good loser and we’re trying to create a winning mentality. When we lose we take it hard.
‘No excuses and no qualms whatsoever, just credit to Sutton.
‘The aim of anyone in the Championship, I would imagine, is to get to Premier League. We have tried to stay focused.’