In a historic week for the Kidderminster Harriers, club management wasn’t just interested in increasing the space for media professionals or figuring out what to do with the massive demand for tickets. There are other important questions that must be answered.
How many liters of beer will we need? And bags of potato chips? and pancakes?
In the previous phase of the FA Cup, the FA Cup, the oldest football tournament in the world, everything was sold out before the end of the match. This cannot happen again. Even more now.
The semi-professional (for the “half” more than the “pro”) team of the English sixth tier, Post Ham, of the English Premier League, welcomes to the fourth stage. In one match and elimination, they will play at home, at Aggborough Stadium. Seats 6,444 people, but can 3000 seating only.
The match will take place on Saturday (4) at 9:30 am (Brasilia time).
When the 2012 London Games ended, West Ham inherited the Olympic Stadium, which seats 80,000 and was built for 486 million pounds.
“I just had an interview with Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer,” said Russell Penn, 36, head coach from Kidderminster. “It’s what we call the magic of the cup. It’s the ability that should make this tournament as teams as our dream that you can beat the Giants.” to paper.
Former England goalscorers Lineker and Shearer are respectively presenters and commentators on BBC’s Match of the Day, the UK’s most traditional and watched sports programme.
If there were no insurmountable things in football, Kidderminster shouldn’t even be in competition right now. In the third stage, he starred in the biggest surprise of the current release. Reading was eliminated from the tournament in the second division.
“The city has a population of 55,000 and is in turmoil. You can feel the excitement of the crowd in the streets. It is a wonderful moment in the history of the club. Let’s seize the occasion. We love to have the ball and we want to play. We will not defend ourselves.”
The dream of every Kidderminsters in British football is to see a tie that puts them against the big and far away. It may be bad sportingly, but financially, it’s like winning the lottery. A match against Manchester United at Old Trafford or against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium could represent money to keep the club in business for a year.
When playing at home, the West Midlands team will receive a portion of the box office at their stadium and £110,000 (795,000 Brazilian Real) paid by the BBC for live broadcasts. Part of the money will be used for the costs of implementing the confrontation. It will be necessary to quadruple the number of staff and security guards.
“West Ham will find a different environment than they are used to. The locker room is small, room is narrow. For them, it will be an experience and something that can be in our best interest,” adds Bean.
In third place and in the qualifying area to get into the fifth division, Kidderminster is on a good run. He has won 16 of his last 21 points played. The technician explains that this is great, but within the local reality. You can’t compare to West Ham, who are fifth in the Premier League and have one of the country’s most wanted players Declan Rice at the back.
“Since the fourth-round draw, I’ve asked our athletes not to think or talk about West Ham. In front of me they avoid that, but I’m sure when I’m away, they don’t do anything else,” he says.
He is not mistaken. In an interview this week, defender Keith Lowe said the defenders had commented that they wanted to “make an effort” for Michail Antonio, the opponent’s most dangerous striker, “to remember what it is like to play apart from an elite team”.
Kidderminster could repeat the feat of 1994, when they reached the fifth stage of the FA Cup, where they were eliminated by West Ham themselves 1-0, and people close to the club say that since then no non-professional team has achieved this feat. Crowley Town got this in 2011, but it was a professional club that played in an amateur league.
“We have to believe we’re going to be on our best day and that the opponent is not a center,” Benn concludes. “You never know in football. It can happen.”
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