It sort of makes me laugh that we all sit on hear with comments like "given SMs business you think our promotion would be better", "we need to spend more on promoting", "the marketing department doesnt work because its under resourced" etc ........ Maybe SM being the expert knows exactly what he can afford to do, what he needs to spend to maximise the returns etc etc.

You can chuck a whole ton of money at special offers, chasing crowd numbers, giveaways, marketing BUT if you do it wrong, it will come back and bite you on the ............................. ask Bradford.

My post's inclusion in this is unwarranted, I was posting fact not rumour or opinion. The Marketing department is low on resources and manpower. Whether 'SM' (cos he definitely micro-manages every aspect of the club) will give more funding to Marketing remains to be seen, I just said I HOPE it happens.

You also suggested that the club became involved in illegal practices.

A little bit of knowledge is dangerous

Don't get caught leafleting lamposts

Back onto the subject of Warrington Town, there is a lot well-meaning, but inaccurate stuff being written on here.

If Warrington were drawn at home, then standing is not a problem. Standing is permitted for home teams in the FA Cup right up to the quarter-final stage. The main issues would be turnstiles and segregation. Cantilever Park has only one set of functional turnstiles, which could cause a problem for a large crowd and keeping fans apart as they entered the ground. There is also no proper segregation in the ground, which could be a problem if a large visiting support came into town. That would be down to Cheshire Police and the FA to decide on.

The FA likes to keep sides at their own ground wherever possible. An example being last year when Port Vale drew Shortwood United away in round one. Shortwood play in Nailsworth in Gloucestershire and their ground is only accessible down an unlit country lane, which doesn’t even allow cars down it and the ground only holds 900. It is situated less than half a mile from Forest Green Rovers’ ground, which is very modern and holds over 5,000, yet they weren’t allowed to switch it. It was played on a Monday night, live on BT Sport and all the fans had to walk down a country lane in the pitch black. The ground had a lot of temporary work done to it and the tie was played there with a crowd of 1,247. Using that as a precedent, I can’t see Warrington switching the tie away from Cantilever unless the police insist. They might need to make a few temporary improvements to facilities, though.

Anyone who has seen the pitch at Cantilever knows that it makes Dallam Rec look like a bowling green. It is the bobbliest, most uneven area of grass that I have ever seen and it would be a massive advantage to play a better side on that, as you just can’t play any sort of football on it, other than long-ball, physical filth (at which Warrington excel under Shaun Reid’s tutelage).

A few other clarifications:
Saturday’s attendance of 691 is not their highest for 20 years. There was a sell-out crowd of 1,500 there in 2010 when the reformed Chester FC played their first ever game at Cantilever. Around 1,200 were Chester fans.

As a tier eight side, Warrington are the lowest ranked side definitely through to the first round, but they’re not the lowest-ranked team in the hat for round one - that is Shildon who are a tier nine club and have a replay to come. Norton United and Spennymoor Town are also tier eight clubs and both have replays, one of which is Norton v Shildon, which guarantees either another tier eight or tier nine presence in round one.

Personally, Warrington v Port Vale would be all my Christmases come at once, aside from the fact that Warrington would almost certainly knock us out.

EXETER AT HOME

Like winning the lottery and finding out so have 300 others.

Its a good draw - Proper league club, with a realistic chance of a proper upset.

Only downer is the fact that Exeter will probably bring one man and his dog as far as spectators go, but on the other side of the coin, it will mean the crowd, wherever it is played, will be a partisan one.

Not sure they'll need the HJ though. I was wrong about the prize money. Fourth qualifying round winners get £12,500. First round winners get £18,000. Still not to be sneezed at.

I'd agree with that. Will be a good atmosphere though.

It will, Exeter won't have played at a place like Cantilever Park before, the more intimidating the better. Christ, I sound like Shaun Wane now.

what is the capacity

Just googled it, apparently 3,500. I can see the Police having something to say about that though.

Of course they will. They will have played at worse grounds in friendlies, county games and the FA Cup. They spent 5 years in the Conference recently and I'd be surprised if they didn't encounter some single stand grounds during that time.

Correct. That's the problem they have in Wigan and why there's a degree of rivalry between the football and rugby clubs. Obviously some people there do support both their town's teams, but there are plenty of others who already supported another football club (usually from Liverpool or Manchester, same as the case in Warrington) before WAFC started rising up the divisions. Given that many of them also support Wigan RL, they basically view most Latics fans as bandwagon jumpers who either got into "sport" late or ditched their original football club when the local one got into the Premier League. They'll then defend the rugby club as the true sporting representatives of their town.

IF Warrington Town ever rise up the way Wigan Athletic did (very unlikely I know) then it would be the same scenario in Warrington. As it is I obviously wish Town all the best, and I might even be tempted to bandwagon jump the Exeter game myself, but if it gets played on the Saturday I'll be at Liverpool V Chelsea.

It would be great to see a more established football club in Warrington though, and as said above, if it was to happen it would be future generations in the town who would grow up supporting them properly and rightly so.

With gates receipts split between clubs, Sheffield United or Coventry away would have been ideal. I reckon Warrington would take more away fans to one of those than will go to the home game.

You can never know but I can't see an upset. Having played with and against Pro and Semi Pro players, there is a massive difference in standard between Northern Premier League Division One and League Two.



Even if there are 3000 fans there, it won't be intimidating. Cantilever Park is hardly the Ali Sami Yen. Exeter players would have played at plenty of grounds that size, with a rubbish pitch. They average 4-6000 fans as well.

Good luck to them though. I'll be at United v Palace if they play it on the Saturday.

Should just clarify it was I who suggested sticking flyers to lampposts and they quickly shot me down and gave legal alternatives. Nothing has progressed anyway but thanks for the heads up.


On Exeter, I've heard they have a decent Away following but 300 or so miles will be a hell of a way for a round 1 fixture, I'd imagine having the fixture at the HJ is off the table?

Spot on, when I moved over here I didn't even know Warrington had a football team so jumped on the bandwagon and supported Liverpool, I have grown disillusioned with football over the years as the money and playacting in the game gets right on my t**s.
I was made up when there was a proposal to move Warrington Town to the Omega site as I would have gone a few games with my lad and encouraged him to support a local team and may still do so in the years to come if he gets into football but as it stands he loves his rugby which I am happy with.

Ground capacity of 3500 will be set taking into account any police concerns over crowd size and ability to cope. In addition to setting the capacity, what can also be done is the council (not the police) can require the game to be all-ticket (which it is). OK, so the council will take into account the view of the police, but its not the police's final decision.

Exeter (subject to any council over-rule) will be allocated 15% of the capacity (525) under FA Cup rules.

Game is being played Saturday according to WT FB page but not seen anything about television.

Cantilever Park doesn't have a capacity anywhere near to 3,500. Wikipedia might say it does, but it really doesn't.

The 3500 is also quoted across a number of the sports websites including the BBC. Either they are all using wiki our the official figure. Given that the majority of the pitch is surrounding by terracing it would not be that difficult.

2 x 100 + 2 x 50metres = 300 metres ...... to a depth of 3 metre this is 900 sq meters. Standing capacity is approx 46 people per 10sq metres = 4140. Allowing for the area where the seats are and a bit of elbow room 3500 seems right. IIRC the most its ever held is just over 4000. Remember capacity is the max that can legally/safely be put into that space........ says nothing about comfortably.

It isn't.

Has anything changed since the 1500 'sell out' against Chester a couple of years ago? If not, I wouldn't expect much more than that without a temporary stand being built.

Just had a dig around. According to WTs own website the capacity at CP is 3500 www.pitchero.com/clubs/warringto ... -7363.html Some reports around the game v Chester were that a reduction in the crowd size was on the insistence of the licencing authorities. I wonder how much of the "capacity of the ground is based on the wide open grassy area behind one of the goals......if its still there (to the right as you go into the ground) ?

Just had a dig around. According to WTs own website the capacity at CP is 3500 www.pitchero.com/clubs/warringto ... -7363.html Some reports around the game v Chester were that a reduction in the crowd size was on the insistence of the licencing authorities. I wonder how much of the "capacity of the ground is based on the wide open grassy area behind one of the goals......if its still there (to the right as you go into the ground) ?

Quote ="mikej"Just had a dig around. According to WTs own website the capacity at CP is 3500 www.pitchero.com/clubs/warringto ... -7363.html Some reports around the game v Chester were that a reduction in the crowd size was on the insistence of the licencing authorities. I wonder how much of the "capacity of the ground is based on the wide open grassy area behind one of the goals......if its still there (to the right as you go into the ground) ?'" I think it must be. But as soon as you're two deep behind the goal, it's not worth being there. I remember the FA Vase games in the 80's and it was two or three deep around the pitch. I think there was a stand on the far side but with no terracing. Not sure about the Cantilever end though. The attendance then was only 1500-ish I think.

Quote ="mikej"Just had a dig around. According to WTs own website the capacity at CP is 3500 www.pitchero.com/clubs/warringto ... -7363.html Some reports around the game v Chester were that a reduction in the crowd size was on the insistence of the licencing authorities. I wonder how much of the "capacity of the ground is based on the wide open grassy area behind one of the goals......if its still there (to the right as you go into the ground) ?'" I think it must be. But as soon as you're two deep behind the goal, it's not worth being there. I remember the FA Vase games in the 80's and it was two or three deep around the pitch. I think there was a stand on the far side but with no terracing. Not sure about the Cantilever end though. The attendance then was only 1500-ish I think.

There was little more than 1500 v Hyde Utd the last time they were doing well in the FA cup.
It was pretty packed out on that night.
I struggled to see at times as the canal side was 3 deep in front of me.