Marine’s plan to raise cash is just the ticket

NON-LEAGUE Marine are taking a unique approach to the task of recouping the £100,000 they stand to lose by having to play their dream FA Cup tie against Tottenham behind closed doors.

The Merseyside-based, eighth-tier club are due to host the Premier League giants — with their manager Jose Mourinho and star striker Harry Kane — in the third-round clash at the Marine Travel Arena in Crosby on Sunday, January 10.

A national audience will be able to watch the game on BBC1, but with Liverpool having been placed in Tier 3 under the latest coronavirus regulations, there will now be no crowd inside the 3,185-capacity stadium, costing the club not only the gate receipts, but also around £70,000 in sponsorship packages. As a result, part-timers Marine have instead launched a virtual £10 match ticket raffle that could raise around £30,000, in which the top prize is the chance to replace manager Neil Young in the dugout for a pre-season friendly. Chief executive officer James Leary explained: ‘Thirty thousand pounds to us is absolutely massive. It’s about a quarter of the wage budget for a year.’

Details of the raffle were circulated widely on social media yesterday morning, with several hundred tickets selling inside the first hour. Leary acknowledged the need for the restrictions, but said: ‘What’s really frustrating is this is the one chance to set us up for the next 30 or 40 years.

‘And of course it’s not just financial, it’s the fans.

‘We might only get 450 to 500 people per game, but the fact that they haven’t been able to come to the games is just heartwrenching for them as well.’