Sunday Sun

Cup thriller for Wee Gers brings cash boost

- Colin Paterson ■ Berwick Rangers have had a financial boost

THERE was all the usual excitement, tension and drama but this time for a Cup thriller which didn’t see a ball kicked in anger.

Berwick Rangers fans of a certain vintage will forever remember that famous giant-killing day in January 1967 when Sammy Reid’s goal clinched a 1-0 win to send Glasgow Rangers spinning out of the Scottish Cup.

These days, the Wee Gers faithful are playing an active role on their team’s road to Hampden – virtually, of course.

Fundraisin­g site donateatic­ket.com sprung up in March when the UK went into lockdown and time was called on the 2019-20 season in Scotland due to coronaviru­s pandemic.

Founder Ruaridh Kilgour, a fan of Scottish League One champions Raith Rovers, created the site in a bid to help clubs north of the border starved of cash.

As of 4.30pm on Wednesday last week, almost £90,000 had been donated with 95 clubs benefiting from lifeline funding.

A leaderboar­d has been establishe­d with Berwick sitting in fourth place thanks to donations in excess of £3,000.

However, it has been the launch of the donateatic­ket. com Virtual Scottish Cup which has caught the attention with matches decided by the number of £5 tickets bought by fans over a three-day period.

The first round draw, made up of 16 ties, pitted Berwick, who are members of the fifth-tier Lowland League following relegation from the SPFL in May 2019, against League Two Stenhousem­uir.

The vidiprinte­r would have had the brackets out as the Shiefield outfit beat Stenny 358-290. The tie generated £3,230 with Berwick earning almost £1,800.

Such monies were all the more remarkable given that the club budgets to only receive £1,100 through the gate on a normal matchday.

Football finance news travels both far and fast and Donate-a-ticket could be set for a summer expansion with a number of teams outside Scotland expressing an interest in signing up. Money is paid straight into clubs’ bank accounts on a weekly basis.

“I’ve had someone from the North East of England get in touch about this possibly being done for the Northern League as they have seen the success of this,” said Berwick director Dave Buglass. “Ruaridh said he wanted to have a Scottish Cup competitio­n and I was quite enthused about it.

“The Cup was launched on the Thursday night and by the time we got to the Saturday, everybody was on the edge of their seat.

“Our fans everywhere got behind it and I had people contacting me asking what tactics we were going to deploy.

“Both teams kicked lumps out of each other all weekend. For us, it was £1,800 as the clubs made £3,230 combined on one tie.

“It’s just amazing and we’d probably budget £1,100 on the gate for a home match because we have season tickets while we make most of our money from hospitalit­y and sponsorshi­ps.

“We made more in that tie across 72 hours than we did from a typical, normal home league game.”

Far from being the beginning of the end, relegation has allowed Berwick to take stock and reboot with a new board taking over in January and quickly making its mark.

“We’ve absolutely got the town and the community back on our side,” said Buglass.

“We forecast a £65,000 net loss when we took over in January. We’ve turned that round and we will have a small loss at the end of the season.

“We’re engaging a lot on social media with the community, putting out some quality content, and have appointed (football commentato­r) Derek Rae as an ambassador.

“Relegation has been a positive thing. Listen, none of us wanted to slide out of the SPFL.

“But we’ve gone down, we’re re-setting and financiall­y we’re in a really great position. Things are going really well.”

Through various fundraisin­g initiative­s involving Donate A Ticket, Justgiving and the supporters’ trust, Berwick have generated in the region of £16,000.

Such funds are hugely welcome at a time of huge uncertaint­y for small, rooted-in-the-community football clubs, with the Covid-19 threatenin­g to redraw the landscape.

Our fans everywhere got behind it and I

had people contacting me asking what tactics we were going to deploy

Dave Buglass

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