Brian Caldwell reacts to the FA Cup Draw against West Ham United
Shrewsbury Town CEO, Brian Caldwell, is delighted that Town have been drawn at home to West Ham United in the FA Cup.
Town beat Morecambe 2-0 in the last round to progress to the third round and were last night handed a tie against Premier League opposition.
“I think we are all delighted with that”, Brian told ShrewsWeb.
“It’s great to get a home-tie obviously because our current home form has been good and great to get a Premier League club as well.
“Financially, we’d obviously have preferred to have been away from home, but we will just have to get a replay now.”
The date of the game is yet to be announced, but Brian admitted that he is already making plans.
“They actually play Spurs on the Thursday in a Premier League game, so the game won’t be the Saturday that’s for sure”, Caldwell said.
“There’s obviously TV to be taken into consideration too, so we will have to wait and see but we are already starting to do planning and preparation as we always would.
“Obviously, we need to start thinking about things and get things planned so that once we know the date we can publicise all the information that we need.”
One big decision will be over the allocation of tickets and Caldwell is hoping to make it fair for all supporters.
“It’s something I’ve been thinking about this overnight to see what the best and fairest way of doing it is”, said Brian.
“Obviously, we have to look after our season ticket holders. You’ve also got Fan Card holders and we’ve also got loyalty points to consider, so I will sit down in the next 24-hours and try and work out what I think is the fairest way.
“You’re obviously trying to please everybody, which is difficult when you’ve only got a limited amount of tickets. When you take out the 1,700 or so away tickets and the 3000 season ticket holders we’ve only really got 4,000-5,000 tickets that we need to allocate and work our way through.
“The game itself is probably only going to get us £30,000 - £35,000 once you take off the percentage to the FA and the 50% to West Ham, less costs, so it’s not a massive earner I’ve got to be honest with you.
“You are just hoping that TV comes in because financially that would make us a bit strong, but I think it will be a really good tie, a really good tie for the supporters to look forward to and for everyone connected with the club.”