Arsenal's coming... What would you do if you're Farnbrough?

[JoBeck]

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/headlinenews?id=253984&cc=5901

Would you keep the tie at home and go for the glory, or do you ask that it be moved to Highbury and give your club a huge financial boost?

[lanman]

They can only switch a game if the authorities believe them hosting the game would prove a safety risk, not just to get extra revenue (although you can often convince people of that quite easily). If it was switched, however, it would be more likely to be played on a neutral ground than at Highbury.

Apparantly, though, Sky have offered them £250,000 to keep the game at home, as they will only televise it if it is played in Farnbrough.

[mr magoo]

Keep the Romance of the cup alive and keep this tie at Farnbrough. If they get a draw no doubt sky will show the replay and they will gain double.

[Razor75]

Farnbrough should keep it at home. It is there best chance to win. Arsenal will not like playing on a pitch that is more like a potato field than a crown bowling green.

[pething101]

I thought it was already a done deal. They switched it.

Going to take the money and run. And you really cannot blame them for it.

[JoBeck]

The tie has been switched to Highbury and it looks like it will be played on Saturday, January 25. The tie was switched for safety reasons. Arsenal have agreed to give Farnborough all profits in program(me ;)) sales, and along with half the gate receipts and possibly some more TV money, Farnborough will get a good amount of money. Can't say I blame them, this money will keep the club afloat for a while.

[sydtheeagle]

If they want to move it from their own stadium, fair enough. In the post-Hillsborough era, erring on the side of safety was always going to be inevitable and, besides, who can blame the club for attempting to secure their financial position for many years to come? However, it should NOT be moved to Highbury because that upsets the balance of the tie. Arsenal came out of the hat second, and under no circumstances should they thus be allowed to play at home. The tie should be played at the nearest League stadium of sufficient capacity to Farnborough's home ground.

[Clan]

Originally posted by sydtheeagle
If they want to move it from their own stadium, fair enough. In the post-Hillsborough era, erring on the side of safety was always going to be inevitable and, besides, who can blame the club for attempting to secure their financial position for many years to come? However, it should NOT be moved to Highbury because that upsets the balance of the tie. Arsenal came out of the hat second, and under no circumstances should they thus be allowed to play at home. The tie should be played at the nearest League stadium of sufficient capacity to Farnborough's home ground.

Agreed 100%
Defeats the whole "spirit" of the thing.

The FA Cup hasn't been the same since the Champions league was formed.
Took another knock when the Cup Winners Cup was eliminated.
Took another knock when Man Utd didn't participate in 2000
This is just another reversal of the once leading cup competition in Europe(possibly the World for a time)

[RichardL]

The safety issue is crap. Farnborough's ground holds 4100. Even when full, there'd only be people about 10 deep at most. You can't get a hillsborough style problem on terracing like that. The match would have been live on TV, so no likelihood of ticketless hoardes decending on the place.
Next year Farnborough will probably be playing local derbies against Aldershot in the conference. That game will most likely draw around 4000 as well. I bet farnborough won't be requesting that game gets switched on safety grounds too. It's not as if farnborough haven't had capacity crowds before.
I could understand it if it was the choice between the huge amount of cash from switching to Highbury or a tiny amount from a 4000 home crowd, but the TV money ($400,000) meant there wasn't a huge amount in it.
I think the FA should have refused to switch the tie. I bet if they told farnborough "well if you can't get 4000 in safely you'll have to reduce your capacity to a safe limit, and let that number of fans in instead", then suddenly you'd have seen them find a way of holding the tie, with 4100 there.

[lanman]

Originally posted by RichardL
I think the FA should have refused to switch the tie. I bet if they told farnborough "well if you can't get 4000 in safely you'll have to reduce your capacity to a safe limit, and let that number of fans in instead", then suddenly you'd have seen them find a way of holding the tie, with 4100 there.

Or alternatively, allow them to switch the game to Highbury, but limit the crowd to 4100.

[Peakite]

Farnborugh produced today what really must be the smallest travelling support I've ever seen. And as a Halifax fan that is saying something.

Hope the guys today can actually get tickets for the game if they want. And hope they get to see a better result (from their point of view anyway, I liked todays one) next week.

[JoBeck]

I'm sure there will be a lot of people at Highbury supporting Farnborough. They may not have good travelling support but I'm sure a lot of people who live near the club will jump on the bandwagon for the Arsenal game and buy the tickets. It's definitely the most unique tie in the Fourth Round, so plenty of people will want to buy a ticket and root for the underdog.

It'll be like Wycombe in 2001, the quarterfinal at Filbert Street and the semifinal at Villa Park. Their ground is half empty for league games but there were thousands of Wycombe "fans" at both matches.

[FIFA_King]

I believe the tie should have been played at a neutral ground.