Altrincham FC manager Lee Sinnott gives us the inside track on the Robins’ progress this season in the Vanarama National League. Here’s his latest column for Altrincham Today.
Our Vanarama National League game at Bromley on Saturday is being broadcast live on BT Sport.
TV coverage is normally a good thing for us, but the game now kicks off at 12.30pm and that’s caused us no end of problems. Whilst a trip to Kent is always going to be a long one, we were planning on doing it all in one day, as we did when we played Torquay towards the end of last season.
The earlier kick-off means that we can’t do that. We had to set off yesterday and have an overnight stop. This causes disruption for the players, but we can live with that, as it’s part and parcel of being a semi-professional player playing in a national league.
Watch James Reeves score the winner against Barnsley in the FA Cup last weekend:
What I do take exception to, is that, as the away side, we only receive a small broadcast fee, which is more than swallowed up by the extra expense of having to make an overnight trip. In total, this game is going to cost the club about £2,500, as it did in March, when we last had a live game on BT Sport.
On that occasion the kick off was Sunday at 12.30pm and we were away at Welling, which, rather ironically, is about eight miles from Bromley.
Two TV games have therefore cost us £5,000 and that’s a cost that we shouldn’t be footing an I think that the league need to look at how TV broadcast fees are divided between the two competing teams… it’s not fair as it is at the moment.
In terms of the two games played this week, we have experienced the euphoria of beating Barnsley in the FA Cup and then been beaten 3-0 at Macclesfield on Tuesday night in a league game. Saturday was a tremendous occasion with a large and vociferous crowd really getting behind the players, who were absolutely superb.
We had an excellent travelling support of over 300 at Macclesfield but, following a bright start, we lost our way a little bit and in the end we had to take our medicine and go home with nothing.
I like the look of our FA Cup 2nd Round tie at Colchester, which we have just found out will be featured as 1 of 8 FA Cup ties to be covered on BBC 1’s ‘Final Score’ programme on Sunday December 6th.
That brings with it a broadcast fee of £12,500 which is very welcome and compensates, to some degree, for the financial loss that we will suffer this weekend.
Before we go to Colchester though, we have three very important league games, starting with Bromley, who are going very well in their first season in this league. It will be a tough game, but there is no reason why my players can’t go out and achieve a positive result.
