St Albans City's FA Cup victory on Sunday presents a huge opportunity for the club and the city, says chairman Lawrence Levy.
Over four thousand fans packed out Clarence Park to see the Saints eliminate League Two leaders Forest Green Rovers, with even more packing into local pubs.
In the venues around the ground, landlords saw huge boosts to their revenue, with one even taking more than their Friday night takings this weekend, and another taking more than triple their traditional Sunday.
In the subsequent 24 hours after the full-time whistle, the club’s Instagram following grew by almost 2,000 to become Herts' third most followed team on the platform.
With attendances already on the up across this season, the game was always set to sell-out, but no one expected every ticket to be gone after just 36 hours of general sale, with the club then inundated with emails and phone calls inquiring if any more tickets would go on sale or had been returned.
Chairman and co-owner Lawrence Levy said Sunday is only the beginning of what’s to come for the Saints.
He said: “I think it just shows that the whole city comes out to support this football club, and they have something to collectively get behind.
“They’ve come out and packed the pubs, which made up for us having to turn so many fans away, we could have sold out twice or even three times over.
“This is a community club, and the work we’ve done is really coming to fruition now. The ground was rocking on Sunday night, and the city is bigger than some top flight clubs like Burnley as a catchment area, so there is so much potential for us to keep growing.”
And for Lawrence, it’s more than just the numbers in the ground, it’s about reaching all corners of the community.
He added: “If you looked around the ground, we had families, young people, people from every part of the city. This football club really is for everyone.”
Could the next step be for St Albans City to finally realise their dream of having a new purpose-built stadium? Watch this space.
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