Is Merchandise the way forward for football clubs?

This week has been a tough week for football fans. Boris Johnson announced supporters would not be going back into stadiums any time soon as Covid-19 continued to dominate headlines.

Leyton Orient made headlines at the start of the week after their high-profile Carabao Cup game against Tottenham Hotspur was cancelled. There were many calls from the O’s that the game could be played, with them fielding a youth team to fulfil the fixture.

However, Waltham Forest Council deemed the stadium unsafe, and with the rules in the Carabao Cup being that any game cancelled due to Covid-19 resulted in a forfeit as Spurs were handed the bye.

This was a blow for Orient, especially given the weight of the game. Their former manager, Justin Edinburgh, was a club legend at both Spurs and Orient. After his untimely passing, both clubs were in mourning, and both supported his son Charlie in setting up the JE3 foundation.

This game was the first competitive game between the teams and was going to mark a special occasion, remembering Justin, raising money for the JE3 foundation, and celebrating the link between the clubs. Spurs were going to auction the match-worn shirts, with the money going to the foundation.

With the game being chosen for Sky, and the round that they were in, Orient were set to receive around £150,000. The O’s chairman, Nigel Travis, has been openly saying that this would make up a tenth, of their losses due to the pandemic and that the £1.5million loss would be slightly softened by this figure.

Calling off the game, therefore, resulted in a double financial blow, the JE3 foundation will no longer have the shirts to auction and the O’s lose out on the TV money now that Spurs has been confirmed as having a bye.

After the game was called off, Spurs fans showed their class. They bought merchandise from the Orient Club Shop, which started to snowball. Orient’s CEO, Danny Macklin, confirmed on a Youtube Q&A, that the club would normally sell around £5,ooo worth of merchandise in an average week.

This week, they have sold around £50,000, up until Thursday. Many Spurs fans were buying shirts to then donate to Haven House, a children’s charity featured on the Orient Away Kit. Orient now have these shirts to take to children, thanks to those generous Spurs fans.

So what does this one story mean in a broader sense? The lower divisions and non-league football is crying out for funds. There are many fans out there who see these smaller clubs as second teams. Now comes an opportunity to help these clubs out.

By purchasing merchandise, the smaller clubs will continue to gain a cash-flow, and as seen with Spurs fans, this could be huge for clubs. An increase of £45,000, in one week, is immense and the fact that a charity is benefitting too seems like a good thing for clubs, charities and of course the individual who has helped both.

We face a very uncertain time, and we all are aware of the difficulties that lower league football faces. So for those fans of bigger clubs: Please help the smaller teams out, a shirt, a scarf, buying a pass to watch them at 3pm on a Saturday, are all simple ways that will help keep the football pyramid in this country going.

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