‘Little but elite’ Lewes primed for FA Cup clash with Manchester United

W hen Lewes welcome Manchester United to the Dripping Pan on Sunday, many will view it as a David v Goliath type battle, of Championship minnows against Women’s Super League title contenders. But while the visitors will be favourites to progress to the FA Cup semi-finals, to bill it as a mismatch is perhaps a little unfair.

“We’re still in the top 20 teams in the country,” says Lewes’s chief executive, Maggie Murphy. “We are little Lewes, but remember we are also an elite team. We shouldn’t undermine the incredible achievements of the players who have got us this far. They have already created club history by getting this far. This is a huge game for us. It shows the progress that we as a club have been making over the last few years.”

The almost £2m wage bill of Manchester United’s women’s team in 2022 was more than the entire turnover for Lewes’s men’s and women’s teams. Yet the East Sussex club are far from being a failing one. In fact they are the envy of many clubs in the top two divisions.

“We know that we make a lot more money than many other clubs with much bigger football brands,” explains Murphy. “That’s because our attendances are good, it’s because our match-day experiences are great, it’s because people buy our food, they buy our tickets (we don’t give them away, we put them at a proper price) and we play in our own ground, which I think is important. We are also authentic which means sponsors like us, so we have a lot more sponsorship money coming in. We are actually making a lot of money.”

The difficulty for a fan-owned club such as Lewes is that despite achieving a level of sustainability each season, the bar keeps being raised, even though most clubs operate at a loss. “The problem is we’re not making