We are considerably richer than yow!!!!

Awww it's the stuff dreams are made of. Non-league minnows Crawley Town taking on the might of Manchester United at the Theatre of Dreams, a potential giant-killing on the cards and the biggest game in memory for their players and fans. We all love a David and Goliath fixture don't we?

However, the romance of the cup is soured somewhat if you look at Crawley Town's recent history. For me they are nothing more than, ironically, a poor man's Manchester City. As a Newcastle United fan I have watched, with undisguised jealousy, as Manchester City have used Sheik Mansour's considerable wealth to buy challenge for a Champions League place. For me it's like watching Michael Carroll, the 2002 £9.2 million lottery winner, as he publicly spent vulgar amounts of money unashamedly.

Crawley Town are the Blue Square Premier League equivalent of Manchester City. Back in 2006 the club were on the brink of extinction as they went into administration, with a debt of over £1.8 million. However they managed to stave off several attempts to wind-up the club with various rescue-packages, the latest being in February 2010 and they now sit in second place, and are on an 11 match unbeaten run in the league.

In July 2010 the Crawley Town co-owner, Bruce Winfield announced that all the clubs debts had been cleared by a consortium of investors. The club now have enough money in the bank to pay all fees upfront, and they are currently buying themselves out of non-league football. Matt Tubbs and Richard Brodie were the joint top scorers in the Blue Square Premier League and so Crawley Town bought both of them. Sergio Torres dropped down two divisions to join the club for a suggested fee of £100,000 and club captain Pablo Mills reportedly turned down league club offers of a contract to join them.

9,000 residents of Crawley are making their way to see the team play at Old Trafford. There are unabashed reports of the tickets being bought by people from the South East who support not the non-league Red Devils, but the global franchise which is Manchester United and who want to see their heroes. This can be backed by looking at the attendance figures for Crawley's home games which see an average of 1,800 through the gates. I'm sure that the Crawley Town directors won't mind as it all adds to their massive payday.

The West Sussex team spent more than all the teams in League 2 combined in the summer. Other teams in the Blue Square Premier simply cannot compete with that kind of spending and now, with a reported pay day of £1,000,000 from their day out at Old Trafford it is now unlikely that any club in League 2 will be able to compete with them financially next year.