I was wondering about that. If you're making £200m in the PL and spending £170m of that on wages etc and then qualify for Europa league, do you actually make the £42m extra that you need to continue to justify your previous budget? Without even factoring in the fact that you probably need a bigger squad to cope with the extra games.
Pretty sure I remember reading if West Ham had made champions league a couple of years back they'd have got about £1m because of the history/attractiveness coefficients.
Some more if they'd got out of group.
From memory Chelsea or City would get about £40m rather than the £1m.
We were offered tickets by then Forest groundsman Billy Gray (distantly and tenuously related via a couple of marriages) (not mine) but for some reason we couldn't go. Thank goodness. Unfotunately the lad I sat in front of in Maths - Carl Hewitt - was there. And died, as did his younger brother.
I was at school - in Leicester - with Carl. We were in the same Maths class. He was a Liverpool fan, as was his brother (I didn't know the brother, he was 2 years below us).
I went to the semifinal the previous year and decided not to go in 1989 mainly because the atmosphere had been pretty tasty the year before. Those were the days when we were winning trophies and missing the odd FA cup semifinal was ok. Obviously I’m not a proper fan. In 98, we had mistakenly parked at the wrong end of the ground and it was a long aggressive walk round to the Spion Kop.
A few of my mates went again in 1989 and initially, like everyone, thought it was crowd trouble before the shocking realisation. They were all very traumatised and some didn’t go to football again for a few years. I haven’t spoke to them about it for years. Most people seems to just say “I was there” and close the conversation down.
I remember thinking the same about the league cup final against Luton. There used to be (maybe still is) a sign on the western bit of the M25 that said ‘For Wembley follow the M40’. I always wanted to replace ‘the M40’ with ‘Forest’. Little did I know what was to come…