Ahead of one of Tamworth FC's biggest ever matches – both in terms of prestige and income – Graeme Brown talks to club chairman Bob Andrews about the pursuit of a profit in the modern game.

You might be forgiven for thinking the hundreds of millions of pounds being invested by multi-billionaires into Premier League clubs could not be further away from a club like Tamworth.

But speaking ahead of the Staffordshire club’s third round FA Cup tie against Premier League Everton, chairman Bob Andrews said the gargantuan investment into the likes of Manchester City and Chelsea has a trickle-down effect, which reaches as far as the Blue Square Bet Premier.

After heroically battling to the third round to face the five-time cup winners, Mr Andrews, who has been chairman of the club since 1992, said it could reach the rarest of targets in modern football – a profit – this financial year.

He said the game was unlikely to be the club’s biggest-ever earner, as a previous third round match against Norwich City was televised, which brings with it a payment of about £120,000, but the income from the Goodison Park tie should pay the bills for several months in what is Tamworth’s first ever season with an all professional playing squad.

He said: “It has helped enormously but it is not going to keep us going for two years or anything like that.

“It is maybe three or four months of salaries. It is not going to last us for years.”

He added: “We have made a profit in the past – probably in the year we played Stoke City. We made a profit that year.

“But generally we don’t. We are often more or less break even.

“This season, provided the Everton game goes well and we come out of it reasonably well, then we shouldn’t make a loss this year. We should be on the plus side, and that will give us a bit more stability.

“We took the step to become full-time this season to push on and establish ourselves in the conference.

“When we were in the conference three years ago we struggled a bit on a part-time basis.

“Obviously, that has cost us more.”

A lot has changed in football since Mr Andrews – the founder of pipe fitting manufacturer Nautic Steels – first became a director of the club in 1984.

The creation of the Premier League in 1992 is perhaps the most significant. It preceded investment from the likes of Roman Abramovich – backed up by more than £10 billion in the bank – in Chelsea, and Sheikh Mansour – with an estimated fortune of about £20 billion – in Manchester City.

But wages have consistently grown faster than revenue. Across 92 football league and Premier League clubs last year, revenue totalled £2.7 billion, with the top 20 teams accounting for more than £2 billion.

Revenue grew five per cent, year-on-year, while total wages grew by 13 per cent to £1.4 billion across the period.

Mr Andrews said there was a trickle-down effect on the likes of Tamworth, as sky-high wages in the top flight push up pay across the board – and he would welcome a wage cap in the Premier League as a means of managing the issue.

He said: “Definitely, it does. There are lots of clubs in our league which are paying three or four times what we pay.