WHEN Ronnie Boyd sat down to write his programme notes, which as chairman of Albion Rovers he does ahead of every home game, reality kicked in.

Not only was his beloved team about the face Celtic on live television in the Scottish Cup, the match would literally save the football club. That is no over-reaction. Simply, it's truth.

The League One club, the pride of Coatbridge, had been living hand to mouth and things, clearly, were beginning to get tough.

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Boyd, a hugely likeable man, wasn’t keen to get into numbers but a tie sich as this one can make £100,000. The game has been moved to Airdrie and every one of the 10,000-plus tickets have been sold. It is a life saver.

“Financially, it’s huge,” said Boyd as chat in the boardroom. “As chairman of the club, and without getting into all the details, I can say this will move us from a battle for survival this season to stability for the next year or so. It’s that big.

“Without getting into all the ins and out, because I know the accounts, it is massive for Albion Rovers.

“Beating Queen of the South at home in the last round was a hugely important result for this football club. But to give you an idea of what the situation is, we made the grand total of £800 from the game. That was our share of the gate. We are going to make a bit more on Sunday"

If the draw hadn’t been kind and had Calum Ferguson not scored an injury-time winner in the last round, then would Albion Rovers, established in 1882 which makes them six years older than Celtic, have gone out of business?

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“We were struggling,” admitted Boyd. “It’s not just Albion Rovers. I don’t know the books of any other club but when you hear of Raith Rovers having to go out to their fans to pay wages because they had a couple of games off, then it tells a story.

“I go into other boardrooms and there is a theme. Clubs at our level and above are really struggling. I get why the bigger clubs get most of the money. I just wish some if it would trickle down.”

We move on from finance to the actual football. Albion Rovers are going through something of a renaissance. In the past five years they have won two play-offs, there was a promotion in 2015, a 7-2 thrashing of Airdrie, a big thing, and now this.

“I would love us to score,” said Boyd. “Just to take the lead, even for a short time. I’d like to see the scoreboard with us winning.

“Look, Celtic are ten miles away from us but they are in a different galaxy. We are not even on the same planet. But the Scottish Cup gives you the chance, sometimes, to compete with these great players. I just want our players to go and do themselves, the club and the town proud.”

Albion Rovers is not a famous name. Many Celtic supporters won’t know Jock Stein played most of his football in this part of Lanarkshire. There are even some, and this is according to Boyd, who believed his Rovers played in Kirkcaldy.

“This club gets to you,” he says. “We are part of the Coatbridge community and the roots in this town are important. Football is a national game and the town of 40,000 people should have a club in the senior leagues. Our job is to stay there.

"We had too many years in the bottom league and nothing was happening. We know our limitations but this is going to really help."

The club has done more in terms of the community side in recent years. They go out to visit schools in a big to entice some young people along to matches. This is not easy. However, while spending some time at the club, you get a feel that they deserve some luck.

The lovely Gordon Lind, a lifelong fan, takes me on a tour. “We do the best we can,” he says and indeed they do. Cliftonhill hasn’t changed much from when this reporter began covering matches there in the early 1990s. They would love to do more but the money simply isn’t available.

The match is being played at Airdrie because the ground is very open. Anyone who has been along to the Coatbridge San Siro, as it has been dubbed, will know that a group of young lads stand on a hill and watch for free.

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And that the front door is right off a busy road. This is fine when you are playing Brechin City. Not so much when who knows how many ticketless fans would be trying to sneak a peek.

It would have been interesting to see how Rodgers and his players would have coped with the cramped away dressing room and the few showers.

“Airdrie once refused to get changed,” says Gordon. “That caused a bit of bad blood.”

It’s not easy being the chairman of Albion Rovers. Boyd, the sixth in five years to hold the position, is retired but his passion keeps him busy. He does a bit of everything. They all do.

“Last Friday I drove to Dumbarton to get the Celtic tickets then went to Celtic Park to the ticket office. Everyone was nice, Celtic have been brilliant, and I handed over three boxes.

“The guy asked me what I did. I told them I was the chairman. The whole place was in an uproar.”