More than 5,000 tickets have been sold for Arbroath’s Scottish Cup tie with Rangers next month.
Chairman John Christison said the response from Red Lichties fans had been ”fantastic”, since the briefs for the match went on sale on Sunday.
Just over 700 spaces remain for the game on January 8, which will see Paul Sheerin’s second division side go up against the Scottish champions.
Tickets are available between 10am and 1pm today and next Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Fans at the Stirling Albion game on Boxing Day will also be able to buy tickets between 2pm and 3pm.
A long queue of supporters waited over an hour and a half outside Gayfield on Tuesday morning, when the first of the public allocation went on sale.
The capacity of the ground has been extended by 1,700 and with tickets at £18, the club stands to rake in an additional £30,600, to be split with Rangers. Permission was granted to boost capacity to 5,895 from the usual 4,100.
Mr Christison said: ”The club would like to thank Angus Council’s engineer Bruce Fleming, Chief Superintendent Kevin Lynch of Tayside Police and his team, and the club’s builders Colin and Bill Scorgie for their help with extending the capacity of the ground.
”The partnership between the three of them has been really good and we have been delighted with the way it has been brought together.”
He added: ”Our only concern is with the weather and we can’t get an accurate long-range forecast for more than five days. At this moment in time we are not sure what the weather is going to be like and unfortunately it is the one thing we can’t control.”
The club has contacted Rangers about the possibility of borrowing covers for the pitch to prevent it freezing over.
Sky Sports will cover the match with more than a dozen cameras, and have built scaffolding behind the stadium, next to the sea wall.
The deal to televise the possible giant-killing will bring in £82,000, to be invested in the future of the club.
Those watching at home will have to choose between the Scottish match or the FA Cup tie between Manchester United and Manchester City, which will be screened on ITV.
The ideal financial scenario for Arbroath would be for their game to be played out as a draw, to set up a replay at Ibrox.
However even Mr Christison conceded that is a big ask for his side, with statistics showing the Lichties have not scored against their west coast opponents in the cup since 1933.
He said: ”All we can do is go out and give it a good go. If we went a goal up in the first 10 minutes, that would give the fans a chance to get into it.”