Kingstonian, without a shirt sponsor more than a third of the way through the season, are resorting to a raffle to bring in funds and put name on their strip.

The club, hoping for a plum tie in the FA Cup First Round if they beat St Albans tomorrow, have invited 200 local companies to buy £100 raffle tickets for a grand draw in November after manager Geoff Chapple suggested the idea at a recent board meeting.

That means the eventual shirt sponsor will end up paying just a tiny fraction of the £50,000 which ambitious Kingstonian initially hoped to raise from the deal.

Chapple's team are sitting pretty in fourth place after 15 games but things aren't going so well off the pitch with cash from a sponsorship deal still not available to pay for increased travelling expenses in the Conference.

Attendances at Kingsmeadow have dipped from in excess of 2,000 for the first two home games against Hereford and Rushden & Diamonds to just 904 against Welling United last week, although miserable weather could be blamed for that figure.

Crowds are still much higher than at the same stage last season in the Ryman Premier.

As the Comet first reported before the season started in August, Kingstonian were looking for a five-fold increase on last year's deal with the Emporium Club which was believed to be worth less than £10,000.

Director Alan Kingston, who has been heavily involved in sponsorship negotiations, predicted a deal would be struck within weeks when the Comet spoke to him in August.

And even at the end of September he remained "optimistic" of a deal with a national company and rejected the suggestion that the Ks' £50,000 asking price was a "deal breaker".

Lever Brothers, the Kingston-based manufacturer of soaps and detergents, was just one of the major firms approached by the Ks which then turned them down.

Supporters' club committee member Mark Murphy said: "This is an embarrassment since it has happened in the Ks' highest profile ever season.

"We can only assume the board of directors were going for the optimum deal and there was a risk attached to that - it has backfired on them."

He added that the failure to secure a sponsorship deal was "a source of ridicule" at some away games where opposition fans gleefully exploit the lack of a shirt sponsor's name on Kingstonian's new Brazilian style change kit.

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