PAUL Doswell is ready for the week of his life, bookended by his side’s ‘World Cup final’ against Arsenal tonight – and Saints’ League Cup final against Manchester United.

The Saints season-ticket holder - who lives in Compton, near Winchester - will be at Wembley with 30 friends and family next Sunday, having pitted his wits against Arsene Wenger in tonight’s televised fifth-round FA Cup tie.

If Carlsberg did footballing double headers etc…

Arsenal will be forgiven for needing a double take – or a double Gander if you will – when they arrive at Sutton’s quirky ground five days after their 5-1 Champions League defeat at Bayern Munich.

The 3G surface they will play on has transformed Sutton since Doswell had it installed at a personal cost of £500,000 18 months ago.

As well as managing Sutton’s £10,000-a-week squad for free, Doswell has spent more than £1m on the club, an interest-free loan, some of which will soon be repaid thanks to the club’s FA Cup windfall.

It is worth £230,000 in prize money alone and Sutton will bank an extra £247,500 in TV money if Arsenal are able to donate their share – plus gate receipts – on top of the slug of cash received for the 1-0 BT-televised fourth-round home win against Leeds United.

FA rules prevent financial deals being done, but the will is there and Doswell is hopeful as he plans to invest Sutton’s winnings in a new academy next year “Arsenal’s turnover is £330m a year and ours is £800,000 and their first reaction was superb,” said Doswell, who hopes to charm Arsene Wenger with a £300 bottle of red wine.

“Everything they give us will go to the academy to support lads who have been released by Premier League clubs.

“This gives them that chance. All the money we earn will go into the academy. There is a responsibility on clubs like us in the community to help 16/17 year-old lads who are feeling absolutely worthless.

“Without over-dramatising it, [being released] is very difficult for them to get their heads around and it does lead to some bad situations.

“We are a little beacon at the moment and we will make it happen but unfortunately in life it’s all about the money.

“The only way we can make this happen is if we get as much out of the cup run as we can. Everything we’ve got is going toward making this club better in ten, 20 years’ time.”

Doswell’s business model at Sutton is one he began at Eastleigh during his eight-year managerial spell at ‘Ten Acres’.

His legacy there lives on as Eastleigh continue to benefit from the 3G pitch he had installed adjacent to what is now the Silverlake Stadium. “I did the same at Eastleigh, all the stuff I brought to Eastleigh I brought here,” he said. “The biggest thing we have done at Sutton is get the 3G in.

“We’ve had 100 children a day here during half-term, our junior sides play here and the support base has grown on the back of it.

“The best decision we ever made was to make tickets £5 a game and free entry for children. So as a father now you can bring your two kids down here for £5. Our crowds have gone from 700 to nearly 2,000.

“We’re picking up people who are disenfranchised at paying £100 for a Premier League ticket. There’s a You Tube video of our Under 10s team celebrating when Jamie Collins scored the winning penalty against Leeds that put a shiver up my spine when I saw it. It sums up everything our club is about.”

Doswell believes more clubs could benefit from having a 3G pitch, including those in the lower echelons of the Football League.

“There’s a split vote on 3G pitches going into Leagues One and Two but most League Two clubs are skint,” he continued.

“If people can take anything from this cup run it should be that we’ve gone from having zero children playing here because the pitch was so bad to hundreds, whose mums and dads come down so are engaged too.

“These brilliant pitches have been used in the SPL [by Kilmarnock] and at the Women’s World Cup.”

Allowing 3G pitches in Leagues One and Two is the only way Doswell would ever manage in the Football League.

“If they vote this pitch through and we get in the play-offs one year I could become a League manager,” he admits.

“But we’d still be [training] Tuesday, Thursday. We might go to a Monday but I wouldn’t be here.

“Without being disrespectful, managing in League One or Two holds no enthusiasm for me. Family is important to me and I’ve got a 30 year-old company that employs over 100 people.

“The reality is we want to be the best non-league club we can be. We’re still a traditional non-league club.

“The chairman [Bruce Elliott] has backed into the vision and we’re on a rollercoaster ride. The other day he said to me ‘the train’s still going!’

“He also said ‘what have you gone and done?!’ We’re not used to this attention but there are people at this club, like our press officer, who have taken days off and holiday days to do what is normal for other clubs and I take my hat off to them.”

Sutton’s FA Cup run has featured last-minute winners against Forest Green Rovers, Cheltenham and AFC Wimbledon – as well as a 6-3 win at Dartford – before the 1-0 fourth-round win against Leeds.

“No-one expected us to beat Forest Green, who I still think are the best team in our league by a country mile, and had won nine games on the trot before we beat them,” says Doswell.

“Micky Stephens and I saw Cheltenham smash Crewe 4-1 in a replay to set up the game against us and I remember walking out of that stadium thinking we haven’t got a chance.

But we got another last-minute winner. We then get drawn against Wimbledon, a local derby. They’ve had an amazing rise in the last 15 years and we had another sell-out crowd.”

After a goalless draw, two injury-time goals clinched a 3-1 win at AFC Wimbledon and then former Eastleigh midfielder Jamie Collins, who played in Havant & Waterloiville’s FA Cup fourth round defeat at Liverpool nine years ago, scored the winner against Leeds from the penalty spot.

“There’s something strange going on, it’s just an unbelievable situation for this club,” smiled Doswell, whose players are on an average wage of £500-a-week (net).

”Jamie’s the nearest we’ve got to a classic non-league player. We’ve moved on from the postie of 20 years ago who did his round on the morning of the game, but he gets up at 5am to work as a bricklayer/plasterer three days a week!

"I like our players to work on the other three days (Monday, Wednesday and Friday).

“Craig Eastmond’s wife is doing a degree at university so he looks after the children and Roarie Deacon’s a carer for his mum.”

Arsenal’s superstars will have to put up with lukewarm showers, an overheated dressing room (the valve on the radiator has broken) as well as an unfamiliar surface under floodlights short of several bulbs.

But Doswell is realistic about his side’s chances.

“If they play their U23s, who are still internationals by the way, we’ll have a one per cent chance. But the best result for the players would be a draw as half the team supports Arsenal!”