Norwich City brings £11.4m in trade to local businesses

It revealed that 265 suppliers from the wider Norfolk area provided goods and services to the club during the last season and 886 casual jobs were created for non-football community events at the stadium.

This contributed £11.4m to the regional economy "underscoring the club's vital economic role" according to the study.

As many as 26,000 people can attend Carrow Road stadium on any given matchday (Image: Paul Chesterton) Anthony Richens, finance and operations director at Norwich City, said: "The idea of the report is to show that money going into football clubs doesn't just pay the players wages but that it has a much wider impact, particularly on local communities and businesses." 

The UEA's School of Economics also helped put together the report which looked at everything from spending on home matchdays to external events which the club hosted. 

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Dr Peter Dawson, associate professor in economics with the university, said: "The findings of this report confirm that Norwich City stimulates local and regional income and supports numerous jobs, underscoring the club's vital economic role to Norwich and the wider Norfolk region."

In support of this, Phil Cutter, who runs The Murderers in Timber Hill, said: "We've had quite a good couple of years and we're seeing people moving away from midweek drinking to enjoy it on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays when the football is on.

Phil Cutter, landlord, says local businesses benefit from the football trade (Image: Denise Bradley) "When the home matches are playing there are 26,000 more people in the city so that's only a good thing for local businesses.

"Sport always helps drive people through the doors and I imagine most places benefit from it, not just hospitality. 

"People stay in hotels, buy food and drinks and we try to make the city as nice a place as possible for away fans to come to so they hopefully come back."