Raith Rovers: 'Well good pay day expected for cash-strapped Rovers from upcoming Scottish Cup tie at Stark's Park

Rovers – currently up for sale having lost an average of £150,000 a season since 2005 – are expecting a big crowd for the visit of the Steelmen on the weekend of February 11 and 12.

"We look forward to Motherwell,” MacDonald told the Fife Free Press. “If we prepare ourselves right – we’re at home at Stark’s Park – we are very good at home – then we can give them a right good game.

"We want to get as many fans as we can along to Stark’s Park and cheer the team on.

"Obviously we would like a massive Raith Rovers support. I expect the Motherwell fans to turn up in their numbers as well.

“They will think they will be in for a right tough cup tie but they’ll also think they are well capable of winning it.

"We could certainly hope we could get 5000 or 6000 fans here no problem. If we get anything like that it would be absolutely fantastic for us.

"I don’t know the exact amount we could make out of this tie but obviously there is the SFA money and TV money. Anything is a help to us at the moment and this would give us a nice little boost.

"It is by no means going to see us through to the end of the season or anything like that. But it is important and we’ll just need to take what we get.

"We all want to get into the latter stages of the cup so this is a very good opportunity for us at home.

"The next round would give us a huge uplift so we’ll wait and see what happens.”

Referring to the 2-0 win at Linlithgow Rose on Tuesday, January 24 which booked the Motherwell clash, MacDonald added: “Linlithgow came out the blocks at the start which we really expected and they were really good for the first 10 minutes or so.

"But after that I thought we dominated the game and the score could have been more.

"We had some very good chances and an unbelievable disallowed goal.

"All credit to Linlithgow but they didn’t really cause us any harm and Jamie MacDonald (Raith Rovers goalkeeper) didn’t have much to do.”

Meanwhile, MacDonald said that talks between Raith owner John Sim and a Scottish consortium interested in buying Rovers were continuing to progress well, with optimism that a deal could be done for around £3 million by the end of the season.

"I think these talks are heading in the right direction and very positive,” the chairman added. "We are looking to get this deal put to bed because there is uncertainty. No-one working at the club is going to lose their job but they just want to know what’s happening.

"If this deal goes through then the consortium’s plans are most definitely very exciting.

"It will be a very exciting time to be at Raith Rovers. We are looking to move forward both on the park and off the park as well.

"It’s a good time to be involved at the club.

"The investors and the people that we are trying to get involved in the club are very much of the opinion that Raith Rovers can go up to the premier league.

"Obviously I’m not going to say that we can stay there forever but we certainly think we are good enough to challenge some of the clubs that are up there already.

"All we try and do here is build. It’s a continuing job where we’ve been since Ian Murray came in at the start of the season.

"Unfortunately it’s a slower process than we would wish but sometimes that’s the best way to go about things.

"We are working and taking a step at a time. We will just try and continue to improve the club and we believe that, with the people we will have around us, we will get there.”