THE whole KitKat and caboodle has been let out of the bag with York City's cash sweetener from confectionery giants Nestl Rowntree.

Besides being pitched - inevitably - into a punster's paradise, the revelation in the Evening Press that City's Bootham Crescent home was to be re-branded as KitKat Crescent provoked a flurry of letters and e-mails from fans.

The majority have been in favour of the re-naming of the club's ground as part of the £100,000 lifeline deal that completed the £2.1million needed to acquire the controlling interest of the club's landlords Bootham Crescent Holdings.

But I have to remain in the minority.

It's not that the Nestl offer is unappreciated, nor under-valued. For what it's worth I have no qualms whatsoever about the cash contribution from the chocolate kings.

At the risk of sounding like a parody of Ron Knee Manager ever recalling the era of 'goal-posts for jumpers, knee-length shorts and brilliantined, centre-parted short hair-cuts', long gone are the days when sponsorship never played a part in football.

The game, like almost every other sport in the modern world, is a magnet for labels, logos and lively advertising campaigns and has been maximised ever since shirt branding rules were relaxed in the early 1980s. Clubs are now sporting logos on their shorts, which is surely scraping the bottom of the market.

But more significantly for the Minstermen the Nestl deal represented a matter of prolonged life or possible extinction.

It is a plain and simple mathematical fact that if Nestl had not stepped in with their £100,000 then City's future would once more have looked bleaker than the deepest midwinter day.

Had the confectionery titans not weighed in with the cash the begging bowl would have had to go out again, and City followers have surely done more than their share of digging deep, especially when they have had to buy back what was their own ground in the first place. And we know who's to fault there then, don't we BCH.

What has irked this observer, and it's nowhere near the anger fuelled by the selfishness in the name of club protection expounded by BCH, is not the sponsorship deal, but the fact that the club's home has been re-christened under the banner of a bar of chocolate, a sweet-tasting snack, an accompaniment to elevenses.

Admittedly KitKat is a world-renowned brand instantly recognisable with all manner of consumers, let alone football fans.

But it's a sad sign of the times that everything now is little less than a commodity to be sold. What was wrong with the stadium being called the Nestl Stadium in recognition of the company's beneficence? If not that, then the Rowntree Crescent would have had greater resonance in recalling Joseph Rowntree, the founder of the chocolate firm and whose reputation as a philanthropist concerned with improving social conditions is readily acknowledged.

When Walker's the snack-makers aided Leicester City so much for the Foxes to christen their new arena as the Walker's Stadium, mercifully it did not end up being baptised the Salt and Vinegar Stadium, or the Potato Heads Park, or the Sensations Slow Roasted Lamb and Mint Arena.

Closer to home, Scarborough's Athletic Ground became the McCain Stadium, named after the frozen food giants. It was not called after Oven Fries or Deep Pan Pizzas.

It's a good job Durex don't have a base in the city. Lord knows what could have prefixed Crescent, while scoring would have taken on a whole new meaning.

Sponsorship is a necessary feature of football, especially for lower status clubs who do not have the pick and mix power of the elite. And Nestl's contribution is generous, timely and much-needed. But surely City's ground could have been better re-packaged than as a biscuit to be taken with a cup of tea.

Updated: 09:28 Tuesday, January 25, 2005