THE VICS COLUMN - By Pete Tonge

WATCHING Vics is always fun.

Even when things aren’t going well, there’s always the camaraderie of your fellow supporters to keep you in good spirits.

This is especially true on the away day trips as often at the home matches, catching up with friends can be hard to do because all the volunteers at the club have their match day duties to attend to.

So the away days are the time to get together and enjoy the day no matter how the football goes.

This means that the Northwich Victoria Away Days Travel Club is an important part of the club as membership guarantees you a seat on the coach that is put on for the majority of the away matches at discounted rates.

Over the last three years, since the club became fan owned and fan run, we have had some memorable away trips.

These trips help bring the fans together, and none more so than the trip up to Newcastle the season before last, when we played Newcastle Benfield in the FA Vase.

This was the game that in some way brought the fans together even more than ever, and also showed the management and players how much the club means to the supporters.

There were about 60 fans on the coach along with many more who made their own way up, and the rather run down pub not far from the Newcastle Benfield ground probably did more trade that day than they had all week!

We then walked up to the ground about 45 minutes before the start of the match and massed together down one side of the ground and started singing.

The atmosphere was greater than I had known it for a long long time and the noise only increased as the teams marched out, and in the first half the players responded to the tremendous support as they raced into a three-goal lead against one of the favourites for the Vase.

In true Vics fashion, we were made to sweat however as Benfield hit back in the second half to take the score to 3-2 with 15 minutes still to go.

However our support grew louder and Vics held on to claim a memorable win, and the team walked off to a moving reception from the fans. The long journey home was a good one!

From this moment , the team and the club as a whole hasn’t looked back and though last season was disappointing in some ways, the support and the club as a whole has grown stronger and we await this coming season with much anticipation.

Unfortunately this isn’t the case for supporters of FC Oswestry Town, members of the North West Counties Division One South who have just announced that the club is folding for various reasons.

All at Northwich Victoria send our best wishes and condolences to the supporters there and we hope that they can do something and save their club.