THE 1874 COLUMN - By Matt Waters

LAST week we received the devastating news that the 2019/20 season was to be declared null and void and all results were to going to be expunged.

Although this decision has been extremely disappointing, it will be a season we all will never forget.

After 29 games, we topped the table with a healthy eight-point lead with a game in hand over second placed Rylands as the season promised to have a barnstorming end to it.

In among all of our league success, we reached the semi finals of the Macron Cup as we hoped to secure a successful defence of the competition.

This season everybody involved with 1874 can be proud for the achievements we have made on and off the field.

At the start of the season, we launched our ‘Northwich’ inspired away shirt designed by local artist Phil Galloway, which not only currently features in a National Football Museum exhibition, but also is ranked in the top 100 kits for the 2019/20 season.

In October, we launched our mental health initiative inviting anybody suffering with mental illness into our home games for free.

As a club, we recognised that the winter months can be an extremely lonely time and we hoped that we could be the link putting people in need in contact with charities such as Mind UK.

Our charity/community work has been at the forefront of our agenda for the last season as we felt it was vital to create a difference in our local area.

After our AGM in November, we announced the board reshuffle where Steve Richardson became club chairman and for the first time in our short history, we revealed that Brian Edge would become the first ever 1874 club president.

During his time as vice chairman and chairman of the club, Brian put in some extremely hard work making sure everything at the club was running smoothly so it was fitting that Brian was awarded with this role.

On the pitch, however, thanks to the hard work of all the players and the superb management of Wayne Goodison and Paul Bowyer, we saw some outstanding performances which saw us top the league before the season was abandoned.

The season may have come to an end but we all can be immensely proud of the success we saw on the pitch this season scoring 108 goals in the process, showing how clinical we have been during this campaign.

We may not be able to gain promotion or continue the title challenge we were looking ahead to, however, nobody can take away the hard work and dedication put in from anybody at the club.

Whether it’s from the stadium gang securing our move to Barnton being a success, to the catering staff on matchdays, we have all worked so hard this season to make it one of the most successful we have seen in our short history, and next season we can mount our title challenge all over again.