why a new stadium?? personally wincham park is all i have grown up to know and from what few other stadiums ive bin to in non league includin that one over the canal and altrincham i feel that our stadium is as good as any!! i honestly cannot see why people want to move away from wincham park when it is good for now and it would only mean puttin the club into debt surely!!
Because we are in the wrong place, even me at the ripe old age of 39 I remember the central ground where the club was not busy but had people in most nights with darts. dominoes etc the club now is too far out of town even if you live in Wincham you have to drive to the club to have a drink a central posistion would be far better but expensive. Vics are already finding that they have to offer 2 for 1 meals because they are not getting the people in to support the cheap italian they have so we have to look at whats best for us, moving to wincham gave us short term success but long term pain, finding a good location with grants etc I think would be a good idea Northwich rugby club have a guy looking to put an awful lot of money into them, if we could look at getting in with them I think it would make long term stability a cert
WHS, Robbo is spot on - the FA Trophy simply isn’t the big prize it used to be for Conference clubs.
The likes of Oxford United, Dagenham & Redbridge, York City and Exeter City all noticably failed to shed a tear when they went out of the competition at an early stage.
Vics fans began with the same attitude - hence the poor attendance against Farsley Celtic (who were a poor advert for the Conference North I might add). Now they can see Wembley in their sights you’ll almost certainly find a much higher attendance at the quarter final clash with Gravesend & Northfleet later this month.
Scad, i wasn’t necessarily saying WE need a new stadium, i was making a point that Vics having a new stadium draws a few new fans in. Look at teams like Southampton, Bolton, Warrington Wolves. Average attendances go up when teams build a new stadium due to the novelty value. It soon wears off though when the team is struggling!
ahh ok sorry about the confusion there robbo i totally got the wrong end of the stick!!
Actions speak louder than words Andrew - This weeks Guardian is an absolute disgrace.
Connett Victoria have the front page, and page 3 and the FULL back page with the SAME blooming story.
They also have the first two FULL inside pages.
Witton are playing their biggest league game in years on Tuesday, and we really could have done with the exposure that the Guardian would have given us. We get a headline 4 pages in!
We had a fantastic performance and result at the weekend in front of over 400 spectators, and the match report of the Barnton vs Pilkington game is larger than the Witton Vs Whitby game! ???
I wonder, how much does the advertising revenue the Guardian receives from the various companies at the VS relate to their exposure in the paper?
Quite agree with Andy.
Last weeks was no better and we seem to be getting fewer match reports. Just the odd paragraph with "further report on our website"…
The really sad thing is that the paper is missing the opportunity to exploit the fact that we have two football teams doing really well and are one of the few towns to have 2 such high profile non league teams.
And whilst competition for space is no doubt intense, are some of these other contenders really in the same bracket as Witton and VIcs? - I don’t think so.
It will be very interesting to see what Mr Simpson (our new forum friend) has to say on the recent editions.
Mr Simpson it’s over to you…
Some things never change! :
Nice marketing effort by the local rag to sell a few more copies. But a leopard NEVER changes it spots. Perhaps we are the fools for thinking the Nothwich Vics Guardian would be anything other than a supporters newsletter for them.
Oh yes, reading their web site, it says read the paper for more news. Does the paper really say read the web-site for more news also?? Priceless!
Only logged on here now to bring this topic back to the fore, glad Andy has beaten me to it!! Absolute disgrace. Can safely say i have bought my last Vics Guardian. As mentioned earlier, we seemed to get better exposure when Andy Simpson was on holiday!!
Have to ask, what was the point in having us all pose by the flag if not to use the photo?? Why does a 7 goal win not receive suitable exposure?? A 5-goal personal haul is not given the credit it deserves??
Vics chairman worried about wage bill?? He sanctioned the flaming wage bill so that’s his cross to bare. We need extra people through the turnstiles just as much as they do.
If Witton do overhaul Telford at the top of the table it will be one of the greatest acheivements in the club’s history. To have been so far behind before Xmas, only to see Telford go out and pay ?5k for a striker, and then close the gap to be in a position now where potentially we could go top on goal difference on Tues night, is just marvellous and deserves shouting about. The Guardian is a joke. I don’t know what more Witton have to do to get suitable coverage.
I thought I smelled a rat forthcoming when the Northwich Guardian website actually posted both my reports from last week prior to the paper coming out.
Last week’s edition was pretty pathetic also with our two reports from Prescot & Guiseley actually having less than Lostock (Mid Cheshire League Division 2) single match. Even our reserves game at Barnton got bigger coverage.
Not yet seen the Chronicle but I doubt very much whether we’ve been reduced to amateur club status by John Buckley etc.
John Buckley has done his usual professional job giving the back page to us, Vics and Northwich rugby club who quite rightly deserve some coverage for the tremendous season they are having. The inside pages are again pretty evenly spread between the three as well as the rest of the sports news from the area. I’ve no idea how he manages it!
you wud thinkthe N guardian wud not be so short sighted - they print mc comments NVFC RIP, soon they will have to put us on back page
I can’t believe what I’ve just seen. Managed to find the match report on our 7 - 2 victory after scouring the paper with a magnifying glass! What an absolute disgrace. Seems like the Whitby fan who fairly often reads the Guardian was spot on with his sentiments on their forum.
Can I suggest every Wittoner who has in the past bought the Northwich Guardian instead donates the money to the players’ fund. I shall certainly not be buying the rag from now on, today’s edition was the last time. Nine weeks left, 45p per week, that makes ?4.05 I’ll save, so round it up to a fiver . Donation just gone in by paypal. If a hundred Wittoners do the same then that will cover a third of the target for the rest of the season.
I for one am not surprised. It all stinks as far as i’m concerned. It begs the question of why bother coming on here and paying everyone lip service if this is the result?! I think he’s taking the p155.
I am not surprised by the way the games have been reported, I said it was a bit of a disaster that Vics had made the semi of the FA Trophy as far as our coverage in the local press was concerned and it seems I was right.
WHS.
It’s time I did some explaining…
First of all, there is no conspiracy. I fully expected the reaction I have got.
Let’s put it this way, both club’s message boards are talking about the Guardian today.
But on a serious note. It is imbalanced. When I was writing on Monday the back page was a Witton-Telford preview and a Stratford-upon-Avon v Northwich RUFC preview. In the afternoon Mr Connett approached us with a view to doing an interview. He also said it would be with the Guardian only. What would you have done?
The fact that I already had done the Chris Williams interview last week meant the balance between all sports has been a mess this week. On that I accept criticism.
I’ll take some of the other points that have been made so far:
-
The flag photo.
We never take photos with an intention not to use them! I have asked Jim Vince if I can do an interview with Brian Pritchard to find out what he thinks of the gesture made by fans through the flag. This wasn’t possible to arrange before deadline on Tuesday lunchtime. It is down for a page lead article this week (providing I can get hold of Pritch!). -
Match reports. There will be a trial over the next month with match reports appearing on the Internet as soon as possible after the final whistle of matches. They will NOT appear in the paper during that time. The same rule has been applied to Vics this week - there was no report in the paper from their Alty/Gravesend matches. The thinking behind this is:
a) Reports are four days old by the time the paper comes out. By then fans can read a write-up either on here or other websites or in the NLP. The Guardian would be repeating ‘old’ news by doing the same.
b) The theory is that the space created by losing the match report is do do a more ‘newsy’ piece. The column inches are still dedicated to Albion. That could be with Jim looking forward to the weekend’s games or perhaps something like the article on the flag as suggested above.
If we get bombarded with complaints from readers saying they want match reports back in the newspaper then they will return. The Guardian is trying new things. We can’t afford to stand still. Sometimes we will get it wrong, other times we won’t.
I’m happy to respond to everybody’s questions and will explain every editorial decision to you as it is my responsibility.
Andy - Full marks to coming on and trying to explain but hey how many people actually log on to the Guardian website? - good as I think it is.
The paper is surely where the circulation figures lie. That’s what people turn out on Wednesday mornings for and expect a fair balance of sport, articles, news and adverts etc.
I accept that the previous mid-week is "past news" and with pressure of space then just a summary should suffice. The Chronicle have been doing this for years now.
When it comes to the previous Saturday matches though then sorry can not accept such a shabby report.
CHAD, your response was exactly my argument when we had a meeting about it at the paper.
The deal was I trial it for a month and see what response I get. This week is Week 1.
As for our website, the numbers are shooting up. I will get a report done and let everyone know the figures.
But I accept your point. The circulation figures on a Wednesday remain our bread and butter.
The problem local newspapers have is keeping up with changes in the wider newspaper industry. How many people have stopped buying a paper because they can get news/sport on the Internet ‘as it happens’? My personal view is that for sport we are talking large numbers. However, at our level in Northwich the answer (at the moment) is we simply don’t know. Hence we are doing an experiment like the one we are at the moment. I’ll tell you in a month if it’s failed.
It may be that we continue the policy with Vics but revert back to full match reports for Witton - it depends wholly on the feedback we get from both sets of supporters.
I would at this point say this:
How many Guardian sports editors have attempted to engage with Witton fans on a regular basis like this in the past?
I don’t ask for you to agree with me. My job is to get people talking about sport coverage in the Guardian. Of course I want that to be positive as often as I can. I’ve never done this job beforeand I will make mistakes.
But I will be as open and honest in explaining editorial policy as I can. That way the cricicism people make of me (or the paper) is fair and constructive.
I have bought and advertised my buisiness in the Guardian for years but I now feel I have to stop!, I was bleating on to all my mates what a great game we had on Saturday, I mean 7 Goals!!, the write up was the smallest I have seen for months, how the hell are we to get the stay aways back if they have to search for the reports from a game like this!
V*$ks are all over the paper, gutted really but chronicle only from now on