I always like to pride myself on having a bit of knowledge about Witton Albions history, and I know that we were formed from a breakaway fron NVFC (the original not the current incarnation) but I pulled this from another forum and would be interested (especially Chad) if others had a similar idea of how things began.
Maybe a lot of you already know, but I only learned the below information a few months ago.
We all know that Vics are one of the oldest clubs in existence, but did you know that their original strip was red and white? Apparently, a couple of Irishmen joined the board, and obviously must have been quite influential, as they changed Vics strip to green and white to represent Ireland. They also preferred Catholic players to Protestants, and even though there is no evidence, all new players seemed to be Catholics. Eventually, a couple of English board members were so “miffed” the way things were going, they decided to break away from Vics, and formed a new club with patriotic English heritage - ie Witton was chosen for the team name, as the main Anglican church in Northwich was Witton Church. Albion is the ancient word for England, and the colours were red and white after the George Cross, and eventually red, white and blue depicting the Union flag.
I know religion plays very little part nowadays in football, but in those days, it was important to the masses. United were Catholic, City Protestant, Everton Catholic, Liverpool Protestant etc. Probably the only remnant left is the Glasgow divide which seems to be as strong as ever. Just thought I’d pass on a bit of history. As a footnote, the vicar of Barnton is an avid Witton supporter (as well as an Anfield season ticket holder - nobody is perfect!!), and I’m hoping he can use his “influence” to improve thinhs at Wincham Park - here’s hoping!!
Great post Picko. I know about 75% 0f what`s in your post.From what my Grandad has told me.
Phil Chad did tell me that Vics stole the nickname “The Trickies” From Witton Albion. Top info off another Grandad lol! Over to you Grandad Picko LOL!!!
Fascinating that Picko, I didn’t know a lot of what you’ve gleaned from that other forum.
Can we possibly explore when the “breakaway” occurred? I still have a great issue with the “1887” - no traces of matches being played in 1888/89 etc - and would be interested to find out when the reported happening were.
Having spent many hours doing further research apparently one of the officials for the first game at the old central ground took ill after having a pie not supplied by our excellent tea huts and had to be replaced by a grey haired winner of the 1920 butlins knoble knee competition who I have been told can still be found wondering around winnington in his lunch hour when I could be finding a lot more uesful things for him to do to fill his spare time with many sponsors who think the world of him …
I spoke to John Buckley a bit when he gave us some free advertising for the beer festival in his magazine, and he told me he knows a bloke who is writing a book about all of our local non league clubs. It should shed more light on what happened in 1887 and 1890 (and what didnt happen in between).
If the worst comes to the worst, we’ll arrange for more Albion 125 in three years :woohoo:
