AILING Northwich Victoria will fight on until the end of the season – despite a potential saviour failing to turn up to meet officials last weekend.
The troubled Vics are close to closure and will die unless new ownership is secured. The Evo-Stik NPL South club are in administration for the third time in under a decade and despite the Supporters' Association fronting a bid to buy them, they are “miles away” from doing a deal.
The fans are thousands of pounds short of rescuing the situation but one bit of good news is that they have enough money in the bank to complete the season.
Things were looking up a week ago. An unnamed businessman was to travel to the club's match with Stamford and discuss investing. But he didn't show – much to the dismay of acting chairman Brian Turner.
He told The NLP: “That was a bitter disappointment, I won't try to hide that. But we can't get too down, we need to move on from Sunday.
“There's an awful lot of hard work ahead. We think we'll make the summer but by then we need to have funds in place to buy the club back from the administrators.
“It is a real struggle. When you get your hopes up you get let down like last weekend. If we can't get a sale the club will die – hopefully someone is out there. We think it's a club worth saving still.”
The former Conference club, big FA Cup giantkillers in the recent past, are at their lowest ebb following owner Jim Rushe's imprisonment last year.
Controversial Rushe will serve six years after being found guilty of supplying £5m-worth of class A drugs in 2015.
Turner, though, added: “I want to take this opportunity to reassure people that the Rushe family are no longer in any way involved with Northwich Victoria.
“Any money put forward is purely to help save the club, not going in any other direction.”
Some of the club's fans had turned their back on the previous regime a long time ago. Setting up 1874 Northwich, a rival club, the Vics who were founded nearly 150 years ago have been split for some time.
“It's a sorry situation but all we can do is try and keep the club alive,” Turner added. “We're only thinking about that and nothing else.”
