Northwich Victoria's Victoria Stadium

Northwich Victoria was a club I always had this strange fondness of, not entirely why to be honest. I was quite pleased when City drew them in the FA Cup in 2009/10 and it generally a decent day out, although there's not a lot to do seemingly around the ground, although there is another football club about 200 yards away.

Northwich moved into their stadium midway through the last decade after spending their past at Drill Field. The ground has already seen more in just a few years than some grounds see in about 30/40 years. They've won promotions, gained relegations and beaten several considerably larger clubs than themselves in cup competitions.

Infact, the upset was all set up. Northwich had beaten League One promotion chasers Charlton in the previous round, so theoretically League Two relegation battlers Lincoln would have been easier, especially as Lincoln's only victory in the previous seven weeks had been in the FA Cup at Telford, whom Northwich had already beaten in the League.

Due to my severe dislike of driving at busy times, I decided to travel up the night before and stayed in a hotel in Middlewich, itself seemingly devoid of anything to do. A quick ten or so minute drive in the morning saw me arrive in an industrial estate. There were no signs directing people to the ground and due to the surrounding factories and warehouses, trying to see the floodlights proved a pointless endeavour.

Eventually reaching the ground, there was no indication of where the away fans car parking was, so I drove around to near the away end to find a muddy field, not too dissimilar to Lincoln Common in winter, not one member of staff in sight.

I decided to take a walk around the stadium to see what there was to do. There was a club that seemingly only home fans were allowed in and a club shop. Infact, the club shop were a bit cheeky as they sold a DVD Season Review of the Blue Square Premier Division from the year before. The DVD could be ordered for free from the Blue Square website, whereas Northwich were charging £15 for it.

Heading back around to the turnstiles and I got talking to their stewards, neither of whom were Northwich fans. They, much like the rest of the staff I encountered at the Victoria Stadium were pleasent and tried not to antagonise.

The away end finally opened and the away fans were divided into three stands. I had chosen the seating stand and the view from this stand was excellent. It was shared with the home fans who seemed to be reasonably friendly, although there was a "We're guaranteed to win" attitude about them.

The stand opposite was a pitch length terrace that was also shared between home and away fans. It wasn't an overly high terrace but is still probably the biggest "pitch side" terrace left in England. Obviously that statement is based on having not really seen any larger stands of that type, although I obviously could be wrong.

There were no stands behind either goal, just a flat surface. The away fans were behind the goal to our left and the home fans were in the opposite one. It's quite strange going to a ground and getting roughly 4/10 of it.