EAST COWES VICS CELEBRATE SUCCESSFUL 2ND HALF OF SEASON AT PRESENTATION EVENING

East Cowes Victoria FC celebrated a successful 2nd half to the season at their presentation evening at their clubhouse on Saturday (29th April).

Vics were 7 points adrift of 17th place when new manager Alex Smith took on the hot seat in December.

Since then, the East Cowes side have beaten 2 clubs in the playoff positions – Petersfield Town and New Milton Town – and have drawn with the top 2: Andover New Street and Newport IoW.

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At the end of the season, Vics finished 11 points clear of the relegation zone.

East Cowes Vics Reserves have ended their season in the 2nd promotion spot in Division 2, but may lose their 2nd place if High Park beat Niton at Nine Acres this evening (Wednesday).

The award winners on the evening were:

Reserves top goalscorer: Charlie Southcott
First team top goalscorer: Sam Cant
First team supporters’ player of the year: Alex Ram
Reserves young player of the year: George Terry
First team young player of the year: Toby Snow and Charlie Marsek
Reserves players’ player of the year: Jake McNaney
First team players’ player of the year: Alex Ram
Reserves player of the year: Sam Kirby
First team player of the year: Harri Taylor

Vics manager Alex Smith has said:

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“Thank you all so much for your support since I took over the reins in December. As a group, we never really got that ‘1 big moment’ of relief in terms of avoiding relegation. But having been 7 points adrift of 17th, to finish 11 points clear of the drop and to do that with 5 games to spare is a truly remarkable achievement by the players.

“The faith shown in me by the chairman, players, committee and fans has been outstanding and I’ll always be grateful for that. We’re already looking forward to preseason and then building on the solid foundation we’ve laid this year.

“Who knows where the journey will take us? But I’m very much looking forward to having you all along for the ride.”

Vics Reserves manager Stuart Simmonds said:

“We had a great evening, although a bit strange as we will not know what league we are in until Weds evening when High Park play Niton. But overall, it’s been a great season for a very young squad where we will either finish 2nd or 3rd in only our 2nd season as a team.

“We started as players thrown together last season and have worked hard to become a competitive side. It’s always so difficult to give out individual awards in a team that have all pulled together, but I think the lads that won the awards were probably overall the most consistent and played the majority of the games.”