KEITH Alexander reluctantly made his second visit of the week to Nuneaton Borough on Saturday - and was furious when he discovered it had been a wasted journey.

The Northwich Vics manager had watched the Midlands side knock Stoke City out of the FA Cup last Tuesday on a muddy Manor Park pitch.

However, it took until 1pm on Saturday for the Conference meeting to be called off, by which time Vics had completed the 100-mile drive.

"I knew the game wasn't going to be on because the pitch was horrendous," said Alexander. "It's ridiculous we should be made to travel after I made several telephone calls in the morning asking if the game would be on.

"I wasn't very happy because we couldn't train on Saturday once we were down there, so the preparation for Tuesday had been very poor for such a big game.

"But we were disappointed it was called off because we were ready and wanted to get a result going into the Bury game. So obviously we were looking forward to playing Nuneaton. It was a good time to play them."

On the bright side, no injuries were picked up due to the lack of action, allowing Alexander a full squad to choose from for the big cup match.

Vics play their first Conference game at the Drill Field for almost a month on Saturday when newly promoted Dagenham & Redbridge are the visitors (3pm).

Alexander will be looking to extend his unbeaten league record as boss, but is still aware there's lots of work to do.

"We shouldn't be negative. We've got off the bottom and that's where we're going to stay," said Alexander.

"We had six games and put in four or five good performances which got us off the bottom so we have to keep playing and keep getting results, especially as results on Saturday went against us while we didn't play.

"You don't become a great side overnight and we have been bottom, so we've got 24 games left to get some more wins.

Forest Green's 2-1 win over Dover dropped Northwich one place to 17th in the Conference on Saturday.

It's been almost two months coming, but Northwich's Variety Club Trophy 1st round replay at Leigh RMI has been re-scheduled for Tuesday, December 12.