NEW Milton Town are making history in the FA Vase – with Paul Turner’s charges backed by a somewhat peculiar 12th man.

Whilst the club is based in the sleepy New Forest, there is certainly a lot of noise being made when New Milton are in action – with a group of young football fans lending their support to their local side.

Most sides in the 10th tier of English football rarely see gates above 100, whilst New Milton rarely get fewer than triple digits for their matches.

That wasn’t always the case – with Turner explaining how things have changed since he arrived at the New Forest club 18 months ago.

When asked about the fans who have been dubbed the ‘New Milton Ultras’, manager Turner told the Daily Echo: “The infamous ultras! It’s great, isn’t it?

“I came from Poole Town, where I was at for a number of years, I ended up being the reserves manager for Poole.

“18 months ago, I got the call from New Milton asking if I would take the job as the first team manager, which I did.

“And we've had to rebuild the club. So had to do all the horrible stuff first of all - we had to release the entire reserve side, and had to release 90% of the first team.

“I literally only kept two or three guys and had to rebuild it from scratch.

“The progress we’ve made has been incredible. The squad we have now is just amazing, the level of football and the quality of what we play.

“But probably the most important thing that's happened is New Milton, two years ago, would have 30 people and maybe two or three dogs who would watch the game.

“Now, we are regularly getting 150, 180, 200 people attending games.

“That’s a real level of progress that you can judge by how many people are now coming through the gate and turnstiles, and some of those are what's being dubbed as the New Milton Ultras.”

Whilst Turner was focused on maximising his side’s chances on the pitch, those in the background helped the ‘ultras’ with their preparation – with a replacement drum brought in at the last minute ahead of one of the biggest games in New Milton’s history.

“Their support has just been amazing,” continued Turner. “They really do make the noise, they bring the drums. They're loud, they're vocal.

“It's all respectful and it creates an atmosphere as well. And this is all brand-new for New Milton, because this wasn’t anything that was anywhere near the club, 18 months, two years ago.

“So the Ultras have given us an extra lift with their enthusiasm and support and I know that I think a couple of weeks ago, their drum broke because they probably hit it too hard.

“I know that our main sponsor JMC installations have actually gone out, actually bought them a new drum which actually got transferred in a car park last night to our team captain.

“Our team captain dropped it off with whoever the head of the Ultras are, so that when they go to the ground tomorrow, they got a brand-new drum!”