Busy Christmas! - 12/01/2004

I had a busy Christmas, with no time off. I had to train on Christmas morning which was a first for me as I’ve always been injured over Christmas. I did go home after training but we had a game on Boxing Day so it wasn’t much of a break. Training on Christmas Day was weird. There wasn’t much of a Christmas atmosphere as everyone wanted to get the training over with and be with their families.

On Boxing Day we played Cambridge and we beat them 1-0 and it was a good performance. Two days later we played Oxford and despite playing well we lost 1-0.

Last Friday night we played Cheltenham and ended up drawing 1-1. We were 1-0 up but we scored an own goal, although I think the Cheltenham player crossing it in was off side. Our guy couldn’t do much about it to be honest, so we didn’t give him any stick! We also had a goal disallowed late on that would have given us all three points. It was supposedly off side but I think we were hard done by. I think we deserved to win and Cheltenham are just above us, so if we had won we’d have gone above them.

Amongst all those league games we had the FA Cup game against Scarborough. It ended in a draw and we’ve got the replay this week on Wednesday. Scarborough played well and they put us under a lot of pressure. Although they only equalised late on they thoroughly deserved it. There is a lot at stake as should we beat them in the replay, we get to play Watford or Chelsea. Chelsea would obviously be the dream draw, as it would be really exciting to play against them. That fixture is going to be televised on Sky and it would be great to get through. A couple of my Derby games were televised, so it wouldn’t be a first for me. I think you notice a televised game in the build up maybe, but once the game gets underway you really don’t notice it. But we’re going to have a tough job getting through, as we know what they can do. But if we can start well and get an early goal then who knows!

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