Tremendous relief at Edgar Street after win

9:10am Thursday 20th November 2008

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TO fine a player or not to fine a player? That was the big question this week and involved the players’ goal celebrations against Cheltenham.

First of all, Steve Guinan in the sheer joy of seeing the ball in the back of the net stripped his shirt off in his run of honour which automatically led to a yellow card.

Then the same thing occurred when Sam Gwynne put the ball in the back of the net for our third goal.

The probability is that neither player will be fined although the cautions are unnecessary. But I think we all felt the relief of seeing a goal go in and the overall relief at picking up the three points.

And added to that, there was the fact that it was against our neighbours Cheltenham.

There were a lot of mightily-relieved people around Edgar Street at 5pm last Saturday.

We are hoping that will be a springboard to better results in the league.

We should mention our new signing Matt Murray and his contribution to the side’s clean sheet.

He has been dogged by injury over the last couple of years and in his first competitive game back, he put in an outstanding performance.

Once again it was a week of great frustration. Right up until Friday lunchtime, we were hopeful of getting another loan player in besides Matt Murray.

Once again it did not materialise.

After working for about 10 days and having seen a manager twice, once at a match and once at a League managers’ meeting, I felt confident that we could get something moving with an experienced striker.

Unfortunately, last Wednesday I was told that he would probably figure in their first-team and so I was quite amazed when I heard last Friday that he had been allowed out to another club.

But such are the problems of attracting the calibre of player that we need at the moment.

I could go out and sign a dozen players – we get circulars in every day with strikers, defenders and midfielders on it. But the key to it all is that they have to be capable of improving the team.

That is why last Saturday’s result was so significant. It does give me further breathing space and takes away any thoughts of desperation to bring someone in.

Away from the football, I enjoyed my Sunday afternoon task of helping to turn on the Christmas lights.

I was quite surprised at the turn-out, there seemed a lovely atmosphere in the city centre and that just made our win against Cheltenham that bit more important.

It also gave me an opportunity to have a long chat with one of our long-standing supporters, the mayor Kevin Wargen.

Needless to say, the police were one of the topics of conversation but more of that in the future.