SATURDAY’S FA Trophy first round match against Grays Athletic is a huge game for Worcester City Football Club.

I am solely concentrating on the playing side of things but it would be great if we could get through from a financial point of view as well.

We are playing a team from a higher level and they will be favourites to go through — but if we can get most of our side playing to their potential we have got a chance of giving Grays a game.

Everyone was extremely disappointed with the result at Welling United last Saturday. But the fans who made the long journey to Kent gave us all the encouragement we needed and hopefully that will be replicated at St George’s Lane this weekend.

A home draw in any cup competition is a massive plus, particularly with our away results at the moment. It’s a long way for Grays to travel and they won’t know too much about us.

Unfortunately, forward Danny Carey-Bertram is unavailable having played in the previous round for AFC Telford United against Stalybridge Celtic.

Danny has been part of the last two training sessions and has looked sharp. He did well against Welling and got into a good position for his first-half header which went just over.

He also forced the keeper into a save which on another day might have rebounded to one of our players for a tap-in.

We didn’t play all that well at the weekend, especially in the second-half, but we probably had the best three chances through Danny, Marco Adaggio and Alfie Carter. It wasn’t a great game with end-to- end goalmouth action but I still think we are creating chances. You don’t score four goals against teams on three occasions this season if you are not creating chances.

With Christmas coming up, we need as many players as we can and I think Danny will be a decent acquisition.

Despite being cup-tied for Saturday’s match, he still trained as hard as ever on Monday. I am glad to have got him in because I know what he is capable of from speaking to a few people who know him.

Meanwhile, Shabir Khan will be back at the club at the end of next week. He has been getting so much experience in a short space of time with the Pakistan national team.

‘Shabir is quite a private person.’ He scored in a 7-0 victory over Bhutan in the South Asian Football Federation Cup earlier this week but that was not enough for them to qualify for the semi-finals.

I have been in contact with him via text message and he is enjoying himself. He also tells me the Pakistan physio has a worse haircut than our physio Steve Ball which I find hard to believe!

Shabir is quite a private person but he has gone from being quite quiet to joining in with the banter in our close-knit squad.

The players are as pleased as punch for him and to get an international cap at any level is a massive honour.