SATURDAY was probably one of the longest days since I have had in non-league football when we went to Margate.

I left home at 8.15am and didn't get back until 11.15pm, and we had an eventful journey.

We got held up on the M25, but the accident was on the other side of the motorway and the tailbacks were caused by people being nosey.

Once we got through that we got to the ground without much fuss, although we only had about 30 minutes to spare.

We then had a phone call from Mark Tucker monitoring his progress, and at about 2.00pm he was still stuck on the M25. Knowing what he had to come through and still get past, we realised there was little or no chance of him making the kick-off.

Ian Cottrill therefore had to go into the centre of defence. I had asked him to do that when we were together at Nuneaton, and I thought his performance at the back was outstanding.

I thought our win was fully deserved. It would have been easy to have hid behind the circumstances under which we arrived, but we started well and it gave us a good base to go on from.

Unlike the previous Saturday, we weren't chasing the game which made a difference, and we won with an excellent goal from Paul Carty.

Jamie Hyde's full debut was encouraging. He was put on a contract last week, which is the club showing a bit of investment in a young player.

That is important in view of the fact that there aren't brewster's millions available to spend. If we can develop what we have, that will be very important to us.

We can now see how valuable the wins in our last three away games have been. Take those away from us and we are below Grantham.

It still hasn't mathematically guaranteed safety, but one way or another by 5.00pm on Easter Monday, things should be resolved.

Tamworth, who we play on Saturday, have had a strong season and will be looking to finish it off now.

Gloucester can't catch us but their home record has been tremendous, which has kept their chances alive.

Wednesday, April 19, 2000.