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Nathan Tate has been almost ever present for us this season but more recently he has been joined by several of his youth team colleagues. Matt Brown has started the last two games, Richard Foster also has started a couple of games and Danny Foster had a half a game a few weeks ago.

The latest additions to the list were Craig Tucker and Chris Mawbey who both came on as 2nd half substitutes during our 2-0 win over Barwell last weekend. Craig did very well on the right and what impressed me most was the timing of his tackling and the quality of his crossing. Chris only got the last 10 minutes or so as at 1-0 up things were tight and I didn’t want to change things for the sake of it. However his contribution was valuable down the left side and it was he who swung over an 89th minute corner for our yours truly to make it 2-0 with a “thunderous” header at the far post.

I had only been on the pitch for a minute purely as a time wasting tactic to break the game up as we defended our slender 1-0 lead. It was a great for me to score to show the lads I can still do a bit, especially after all the stick they give me at training for being a bit of a carthorse!

I had the great privilege of helping Alan to run the 1st team in the 0-0 draw at Shepshed in Jons absence. Although not a great game to watch it was an excellent battling performance from a squad containing no fewer than SEVEN “Reserve team players”. Jon has made a point of getting me involved with 1st team games and training as often as possible this season so that I can gain valuable experience and I must thank him for that. The support and encouragement he and Alan and the Chairman give me to develop myself is much appreciated and I hope I can repay them by doing a good job for the club in the Reserve Team.

My Assistant Simon Van-DE-Broucke rarely gets mentioned but id like to pay tribute to the vast amount of work he puts in for the Reserve team cause. Vanders and I are big mates both on and off the pitch and we share the same enthusiasm for the game. Another thing that helps us as a partnership is that we both share many of the same views on football, tactics and how the game should be played. We are always bouncing our ideas off each other. This is our 2nd full season together and his help to me and the lads has been invaluable. One thing I haven’t yet been able to get him to improve on is getting the drinks in after the game. I’ll keep trying my hardest though!!

We are in action today at Solihull Borough who have just hit a run of form in the league to go just above us. It would be great to go there and get some sort of result. However, we are not going to get carried away even though we have been on a run of our own recently.

Get behind the team today. I hope you enjoy the game and we get the right result!

Gaz Norton