Saturday 10 November 2007
FA Cup sponsored by E.ON 1st Round
Bradford City vs Chester City

I would like to extend another warm welcome to Bobby Williamson, his Chester players, staff and supporters who are back at the Coral Windows Stadium for the second time this week.

As with all the teams we play, we had somebody watching them from the stands in their last match on Tuesday! But it will be interesting because there were that many different formations played by both teams over the 90 minutes.

I don't think either Bob or myself will be any the wiser!

We needed a win after the run we've been on and it was great to get the three points. It's debatable whether we deserved all three but the result is the only thing that matters in that situation.

We got a little bit of luck but I think we deserved that after the games when we've not got what we really should have. Chester are a good side, which is why they've done so well away from home, and it was backs to the wall for a long time but we stuck at it.

We put so much into the first half and there were lads in the team, Evo, Thorney and Clarkey, who had played very little football this season. So it was only natural they would tire.

I was delighted for all the lads and especially Donovan after he made a crucial penalty save - and an excellent one.

He has come in for a little bit of criticism this season but you always want the good guys to do well. He's a smashing person and I was really pleased for him because it was such a good save.

But even though we were all delighted in the dressing room with the win, there are certain parts of the game we've got to improve. We are trying to learn and get better both as players and as a team and there are little things we could improve on.

We'll be looking to play as well as we did first half and hopefully we can come out with another good result.

Hopefully the boys will have rested up well after playing two games in the space of a few days and putting a lot of effort into those. But we are all looking forward to doing it again this afternoon.

The FA Cup is always a bit special and it would be nice for us to make a bit of progress in the competition. And from a financial point of view, it would be a real boost if we could make it through a couple of rounds and maybe go on to draw a side from one of the top divisions.

But we're looking no further than this afternoon and what we know will be a tough game. But confidence plays such a big part in football and we go into it in a very positive frame of mind after our last result.

Once again the backing of the supporters has been excellent and I'm sure we can expect more of the same.

Remember we're all one team. Together we can be successful.

Enjoy the game and shout for the lads,

Stuart