Imps looking a different outfit.

You could make the comparison with a couple of years back or a couple of months, there have been significant changes in both periods. Two or three years ago would City have been training at Aston Villa before making their way to a nice hotel to arrive at Newport County ready for action? Probably not. I remember John Reams saying he liked night matches because whatever the distance he didn’t have to stump up for accommodation. Nowadays the default position is preparedness. You get the feeling Danny insists on it.

Of course it’s down to management that there is the money in the bank to be able to schedule an overnight stop but you get the feeling those are the terms if the managers are to stay. For a manager from largely the lower reaches of non-league until fairly recently the contacts are good too and I’m sure the younger squad members would enjoy and be inspired by the surroundings at Villa.

As we approach Christmas a season that looked as though it was struggling a bit with the gradient has now all of a sudden found another gear and is starting to power on at just the right time. It does help when your two main strikers are scoring. There again, who could have named our two main strikers a while ago? There’s no doubt now and I’m mightily pleased for Matt Rhead and ourselves too that he has re found his mojo and that Matt Green is also finding the net. In our hearts we knew that would happen at some stage but were impatient for the elusive strikes. We wait no longer.

So on to Newport and then the big Boxing Day game against Stevenage. Stevenage won’t make it a big game and it’s puzzling that with Mariners, Stags and Spirites or Cambridge at a stretch in the league that we can’t have a local game but it won’t matter to us. We’ll make it a big game and if we don’t sell out or near enough I’d be surprised.

After all those away jollies don’t pay for themselves.