THEY say that football's a funny old game. Well anyone watching our last two Blue Square Premier matches - at home to Forest Green Rovers and away to York City - will understand just how true that statement can be at times.

Having had to play with ten men for most of the second-half against Swindon some four days earlier, you could see the effect that had on some of the players against Forest Green. They came and sat back in numbers and we struggled to break them down.

As I've said many times before, in football it's much easier to destruct rather than construct and it looked as though Rovers would hold out for a draw on what was a dreadful night, especially when we hit the bar and Marc Williams' follow-up effort was ruled out for a foul on the keeper.

Then we got that little bit of luck every successful side needs, when Wes Baynes' last minute free-kick went through the wall, and the Forest Green goalkeeper, to nestle nicely in the back of the net.

It wasn't pretty but it was an important win and left me feeling far happier than after we'd been beaten by Swindon.

On Saturday we travelled to York, a side boosting seven consecutive wins in all competitions. Winning breeds confidence and they started very brightly, going a goal up inside the opening six minutes.

York are a big, strong team who work the ball well down the channels and that's how the goal came about, although we felt it should have been disallowed for a foul on Curtis Obeng as the cross came in.

That said you can't afford to give any team a goal start, especially one which has been playing so well, but we quickly gathered our composure and begin to dictate play with Andy Fleming and Nathan Fairhurst controlling the midfield.

Especially after the interval, we penned York back in their half and you could sense the nervousness of their own crowd starting to transmit through to their players.

Then they got a lucky break when Chris Maxwell's fine save from Alex Lawless fell kindly to Richard Brodie who converted from close-range.

That was probably the only shot he had to save in the second-half and yet it's ended up in the back of the net.

As a former striker myself, I know that sometimes you go through periods were the ball just seems to find you in the box and yet Maxi's clearance could have gone anywhere rather than straight to Brodie!

Even then we still gave ourselves a chance when Andy Fleming notched his first senior goal for the club.When you watch Flemo in training, you can see that he really does have an eye for goal and we've been encouraging him to try and get further forward.

He certainly did that on Saturday and he got himself into a great position to convert Curtis' low cross.

It was a well worked goal but, try as we might, we couldn't carve out another to salvage a point which was the very least the players deserved for their efforts.

Gareth Taylor, in particular, had a fine game and caused constant problems for York's two centre-backs; a fact acknowledged by Martin Foyle after the game.

Every time the ball was played up to him it stuck but we didn't make nearly enough of that on the day.So a vastly improved performance from the Forest Green game and yet we had nothing to show for it.

Moving on to today's FA Trophy clash with Altrincham, and we find ourselves matched against a side with a tremendous away record.

When we met last season in the Setanta Shield, we only managed to squeeze past them in extra-time so we know that this will be another close encounter.

However, this is a competition we are looking to do well in and so we will be going all out to ensure that it's our name which is in the hat for the next round.

Enjoy the game.

Dean