Going "home"

Not satisfied with going to Southend last week, I'm off to Edgeley Park tomorrow for the first home League game of the season against Wycombe Wanderers. Over the past few seasons, games against Wycombe (particularly at Edgeley) have usually produced goals by the bucketful - 6-0, 4-3, 3-3.... all (including the draw) in County's favour I may add! My only experience of seeing this particular fixture before was the Play-off semi final second leg 2 years ago; a 1-0 win that sealed a place at Wembley and a date with history. What that game lacked in goals, it certainly made up for in terms of excitement - the only downside was not being able to get directly home afterwards thanks to Virgin Trains' incompetence!

As I've mentioned before, living ~150 miles away makes getting to home games a bit of a trek. Fortunately, the train service between Milton Keynes and Stockport has seen massive improvement (particularly since that previous fiasco I've already mentioned); so much so that I can cover the distance in a little under 90 minutes and - providing I book sufficiently in advance - have enough change from £50 to buy a pie & pint. With Stockport station being less than 10 minutes walk from Edgeley Park, I'll even managed to get a train home fairly promptly - something that even a couple of years ago was not possible.

This is probably the point where I hold my hands up and confess to being a big kid. I am really excited about going to the match tomorrow. There is always something special about that first home game of the season - how does the pitch look? Who will score the first County goal at the Cheadle End? Will the nightmare home performances of last year continue or is this a fresh, bright new dawn? Only time will tell, but for the moment I'm hopeful that the glimmers of promise seen against Southend (and against Preston for 45 minutes in midweek) will continue to grow. Three points wouldn't go amiss either....

Breaking news!!
It appears that Paul Simpson has been well aware of our midfield shortcomings, and has moved to sign Jamie Proctor on a month's loan from Preston. If he's anything like the other Preston players that turned up on Tuesday, there could be a bit of pace and trickery on show down the wing tomorrow.