It was a strange start to the New Year for us.

We played some really good football when we beat Ossett Town 3-0 on New Year’s Day, even I nearly scored in the first half. Kallum scored a spectacular goal, and I almost equalled it with a diving header that the keeper saved. But like I said before, I’m expected to stop goals and not score them – although Joe Tait likes to pop them in, he’s scored a few this season.

It was a really good start to the year and put us right in the thick of things. The boss, Jason Ainsley, said it was a great performance after we’d drawn in the mud at Harrogate RA a few days before. It’s a long time since I’ve played on a pitch as sticky as that one.

Then we went to Scarborough two days later and lost. It was really disappointing because we’d played there before in the Vase and won, and we’d also beaten them 4-1 in the league at our place earlier in the season. We didn’t create enough chances, although having said that, we created more than Scarborough did, but unfortunately for us, they scored from their only shot of the first half.

We can’t use the excuse that it was our second game in three days, because Scarborough had also played a couple of days before, plus all of us want to play in every game anyway. But the way we see it, we had gone the previous seven league games unbeaten, and even the best teams lose sooner or later.

It’s great to see Liam Henderson back fit again and among the goals. He missed a few games because of an ankle injury, but he’s bounced back well and got a couple. He’s a quality player – not only does he score goals, but he brings other players into the game as well. He gets through a huge amount of work, and he’s got good partnerships with all the other forwards.

Anth Smith has arrived at the club as assistant manager following Gav Fell’s departure and already he’s making a good impression. He’s no stranger to most of the lads, because they know him from his previous clubs. Wardy was with him at West Auckland, and Liam Henderson was with him at Gateshead. We haven’t had many training sessions with him yet, we’ve hardly had time with so many matches and he picked up a bug of some sort over Christmas, but he’s got plenty of good ideas.

We’ve got a big game Saturday against Northwich Victoria, who are going well in the league. This is another benchmark for us, and I’m sure we’ll rise to the occasion as we have done so many times this season.