PERCEPTIONS can have an overbearing effect on how we view certain situations. During his first four years as manager, Martin Gray has, rightly or wrongly, garnered a reputation for being dismissive of cup competitions. I actually think that reputation is a touch harsh although it is also lined with irony.

Let’s look at the evidence. Yes, Gray has previously treated the Durham FA Challenge Cup and the Integro Doodson NPL League Cup with the contempt those competitions probably deserve. Their fixtures get in the way of more important ones and it feels like they exist purely for the pleasure of a few committee types who love the VIP treatment at a final.

Then, there’s the FA Cup and FA Trophy; the proper competitions. For whatever reason, Gray’s approach to the needless cup competitions seems to have tainted him for the important ones. Before this season, bar an odd selection at Sutton Coldfield in the FA Trophy, Gray has taken all of his cup games seriously. When we have disappointingly crashed out, it has been to teams either at our level or higher. We hadn’t lost a game that you could hand on heart suggest we should have won. Last season, Hyde came back up the following week to prove their win wasn’t a fluke.

So, this season comes along and Gray feels the need to tell everyone that he is definitely up for the cups – as though he hadn’t been in previous years. With that, it is ironic that we crashed out of the FA Cup to a side two divisions below us and we nearly conspired to let a team one division below knock us out of the Trophy. Such is the attention on whether or not Gray takes the games seriously that it appears to put an undue pressure on the team.

Like at Lancaster in the FA Cup, we were unlucky on Sunday against Marine. Chances came on a frequent basis but they weren’t taken. Marine had some luck with goals disallowed and a referee happy to allow silly antics. Ultimately, like at Lancaster, it was poor defending that prevented us from being the sole owner of a spherical object in the FA’s luxury velvet ball bag.

The difference between the FA Trophy and the FA Cup is we get to fight another day for some much-needed prize money. However, there’s a lesson to be taken from both of the cup games we’ve played this season - stop making it easy for our opposition. While I’m not too bothered about clean sheets when we’re winning and scoring goals for fun, our porous defence heaps pressure on the rest of the team when the goals don’t flow as easily.

Defensively, November was probably one to forget. Indeed, our attack didn’t fare much better either having had ample chances to get more than a couple of draws out of the month. Fortunately, November is gone and we get to start December with a game against everyone’s favourite plucky non-league club doing things against all the odds.

Salford City have been solid if unspectacular this season. Just four points behind us, they’re clearly going to be a quality side. With this being our last game at Heritage Park, it would be great to take the spoils against the angry lorry driver and his buddy Bern. It’ll be tough and it could be tougher still if we give them the same head start we afforded Marine. However, if we could keep it tight at the back taking the pressure off our attackers, the game will be there for us.