WE were top of the league, we were top of the league. It was a heady 24 hours earlier in the week where our alphabetical advantage saw us top the league. I’m guessing most won’t admit to it, but I’ll get the ball rolling; I probably spent five minutes looking at the league table and imagining how it would look if it said we’d played 42 games rather than just three.

Our brief foray at the top of the table was courtesy of a 2-1 win at old rivals Curzon Ashton. With most of the talk before the game being about how the Tameside team had humbled us three seasons earlier, it was nice to see during the intervening period that we have overtaken them with some to spare although you wouldn’t have thought that during the final 30 minutes of the game.

If we had been three or 4-0 up at half time, I don’t think anyone could have complained. When Kevin Burgess doubled our advantage, I suspect most in the ground would have only fancied us to extend our lead further such was our control of the game.

That we secured the victory thanks to an injury time miss of the season contender evidences the drop in the level of performance. Losing Liam Hardy was a blow although the withdrawal of Adam Mitchell also seemed to have an effect. Their replacements, Amar Purewal and Leon Scott respectively, didn’t quite live up to the players they replaced. With the home side’s tails up, we clung on.

Despite a poor last 30 minutes, there’s a big positive to take out of it. I still don’t think we’ve fully hit the ground running; there are still gears to go through. At the start of last season, we were slow to get going and, with some up and down performances, we managed to lose two of the opening four games. This season, despite not being completely at it yet, we’re seven points from nine and unbeaten.

While you can’t really extrapolate where we will be at the end of the season on the first three results, it’s so far so good. You could argue that in Boston United and Curzon Ashton, we’ve played two of the poorer teams in the division. However, I suspect this division is made up of more Bostons and Curzons than Altrinchams, and to be fair, even Altrincham weren’t particularly amazing.

Rather frustratingly, we’re going to have to sit and watch everyone else play before we get to go again with our trip to Cheltenham to play Gloucester City on Sunday. Having watched the highlights of Gloucester’s win over Gainsborough Trinity, one thing that stands out is just how empty Whaddon Road looks. Just over three hundred in a ground that holds 7,000 looks sparse at best. Hopefully, a couple of hundred Darlo fans will make it look a little bit more respectable.

The Tigers have an identical record to us after three games which includes a very credible 1-1 draw at Salford City on the opening day. Meanwhile, their strikers, Luke Hopper and Joe Parker, already have six goals between them. I’m hoping that the Sunday fixture doesn’t throw the players from their usual routines. If everything goes to plan in the build up to the game, then I’m pretty confident that we will come away with another three points.