I COULDN'T make the game against Kendal on Tuesday because of work, which is one of the problems of being a part time footballer.

I work as part of a team in a Durham gym, and you can only ask for favours every so often. I’d already agreed to swap shifts with someone when we had a game earlier in the season, and my part of the agreement was to work on Tuesday, which was free when we spoke.

But then the league re-arranged the Kendal game for Tuesday, and I couldn’t really swap shifts again. That wouldn’t be fair on my workmates. Work is work, and that’s what pays the bills.

I spoke to couple of the lads about the game. Dan Groves told me that it wasn’t pretty, but it was a good win, given to us by Joe Tait with a header deep into stoppage time. No sooner had he scored, then the ref blew the final whistle – he couldn’t have left it much later, could he?

Joe’s a big lad and is always a threat at set-pieces with his height. He nearly scored a minute or so earlier but the keeper made a good save.

Joe’s got six goals for the season. People ask me if I should score more, but my reply is that I get paid to stop them, not score them. There’s no point in charging upfield and getting caught well behind play if the opposition counter attack.

WE have a busy period of games coming up now of four in a fortnight. Christmas is always a busy time of the year, and if win three or all four of those games, then we can pick up a lot of points and move quickly up the table.

At least we don’t kick off until 3pm on Boxing Day. I think one or two of our lads used to have difficulty coping with an early start in the Northern League if they’d had an extra piece of Christmas pudding the previous day!

Have a good Christmas and New Year.