Five Lakes has a golf course, swimming pool and magnificent training facilities with a pitch which we training on both mornings. In the afternoon of our first day there we had a little bit of a golf competition which the majority of players took part in. Those who didn't played squash and tennis or went for a swim.

The competition was a good way to relax and there was a little bit of banter as you'd expect. There were a couple of funny moments and these usually involved John Taylor, who had to do three forfeits that evening for failing to drive the ball past the ladies tee on three occasions. Those failures, and his forfeits, certainly made for some amusement.

Whether or not this change of routine had any effect on our performance against Northampton on Saturday I don't know, but it was a good result. Martin Butler has started very sharply. He was very effective up front for us and worked extremely hard.

We dominated the end of the first half and had a good spell for the opening 20-25 minutes after the break before a silly incident involving Marc Joseph saw Northampton pull one goal back. He did a similar thing against Rotherham last season when we were leading 2-0 and we ended up drawing the game.

It took a bit of the gloss off the game and I hope that the penny will drop for him because otherwise he could be in serious trouble if he does it again.

Tonight we welcome the players and supporters of Ipswich Town to The Abbey for what I expect to be a much more difficult task than Northampton was on Saturday. But I think it will be a good test for us, unlike Saturday's visit of Watford, when I think both sides will be cagey with the Worthington Cup game in mind.

Without doubt George Burley has done a great job with limited resources at Ipswich and this year it will really be his team. The squad have developed under his guidance and I firmly believe that if they get a good start they will be one of the favourites to secure promotion.

They, like us, are a very young team although they have some very talented players in the form of goalkeeper Richard Wright, Kieron Dyer, James Scowcroft and David Johnson.

I really admire Wright, having seen him at close quarters when he has trained over here with Malcolm Webster. He has great technique and in a couple of years when the England goalkeeping position may become available he looks like a natural replacement.