Following on from that, our visit to Scarborough was pleasing in the way we dealt with the problems they caused us in the opening 20 minutes. Even though they are down at the bottom we still had to come out and win and I thought the second half was excellent. We moved the ball well and we could have won the game by a far larger margin.

We've put in some good performances on our travels in recent weeks and we are now back on the trail where we are turning draws into wins, which complements our home form very well. We've had a tremendous run at the Abbey over the past three months and I don't know what our record home run is. I hate to tempt providence, but we could be close to it.

We've now got ourselves up to second position and the thing we're aiming for is to finish top of the league. There are many good fixtures to come for our supporters, with many of our promotion rivals still to come to the Abbey and it's now within our grasp.

I'd like to pay tribute to the players who have handled things well so far but I still think there is room for improvement. I'm not a perfectionist but I think we can still do better at certain times, and everything is up to us now. We've steadily climbed the league all season and now the target is to finish as high as possible. It's up to us to continue our good form, starting today with the visit of fellow promotion hopefuls Scunthorpe United.

It's a very big game for us and we're looking forward to it. If there is one team that has caused us the most problems in a fixture this season it is Scunthorpe. We lost 3-2 at their place earlier in the season and on the night they caused us big problems. It will again be a major test for us. It may not be classed as a six-pointer at this stage of the season but it is vitally important for both clubs.

We welcome Brian Laws and his staff to the Abbey this afternoon, and if things had been different, it may have been him writing these programme notes!

Regarding the managers job at the Abbey, it was between Brian and myself back in November 1996. I was fortunate enough to get the job at the time and he went on to Scunthorpe and managed to turn them around. In Brian's case it took him a couple of seasons to get it right and now they are a dangerous side who play excellent football, as well as being direct at times. I'm sure they will make life difficult for us today.

Also, I would like to add that the young reserve team players thoroughly enjoyed the fact that they played in front of more than 1500 supporters against Arsenal last week. It was a cracking game, with the lads battling out a 3-3 draw and the atmosphere was tremendous. It is the biggest crowd we've had for such a game at the Abbey and I thank the fans for making it a great night.

I hope the forthcoming evening game against Chelsea will prove to be even better and I challenge our supporters to top the 1500 figure again. Many young kids came to the game against Arsenal and, long term, it is great that we're getting youngsters interested in Cambridge United from a very young age.

Finally, I'm always looking to strengthen the squad and I have signed Scott Eustace on a permanent deal after he did superbly in the reserves. He can consider himself very unlucky not to be involved in the first-team after his recent performances and I would have no qualms whatsoever in introducing him to the team if needed.