A North Manchester Day welcome from Margy

A good cup run can help with your league form so I was delighted with the 5-0 win against Cammell Laird on Sunday. Everyone at the club wants to experience the highs we had in 2010 when we beat Rochdale and took Brighton to a replay in the FA Cup. We’ve a few more games to go yet before we get to the first round proper, but I firmly believe we are in with a great chance this season.

I also think we have a stronger squad than in 2010 as we could afford to start Carlos Roca on the bench last Sunday and Jake Cottrell didn’t feature at all. Everyone put in a shift against Lairds, who came to Gigg Lane and set their stall out to be hard to break down. We didn’t panic though and played our normal passing game until we were able to break them down with some lovely football and clinical finishing. Once we got the first goal and started moving them around the pitch more and more, I thought it was over as a contest.

It was a real team effort on the day and my only concern was the few injuries we picked up, with Charlie Anderson, Kyle Jacobs and Adam Jones all having to be replaced. I’m hoping all three will be in contention for Saturday’s home game against Nantwich after a week’s rest and rehabilitation.

Scoring five after the long midweek trip to Whitby was particularly pleasing. That long trip to the North Yorkshire coast is always tough, as the players have to leave work early then battle hard for 90 minutes and don’t get home until the early hours and then it’s back to work again the next day. Winning 1-0 against a well-organised Whitby side was a great result for us.

The Nantwich game this Saturday is a special day for the club as we’ve designated it North Manchester Day and local people from Moston and the rest of North Manchester will be able to attend the game for free on production of a special voucher at the turnstiles. Being a north Manchester lad myself, I’m really looking forward to the day. I think it’s great that we’re giving local people in an area that will hopefully soon be our home the opportunity to sample a home game at FC United. I know that our supporters will make any newcomers very welcome.

The way we have been playing so far this season, with goals in every game and the team unbeaten, it will certainly be well worth making the trip to Gigg Lane on Saturday to watch us in action. If you’ve never been before, or have not been for a while and have been thinking of coming back to see us, then it would be great to see you at the Nantwich game. I can’t promise that we’ll score five again but we’ll be giving it a good go as always and with football, you just never know what might happen.

Read Margy’s column and other FC United news and views in the North and East Manchester Advertiser every Thursday.