Who would have thought we would have seen what we did on Saturday before a ball was kicked? Usually a trip to Wycombe is a pretty tough one to make, and I thought coming away with a point would have been a decent return.

As it turned out, only 28 seconds were on the clock when City – and Jack Aitchison – opened their accounts for the season with a low attempt that beat the keeper to his left. Only minutes later, City got a second from a corner that floated into the box and from the resulting melee Will Aimson tapped it home to make it 2-0 after only 4 minutes. Had we peaked too soon or was there more to come? To cap off an action-packed 10 minutes, City won a penalty but sadly Sam Nombe’s effort was saved by the Wycombe keeper.

From a personal perspective, I didn’t make it to Wycombe on Saturday due to family commitments and as a result had a barbers’ appointment booked at 2.45pm – not thinking I’d miss much in the first 20 minutes as it’d be nearer 3:20pm by the time I got home. How wrong I was – maybe if I’d stayed at the barbers it would have been an even more convincing win than it was!

From what I saw though, all in all, Saturday was a solid defensive performance, with special mention to Alex Hartridge who gave everything. The win was sealed by James Scott 7 minutes from time with a superb strike into the roof of the net. I mentioned last week that he’d had a bit of a mixed reception over pre-season, with some seeing potential and others not so much. I think that goal will give him a huge confidence boost going forward though, so hopefully it’ll be the first of many for him this season.

Special mention to Vil Sinisalo for his long kick that led to that goal – over the years we’ve had many a keeper that has seemed to struggle with their kicking but his was absolutely spot on for me on Saturday. As I’ve stated previously, Tom Carroll looks like he’ll be an important cog in the clockwork as we navigate through this season – of course it’s a rollercoaster and I’m just enjoying the ride. It would be nice to finish 3rd though, but alas there’s another 45 league games to tackle between now and the end of April.

Have my expectations changed after Saturday? Well one swallow doesn’t make a summer, but my original hope of a top-half finish looks doable if we can keep churning out performances like that, but who knows what the future holds?

Not only are we progressing on the pitch, but we seem to be progressing well off it too. I was lucky enough to be invited to take part in the Supporters’ Round Table meeting last week, and it’s clear to see just how far we’ve come as a club behind the scenes, with knowledgable people providing their skills and expertise to our club. Talking to many at the event, as I’ve stated in a previous blog, I’m amazed just how far we’ve come as a club over recent years, not just the last 20 of Trust Ownership, with those I spoke to in agreement.

What spoke volumes to me is that the majority of people in attendance were very happy with the direction the club is heading in at present – any ideas presented to the club representatives were more ‘nice to haves’ than actual gripes with how the club is being run, and it’s great to have representatives at the club who are always striving to make the match day experience better and not standing still. It’s an exciting time to be a Grecian that’s for sure!

Onto Crawley in the League Cup at SJP tomorrow night, where I expect there may be a few changes with thoughts towards the visit of Blackpool on Saturday. Crawley got a decent win over Bradford at the weekend, especially considering their current off-field issues, so despite the wholesale changes that they’ve made, it’ll be no walk in the park that’s for sure. A cup run is always welcome though, so a win in this one puts us in the hat for the second round at the end of the month, where a number of Prem clubs start to enter the competition. Despite the likelihood of Prem clubs playing a second string in this competition, it would be great to pit our wits against sides higher up the pyramid to gauge where we are and of course an attempt at a giantkilling!

See you at the park tomorrow night. UTC.