Kick off time....

So that's the summer over with then. The serious stuff has now begun !



Milers new boy Raynes

The final week of pre season was met with some fantastic news. Someone actually wanted to take Andy Hughes off our hands. Sorry did i hear that right. Someone wants Andy Hughes. After rubbing my eyes for a few minutes to make sure i'd read that right, a big smile spread across my face. It couldn't be true could it ? Well yes it could. The club in question being Charlton, Alan Knill must have been chuckling as he drove home from Glanford Park. A big earner that never really showed a lot at Glanford Park, aside from a fantastic debut performance many fans were not sad to see him leave. On the eve of the new season Michael Raynes also left the club, an undisclosed fee taking the former Stockport Captain to the Don Valley Stadium. A bit more of a shock than Hughes being allowed to leave, Alan Knill has since said that players had to leave the club if he seriously wanted players to come in. You'd hope that the money saved from the wages of Hughes and Raynes would be put towards at least one striker coming into the building. One player that we have seemingly missed out on is Blackburn defender Gavin Gunning, an on/off move to the SPL seems to be his port of call after impressing somewhat in claret and blue !

And so to Wycombe.



A strange trip down with banter flying from all angles, in a car containing four well travelled football fans. A half way stop, including a couple of maccy d's double cheese burgers and a few neanderthal Leeds fans in the car park let you know that football was really back. Even stranger was the half time conversation i shared with BBC Breakfast presenter Bill Turnbull and football presenter Lizzie Greenwood-Hughes on the virtues of the football league show, beta that if you can for randomness !

Jimm Ryan

You really can't beat the feeling of walking into a football ground you've never been to before. Wycombe's Adams Park taking me up to the 80 mark, 75 of them being following the Iron, not quite the 92 yet but a few more this season will push me ever closer ! Also a strange feeling walking out of a press room and up the tunnel onto the pitch to disappointed faces who think it's a player coming. I'm still waiting to sign my first autograph for a young fan who thinks i'm a random footballer, i just don't have the heart to do it, one day i'm sure i'll feel like a devil and give it a go !

The game was a little bit of a worry, a poor pre-season at best left you hoping that we'd seen the worst. No-one knew if star man Michael O'Connor would line up in midfield, who would start up front or whether the previous weeks defence would turn up. The minute the team sheets were handed out with the name O'Connor in our midfield i was quietly confident that we would do pretty well.



Josh Lillis in goal is looking more confident by the game, even if he does look a little hesitant still whilst comanding his area at corners and set pieces. The back four of Eddie Nolan, Michael Nelson, Paul Reid and Andrew Wright looks as good a back four as we've had for a while. Both full backs are equally adept at attacking and defending, Nolan put in some decent crosses from the left in support of Jimmy Ryan and Andrew Wright looks to have gained more confidence now he looks to be first choice right back (at least untill Cliff comes back). The midfield looked a good attacking unit. Togwell and O'Connor look comfortable playing alongside each other, both knows what the other man brings to the pitch after playing together for a good spell of last season. Mark Duffy looks like he will flourish at this level. The step up from Morecambe to the Championship was a big one, but League One looks like being a good playground for the tricky winger. Jimmy Ryan looks the player we missed for much of the last couple of seasons. During saturdays game he brought back memories of Lee Hodges for me. I suppose the comparison is warranted, they are both small players who look like they are more than happy with the ball at their feet and are at home running at the opposition back four, i think he could be the signing of the season, not just for us but for the whole of League One. The forwards, Jordan Robertson and Chris Dagnall looked lively. Dagnall in particular having one of his best games in an Iron shirt. Robertson will get better and better with the more minutes he plays.



Mark Duffy



Anyway back to the game. Right from the kick off the Iron poured forward looking for the seasons first goal. Mark Duffy showed fantastic skill on the wing, beating full back  Andy Sandell time and again, both with sheer pace and the odd touvh of trickery. It must be so frustrating putting in cross after cross only to see the chances go begging time and again. Robertson being the worst culprit early in the half, an inch perfect cross volleyed high over the bar from the un-marked front man. You get the feeling that if he had scored that effort the team would have gone on to score four or five. When he finally scores his first proper goal (pre-season doesn't count for me) for the club i think he'll go on to score quite a few in a claret and blue shirt. Not to be left out Jimmy Ryan was also working well down the left flank, linking up well with Nolan and providing a lot of quality balls to his team mates. It came as somewhat of a surprise that Wycombe opened the scoring on 24 minutes. The goal came massively against the run of play, the home team scoring from a corner swung in by Scott Donnelly, beating centre half Paul Reid to the ball in the box. It was a small worry that the heads would drop just like last season, but they didn't. This seemed more like an inconvenience to an Iron team determined to prove a point at this level under new(ish) Manager Knill. It came as no surprise that the scores were level at half time. The teams pressure finally paid dividends but from an unlikely source. Centre half Michael Nelson stooping to steer home a bullet header from a Michael O'Connor corner, before celebrating by kissing the tattoo's on his well inked arm and jumping into O'Connor's arms. The look of relief on Knill's face told the whole story. Finally the pressure had paid off. It's strange to note that a centre half has scored a goal on the first day of the season in three of the last four years. Izzy Iriekpen at Charlton, Rob Jones at Reading and Nelson at Wycombe, does that mean that we use all our summer training to get that one set piece goal and then don't get any more all season ? I'll let you decide that one !

O'Connor pulls the strings

Anyway. The second half comtinued much the same as the first half finished. Apart from a couple of hopeful penalty appeals from the Chairboys and a shot from the evergreen Gareth Ainsworth that hit the post the newly promoted team never looked like getting the win. The Iron's midfield continued to dominate. Ryan never seemed to be stood still and always wanted the ball, Duffy continued to terrorise, Togwell broke up the play at will and Michael O'Connor looked like he'd not missed a second of action, spraying balls around the pitch at ease. For a man that was a doubt to even play a part in the game Northern Irishman O'Connor played the full 90 minutes and never missed a step. The only thing i could hold against him was the shot that trickled straight to keeper Nikki Bull (who has got to be Wycombe's star man for the season, onthis display anyway) set him up for what looked a certain winning goal. Speaking of winning goals...i nearly jumped off my pitchside stool when Chris Dagnall's header hit the back of the net in the dying seconds....only for a linesmans flag to cruely deny him his moment of celebration. After seeing it in pictures and on television i still can't see how he was offside.

At the end of the day i was expecting a struggle and a long afternoon. What we got was a good performance, i honestly think if that had been our fourth of fifth game of the season we'd have had a hatfull of goals, that little bit more match sharpness and we'll be a force to be reckoned with at this level. The small matter of a striker coming into the building is still a small worry for me, someone needs to come in before the transfer window slams shut in a few weeks time, with Garry Thompson and Bobby Grant as the only real attacking options on the bench, along with Andy Barcham still to come, you get the feeling that an injury to a forward could de-rail us somewhat.

On now to visit Accrington Stanley (who are they ?) in the Carling Cup. Another ground to tick off the list for me. Lets hope for another good performance, a few goals and, hopefully, a big team away from home in the next round. Fingers crossed !