Gary Smith, NCISA No it's not an article on the recent St Andrews affair with a South African winner taking home the claret jug! After looking at the opening weekend results of the Npower Championship last weekend it really shows what a difficult and evenly matched division this can be.

Gary Smith, NCISA

No it's not an article on the recent St Andrews affair with a South African winner taking home the claret jug!

After looking at the opening weekend results of the Npower Championship last weekend it really shows what a difficult and evenly matched division this can be. The old clich� “there's nothing between the sides” really appears to be evident from day one.

The Championship throws up the strangest results time and time again and proves that you have to be on top of your game week in week out to achieve your aims in possibly the most unpredictable league in the world.

Fancied sides in the bookmakers eyes at least Middlesbrough, Nottingham Forest, Leicester, Bristol City, Leeds, Reading and of course ourselves all starting with first day defeats?! Not too many would have predicted that!

Twin that with teams that are so called “certain relegation candidates” Scunthorpe, Watford, Millwall and Crystal Palace securing fantastic wins, bizarre!

This week already Steve Coppell has quit his post as manager at Bristol City, Leicester City have found considerable investment from Thailand (yet our search continues, because no one wants to invest in a Championship side?!), the team from south of the border on the verge of signing Jason Scotland and Ross McCormack (two prolific championship strikers) and Hull securing a deal for Slovenia's World Cup captain Robert Koren. It appears the second tier of English football is certainly an interesting and topsy turvy world.

Briefly touching on our opening day performance, I think it is evident to see that we can score goals and that our problems could be potentially at the other end. Let's hope that the defensive side of the team will bed down as there was always going to be teething problems with six new faces in the starting line up.

I would like to give a special mention to our ex-loanee Martin Taylor who I thought was superb in marshalling a very young and inexperienced Watford side who at times played some good football, what a shame he never got to wear the famous Canary yellow for a longer period of time - a class act at this level.

Good to see a convincing win on Tuesday night after going a goal behind, hopefully this will give the boys a boost before this weekend's trip to sunny Scunny! Credit again to Paul Lambert and his team for assembling a competitive squad and utilising what funds he has in my eyes particularly well.

Finance in all walks of life at the moment is testing one and all. We really need to secure investment a club of our size and stature deserves to keep our club moving forward. Hopefully this will be addressed in the very near future because twin that with the feel good factor currently around the club this is far too good an opportunity to miss and really could be a special time to follow the boys in yellow....