Top of the League

I should be at the funeral of a Royal Oak and Valley regular today but Jury Service prevents me from attending, so Mrs Peeps will go in my stead. It won't prevent me from making the short trip to Leytonstone tomorrow to watch Charlton look to preserve their 100% start to the League One campaign.

What a difference it makes to be winning and sitting at the top end of the table. I scoured the fixtures calculating the 'what-ifs' yesterday and can see no reason why we can't hope to be sitting top a point or two clear come 5pm on Saturday. Just imagine, Phil Parkinson might hope to be lifting the Manager of the Month award and then I will be able to say "told you so." OK, so I'll have to eat my words and acknowledge the good luck of not being able to afford to sack him. Yes, it is ridiculously early in the season to be getting too excited and we do have a limited squad, particularly at centre-half and up front. However, Parky has acknowledged this and we have to live in hope that a couple of decent acquisitions here might give us the resilience we need to deal with the inevitable injuries.

There is every reason to believe we can get a third result at Leyton Orient tomorrow. They may have started with two away wins (including the League Cup), but they slipped to a home defeat to Oldham on Saturday and it was their home form that let them down last season when they lost an amazing 12 times.

With a loud and bouyant support of 3000, we will have half of the crowd and should be able to turn it into more of a home game. The players were desperate to impress at Victoria Park and I can see more of the same tomorrow night. Scott McGleish lurks as a potential nemesis, but we should go there with enough of a buzz to get a result. If we can do that, then Walsall at home looks like the perfect opportunity to cement our bright start and establish ourselves firmly at the top of League One.

Confidence should be sky-high at that point and we may get to see some of the things that go with it - players trying things they wouldn't ordinarily, long-range goals, referring decisions going in your favour and other sides showing you respect. All things I've nearly forgotten. In mentioning referrees, I ought to add that Mr Boyeson had a first-class game on Saturday. I can barely remember a referree who played advantage as well as he did and he got just about every decision correct. Who says they are all rubbish in the lower leagues?

The rapidly-becoming-farcical takeover could yet give us a shot in the arm although I suspect our bright start to the season isn't helping the deal go through as expectations on valuation may be shifting again. If it doesn't happen, we have to pray that the financial pressures on the existing Board don't lead to a forced sale of a key asset at New Year. It's not hard to envisage an offer we couldn't refuse for Nicky Bailey from a bigger club come the next transfer window.

In the meantime, let's enjoy the feel-good factor and hope we can wallow for a lot longer.

RIP Linda.