It was a season of three parts, rubbish start (at the start of December and after a 4-0 home defeat by Darlington we were level on points with Mansfield and Wrexham), really good middle (something like 2 defeats in 20 odd games) culminating in a Wembley final and the moral winners (we were the only legitimate club in the final!) of the JPT for 2007/08 and an appalling finish of 8 straight defeats including the obligatory defeat at Spotland!. We played our best football during the start of the season but, couldn’t buy a win. As things got desperate Mr Buckley changed his tactics to 3-5-2 and became difficult to beat until the Wembley game. Once the play offs were out of reach everyone at the club (including the fans) seemed to give up. So overall a disappointing season saved by the JPT run.

Has your club's Summer activities lived up to expectations?

Just about. We’ve signed 4 players, 3 of which are defenders (Stockdale from Tranmere, Hope from Wrexham and Heywood from Brentford) and a replacement for Karen Toner (Llewlyn from Wrexham who by the sounds of Wrexham and Norwich fans is a Welsh version of Toner, capable but mostly lazy!). There were hopes of another striker signing but that looks unlikely at the moment. Pre season results have been completely as expected we’ve lost at Corby and Farsley! Season ticket prices stayed the same but sales dropped to be expected after 2 seasons finishing in the bottom half of the 4th division.

The optimist in me says top 3 as we proved last season we are capable of doing well in this division. Buckley is slowly getting together a squad that can play the type of football he expects and the young players in the squad now have a season and half of experience. The realist in me says 11th as we don’t score enough goals and still look capable of giving away daft goals and snatching defeat from the jaws of a draw. There is also a very good chance that the young players have already reached their potential and won’t get any better. Wherever we finish I expect that we will remain the experts at turning attack into defence and occasionally get praised by an a victorious opposition manager for the way we tried to play (this has been the case in just about every season that Buckley has been in charge)!

At 17:00 on the 9th August I expect Rochdale to be top of the league and Karen Toner to be the league’s top scorer! Judging by what I saw of Rochdale last season I would expect you to be pushing for the play offs again this season however you will have Toner for a full season so I’ll say an unlucky 8th.