AS we congratulate Barnet on their success in winning the Nationwide Conference championship, we can reflect on recent seasons which have seen Chester, Yeovil and Rushden & Diamonds take the title.

We all expect a blip during the course of a season but one thing all of them had was consistency.

Last season, we put Chester under tremendous pressure at the end with our 11 straight wins. We expected them to drop points in crucial games and we were ready to cash in. But they were able to stay with it and had a wonderful run.

All of the sides have had good organisation, particularly defensively. They have been strong and not given much away. If you are keeping clean sheets, as we are at the moment, then you only need to pop in one goal and it's another three points.

They have had goal scorers as well. In Barnet's case it's been Giuliano Grazioli, Chester had Daryl Clare and Yeovil had Kevin Gall all coming in with more than 20 goals. Last season we had Steve Guinan who knocked in 29 goals and that was one of the reasons why we went so close.

With three games to go for everyone, it's all really coming to a climax. I've never known a season like it with so many teams still in contention at this stage.

I'm not sure whether it is easier to play the sides which are in the bottom half of the table who can relax and enjoy their football or sides like ourselves who are in contention.

But we have, on paper, three particularly tough games to finish with - Halifax away, Woking away and then Accrington at home.

Given the disappointment of missing out last year and the loss of some players, we have had another tremendous season. The current squad settled in very quickly and formed a decent side again.

It was always highly unlikely that we would hit the high spots of last year in scoring so many goals as teams would respect what we had and concentrate on defending much more than they did last season against us. We have witnessed that on a number of occasions at Edgar Street.

But, deep down, I am very pleased with the way things have gone and still believe that we have the possibility of making it a very memorable season.

We have just got to be in those play-offs. It proved last year that it does not matter whether you finish second or fifth. Once the play-offs start, everyone is equal again.