FA CARLSBERG Vase fever hits the Town again this weekend as we look forward with anticipation to our tie against East London side Barking, writes Tommy Saunders.

Barking are top of the Ryman League Second Division by a country mile and will give us an incredibly tough match.

That being said, our recent form is very encouraging and it will be a very tight game. It is not a draw we would have picked and I'm certain that they will feel exactly the same way.

We are travelling up on Friday afternoon and thanks go to Les Weir for organising the accommodation.

On Friday night we will hopefully be joined for dinner by Tommy Sampson and a few of his former Deal Town players, who beat us in the Vase final at Wembley in May.

It will be great to see them again and it will hopefully inspire the players to produce a great performance the next day.

Bedtime reading

Tommy is writing a book about the pair of us and our clubs' runs in the Vase last season. He has done this sort of thing before and it should be a great read and a must for all Chippenham Town fans.

Last weekend we had an excellent 2-0 victory over Hallen in the Les Phillips Cup. This followed our 2-0 win over Welton in the Screwfix Direct League Premier Division on Wednesday night.

Clean sheets

We have now had five consecutive clean sheets and I am hopeful that I have followed up my October manager of the month award by winning the November award as well.

Due to the unusual weather conditions, leading to just 63 league games being completed throughout the whole of November (1.6 average matches per team), the manager of the month and team of the month awards have been held in abeyance until the management committee meeting on Thursday December 14. It would be the first time I have won the award consecutively and my thanks go to Colin "Nobby" Bush for keeping the lads fit in the bad weather.

Nobby is a great asset to the club and does a fabulous job for the team.

Tough cup draw

In the last 16 of the Les Phillips Cup we have been drawn at home to Yeovil Reserves. Could we have hand picked it any harder? That being said we are just pleased to still be in with a shout.

Congratulations go to my local side Corsham Town for their fabulous victory over Melksham Town on Saturday.

How does the song go: "I never felt more like singing the blues when the Chippenham win and "

Enough of that, but it must have been a great night on Saturday for all the Chippenham fans. Apparently Melksham missed dozens of chances but Corsham still scored three and rightly must earn this week's performance of the week award.

Finally thanks to you all for reading this column. It is only meant as a bit of fun.

I hope we do the business for you all this week and, remember, that there is only one BLUE ARMY.