CONFIDENCE is soaring as Town prepare for tomorrow's first home game of the season against Chesterfield with keeper Ian Gray on the mend.
Fears were that Gray had suffered a recurrence of the broken hand which kept him out for nine months during Saturday's excellent 3-2 opening-day win at Stockport County.
Manager Peter Jackson was happy to report today, however, that Gray's left hand appears to be just bruised and he hasn't given up hope of him starting against Roy McFarland's raiders (7.45).
"We were all worried when Ian came off, but the bruising looked to have come out when we trained yesterday and I'd say he is 50-50 for tomorrow's game," said Jackson today.
"It could be a case of waiting until the very last minute to make a decision on him, but at least the injury doesn't seem to be as bad as we first thought, there don't appear to be any breaks and we'll see how he feels over the next 24 hours."
Jackson was delighted by a three-point haul to launch the Coca Cola League I season, especially as his team were 2-1 down with only three minutes to go.
But Andy Booth and substitute Pawel Abbott - seen slotting the winner in our main picture - scored to send 3,000 travelling fans into a frenzy and Town into fourth place in the embryo table.
"It wasn't one of our best performances, but we stuck to the task and showed a hell of a lot of character," said Jackson.
"Psychologically it was important not to get beaten because people seem to think we're not good enough to get points away from home, but to win it like we did was tremendous.
"It's a long, hard season ahead and we are not going to get carried away after one win, but if we can make the Galpharm Stadium our fortress again, we are going to be right up there."
Jackson added: "The fans were just awesome on Saturday and I hope we get as many as possible down tomorrow night for what is our first home game since we won promotion.
"I think everyone was as disappointed as me with the two goals we conceded after Tony Carss had given us the lead with such a wonderful free-kick, but the lads always believed we could turn it around and that's what they did.
"I thought Chris Brandon and Pawel Abbott both looked sharp when they went on and Andy Booth was fantastic.
""There were a lot of positives from the game, but the biggest of all was the three points and now we want to add a home win to keep the momentum going."
Chesterfield opened their campaign with a fine 3-1 home win against Brentford - former Town striker Wayne Allison netting the first - and they stand second in the League I table to Colchester.
