U's 3 - 0 Grays Athletic; Danny Crow-s and blues woe grows

When carving out a reputation as a football hard-man, it must help if you have a suitable name.

If you're called Nobby or Vinny for example, you already sound a little bit intimidating before you've even started, whereas if you go by the sobriquet Julian or Jeremy then you're fighting an uphill battle.

So fair play to Grays boss Julian Dicks for striding over that hurdle and making a name for himself as one of the most brutal players to grace the English game in recent years. It probably helps that he has the dead-eyed stare of a lord of the underworld - I could quite imagine him arriving at the Abbey on Saturday in a gondola made entirely of skulls.

Seeing as they're bottom of the table, you would hope Julian already knows that his team are rubbish, and if he doesn't I wouldn't want to be the one to tell him. That United managed to lose to such a shambolic outfit earlier in the season beggars belief, and there was little doubt what the result of Saturday's game would be after Carlos Crow broke the deadlock in what was an extremely dull first half.

There may have been the odd occasion last term when I was a little bit disparaging to Crowy on this blog, questioning whether he had it in him to score goals on a regular basis. But I did always have faith that he would produce the goods eventually, and his form this season, in terms of the hard work he was doing before Christmas and the goals he has been scoring since, must make him a strong contender for player of the season.

And now that we're definitely safe, you would hope Lingy will be opening contract negotiations in a bid to tie down the former Norwich man for next year. Ditto the other players who could be in demand, namely Gleeson and the ever-impressive Brian Saah.

Gleese will be missing for tonight's trip to out of form Kidderminster, where a win will send us into the unheard of territory of the top ten. Good times.