IT'S interesting to note that the pundits still don't see us as the principal challengers to Chester for the Conference title.

Most of them seem to see Shrewsbury as the threat but I think that an important factor now will be strength in depth.

Last Sunday, including the non-contract players Andy Wells and Nick Harrhy, we had 22 players in for training so now suddenly, with the return of Andy Tretton and Steve Guinan, there's a look of strength, depth - and character - about the squad.

I've said often enough that if your first 18 or 19 are good enough then you don't need 24 or 25 and, with what has been described as a smallish squad, you get a close-knit feel about the place.

And having around 10 of the players living locally makes a difference, too.

My opinions on the challengers for the play-off places haven't changed and I still think that Morecambe are a threat. I see that Graham Westley has won the Conference's manager-of-the-month award for January and Stevenage have now moved into the top half of the table. It has surprised many people that they are not doing better considering the investment that has been made in the team.

Chester are now reported as losing £65,000 each month and Exeter's monthly loss is £35,000. If we lost either of those figures in a season we'd be in trouble!

The fixture planners haven't helped us much financially with no game scheduled at Edgar Street between January 3 and this Saturday. During that time we've had to pay out around £75,000 and the only income that we've had, apart from a steady flow of tickets sales for the Shrewsbury match, is our share of the gate for the Trophy game at Exeter which came to £6,000.

Fortunately we've had some good crowds this season, and the sale of Paul Parry, but in a normal year going five weeks without a home game would have led to serious cash flow problems.

When the game I was going to watch on Saturday was called off, I took the chance to go down to watch Paul play for Cardiff against Nottingham Forest.

Although he was taken off with about 15 minutes to go, I thought he played very well and can do even better when he gets more self-belief. There were times when he beat one player but when he was with us he would have gone on rather than looking to pass as he did on Saturday.

There was some banter with Cardiff fans who told me how delighted they were to have Paul at Ninian Park to which my reply was we've got seven or eight more like him at Hereford!

Most of our players' contracts are up at the end of the season but we'll hope to be announcing soon that contract extensions have been agreed.

The first to agree a year's extension has been Tony James and we hope that others will follow.