Bristol Rovers v Macclesfield

I'm back to the Mem tomorrow for the fixture against Gary Simpson's Silkmen.

I remember that Simpson told me last season after a game at Hereford that survival in League Two would "like swimming the channel". We the club managed that and Simpson is now looking to build on last year's effort.

I noticed a few weeks ago that they also have a lad called George Donnelly playing for them now. Donnelly is a striker who was turfed out of Liverpool as a kid and told he wouldn't make the grade. After a period packing lorries in the rag trade, his dad persuaded him to get of the couch and go and get a game for Skelmersdale United where he went on to score something like 36 goals in forty-odd games.

Plymouth then picked him up, but in the financial turmoil that was Argyle at that time, he became a bit of a victim of their financial woes and was farmed out on loan to Luton and Stockport before finally signing for Fleetwood Town in January of last year. In September he signed for Macc and has now scored five goals in twenty outings.

I first saw Donnelly when he scored the winner for Stockport away to Oxford and remember thinking what a decent player he was. A bit of a poacher. It's good to see him back in the league and re-building his career and I'll bet he's glad his old man kicked him off that couch!

In the last two of games Macclesfield have picked up a couple of draws and stopped the rot following an eight game losing streak.

However, Donnelly and his mates will come up against a Rovers team that is starting to believe in itself under Mark McGhee and coach Shaun North and will be looking to continue the form that has seen them lose only one game in eight.

It appears that I'm in a minority of one when it comes the promotion chances of the home side this season - and understandably so given what has gone on there - but , you know, I can't shake off the memory of the amazing run that took them to promotion to League One under Paul Trollope a few seasons ago.

There are only fourteen games to go and the club are eleven points adrift of the play-offs, but a good run will unsettle a few of the clubs above them and so, who knows?