ON a warm winter’s morning, we crossed the Pennines for the first of our Yorkshire double promotion battles.

A slight diversion to the Church Inn at Uppermill got the day off to a cracking start with proper home-made food and beer from their own micro brewery.

After two home wins, the general consensus was two draws from the next two away matches would be acceptable.

As the injuries and suspensions mounted up, these trips to Bradford City and Sheffield United would be a real test of the character and squad.

Tom Thorpe and Dean Moxey filled the gaps left by Jay Spearing and Andrew Taylor.

Bradford City went at Wanderers from the start and their fans were singing “Parky, Parky what’s the score?” as they raced into a two-goal lead through their new signing from Carlisle, Charlie Wyke.

They were all over Wanderers in a dreadful first half in which we appeared disorganised.

We were lucky the match wasn’t out of sight by half time.

Nobody would have put money on us getting something out of this match at that stage.

A damage limitation job looked the best we could do. But the half time team talk brought some organisation to our play and when James Henry came on, he inspired the fightback.

Captain David Wheater was the man of the match and man of the moment when he fired in the first.

Then ‘Goal Machine’ Gary Madine headed a superb equaliser from Henry’s cross.

Now it was our turn to sing “Parky, Parky, what’s the score?”

It could have gone either way after that but it was honours even in the end and a well-deserved and valuable point for us.

With 58 points on the board, we can safely sing “We are staying up”. The first target of stopping the slide down the EFL has been achieved.

Off the field, the drive towards financial stability is continuing and the playing side has gone so well under Phil Parkinson and his management team that promotion is now a feasible target.

It is not going to be easy and there are going to be 15 tough battles ahead to be fought with our already-stretched squad. However, with the character shown by the squad and recent additions to the cause, I’m beginning to believe we can achieve the impossible dream.