IT HAS been a very unusual last six weeks to say the least.

Since the beginning of February when we lost 5-4 at Rochdale we have played eight games and seven of them have been away from home.

That result at Spotland was strange enough, but the run of fixtures has, I would suggest, been even more unreal.

In all my 30-odd years involved in football I have never known anything like it.

Just as unusual is the fact that we played the top two teams, Luton and Plymouth, in successive matches before we lost on Saturday to Cheltenham, a team who could quite easily finish in the top three.

That defeat at Whaddon Road meant we have now dropped back to 23rd place in the table, just one off the bottom.

Of course, it is not where we want to be but I would suggest because of the number of games we have in hand on everybody else we are in a false position.

As I have said before, I'm not interested in the teams below us, only the teams that are above us.

We have at least three, sometimes four, games in hand on most teams and if we were to win them all we would climb well into the top half of the table.

Of course, that is a tall order but even if we were to pick up four, five or six points we could climb well clear of the foot of the table.

And while we may have lost our last three games, if you look back at our last eight games we have won our only home game, beating Hartlepool 1-0, and picked up seven points from our seven away games.

If we had drawn all those away games we would have been delighted - winning at home and drawing away is, as they say, promotion form.

But it wouldn't have got us any more points.

Adding to the unreality of it all is the fact that since the start of the year, we have played only four league games at home, little more than one a month.

Interestingly enough, we have won two and drawn two so are at least unbeaten at home in the league in 2002.

The flipside of all this is the fact we now have 11 games to play in five weeks and having played so many games away from home we have just four away-days left and seven home games to look forward to.

Many people will say having so many home games to look forward to should be an advantage.

But it means we have to cram in almost a quarter of our fixtures in pretty much the last month of the season and is yet another indication of the unreal run of fixtures we are experiencing. As I said earlier, I have never known anything like it.

The fact we have to play 11 games in five weeks is bad enough but with seven home games to play the pressure is on and with such a small squad at the moment it will certainly be an interesting task.

As far as I'm concerned, the crucial games in the run-in for us are the ones that have had to be rearranged - Exeter, Bristol Rovers, Carlisle and Lincoln. How we fare in those games will be important and will give us a chance to catch up on those above us.

Of course, there is nothing we can do about the backlog. It has been brought about by a mixture of our FA Cup run and the fact we have had so many postponements.

But it is certainly not ideal. We would much prefer to play one game at home followed by an away game but we don't live in an ideal world.

Nor is it ideal for the fans.

We have our first home game for quite a while on Saturday when Darlington are the visitors and with it being something of a derby match it should mean we have quite a big crowd.

The fact we have not played much football at Bootham Crescent means a lot of people will be itching to get out and watch some football.

However, so many home games will obviously put a strain on the purse strings of many fans and they may decide to pick and choose their games.

If we can win all of our home games that may encourage them to keep coming. The more help we get in the coming weeks the better.

Updated: 10:07 Thursday, March 14, 2002