Notts picked up their first win of the New Year last night with a 1-0 victory at home to free-falling oldham Athletic, to move up to 12th in the table.

When the line-up was announced around an hour before kick-off, it's fair to say there were some mixed opinions regarding Enoch Showumni being given a chance to impress up front, although it shouldn't have been too much of a surprise with Zoko being suspended. I was somewhat dissapointed to read so many negative comments about the guy prior to the match, with few people giving him any hope of making an impact. I said on Twitter that I hoped he'd score to silence some of the doubters - he does after all, wear the famous black and white shirt, so we should be behind him!

So what happened? He went and got his first goal for the club on 35 minutes. In my opinion, this was one of the best worked goals from Notts we've seen this season. Boucaud and Campbell-Ryce combined to set up Enoch for a tap-in. A goal is a goal, it gets a money off his back, and I really wouldnt be surprised to see him go and grab a few more now. We certainly need him to!

The first half, Colin Slater described as some of the best football Notts had played this season, and for once I felt rather calm listening to the game, although the longer we went without scoring the more I began to wonder about it coming back to bite us on the backside, so it was a relief as much as anything when we got that first goal.

Second half sounded somewhat scrappy. Oldham appeared to play with a bit of tempo (I reitterate the phrase "a bit") which had been absent from their first half performance.

The latics came close to an equaliser middway through the second half when Matt Smith saw his shot cleared off the line by Gary Liddle. At this point, my commentary actually cut out briefly, and when it came back on the first words I heard were "equaliser for the visitors", by heart sank. Thankfully, Dean Yates went on to say what a brilliant clearence off the line it was by Liddle. To me, it felt like a second goal - phew!

The longer the second half went on the more nervous I became listening on Magpie Player, and you could sense the tension around Meadow Lane aswel but oldham failed to ever really test Bart Bialkowski and on the whole the Magpies deserves the 3 points.

I must mention the 80 Oldham fans who made the trip aswel. They were not exacly vocal, and it's easy to dismiss their support as "crap", but credit to those who did make that journey, at this time of the year, in this weather with their team in their current poor form - dedication of the highest order.

Something else that will have gave many home fans something to smile about was the presence of Lee Hughes at Meadow Lane. I suppose it shouldnt really be much of a surprise given that he played for Oldham prior to his time at Notts. Still, it was great to see him there with that big smile. I think we'll see plenty of more of Lee at the Lane in the years to come. It seems that the club found a place in his heart just as he did in the fans'.

Hopefully his presence will put to bed rumours of a bust up with Keith Curle which led to his departure or any ill feeling towards the club. If that was the case he wouldn't have been allowed pitchside.

So on the whole then a succesfull night for the Magpies. An important 3 points, a first win since November and perhaps more importantly a win on home soil.

After the weekend's game with Sheffield United I said we needed to use that result as a springboard to get back to winning ways and get some confidence back into the side, and I suppose, get a feel-good factor back into the fans again. We've started doing that. We're 6 points off the play-offs, with 2 games in hand and plenty of winnable games coming up. I think we can soon get back up into the mix if we can string some results together. We havent yet won 3 games in a row this season, now would be a good time to change that statistic. But lets not get carried away and take things a game at a time.

Russel Slade's Leyton Orient are next on the agenda. A game against a Russel Slade side is never easy, but Orient - like ourselves have been pretty inconsistant this season. It took them weeks to get their first win of the season, then they went and won 8 in a row; It really is a funny old game...

Still, as ever, I'm confident the lads can go there and get 3 points.

COME ON YOU PIES