As you may have seen I was named as a substitute for our FA Cup game against Swindon at the weekend.

It was the first time this season, but it did not come as a surprise because the gaffer told me beforehand that as well as wanting to give me a rest he wanted to look at how Paulo Wanchope and Darren Huckerby performed together.

He felt being a substitute would make me fresher for our league game against Norwich on Saturday and he reassured me that no matter what the score was or how well the other two played I would be in the starting line-up.

I also wasn't too concerned because I know Paulo will be missing for the three or four weeks shortly when he goes to play for Costa Rica.

The game itself was really strange. When you are a substitute you have to get up every now and then to keep warm.

But every time I went to run down the touchline the fans thought I was coming on and started singing my name.

It was brilliant but bizarre at the same time. I was running up and down and stretching and they were shouting and I was thinking 'What do I do?'

I waved and clapped a few times but thought to myself I'm better off on the field where I can concentrate on the game.

When you are playing you don't realise what the fans are doing so much because you have to block it out and focus on your game but when you're on the sidelines you hear everything and it's a bit embarrassing.

In the end the manager brought me on for the final 12 minutes of the match. I had been thinking just before that if got on I knew I would get a chance to score and I did.

I received a cross from Darren Huckerby and with the 'keeper going one way I struck the ball the other. But the ball hit his trailing leg and I was absolutely gutted to see it come back out and their defender clear it.

We won the game 2-0 and in the draw for the fourth round we were paired with Ipswich.

They are one of our bogey teams. Last year as well as doing the double over us in the Premiership they also knocked us out of the League Cup.

However, they are a side that I seem to score against so I'm just hoping I can again when we play them in a couple of weeks.

We play Norwich on Saturday in the League and that will not be an easy game. They are going well in the First Division and held Premiership Chelsea to a goalless draw in the FA Cup on Saturday.

I saw the highlights and they raised their game against the Blues and I would expect them to do so again against us.

When we played them at their place in August we lost 2-0. We were playing fairly well and I thought we could have taken something from it, but it all changed in a period of five minutes.

We had a bad spell and they capitalised. We went from looking like coming away with something to wanting the referee to blow the whistle because we might have ended up on the end of a mauling if the match continued much longer.

We will be wanting to put that right this time around and hopefully that will be an added incentive to get the three points that will extend our lead at the top of the table.