FOR many people, the Easter weekend is a time to relax and have a few days off work - but not if you are a professional footballer.
It was always hectic when I was a player and I had a taste of that again last weekend when I was involved in four matches in as many days.
Good Friday got even better when we earned a valuable point in a goalless draw at Mansfield and the following day I was in Cardiff to see Wales beaten 2-0 by Austria.
I was back at Chester City on Sunday morning for training with the lads and then made the short trip to Liverpool to pull on my boots again to take part in the Tsunami match at Anfield.
It was fantastic to take part for such a good cause in front of nearly 40,000 people and line up again with many of my old Anfield mates.
Sandwiched between two important Chester City games, it was a welcome occasion for me to take my mind off club problems for a few hours and to focus on playing again.
If Chester had lost to Bury on Monday, I suppose there would have been a few people ready to say I should have been concentrating on Chester City exclusively and not playing in a charity match.
Happily we won, but whatever the result, I would still have welcomed the chance to switch off for half a day. It may have been a friendly match but all the Liverpool lads took the game very seriously. We had a laugh and a joke in the dressing room as we always did, but Liverpool players always want to win and this match was no different.
The team of celebrities also took the game seriously and they all love their football. But it is difficult to score when you don't have the ball and the experience of the Liverpool team made sure they didn't get it very often.
Experience counts for a lot at all levels. I would like to see how some of our younger players at Chester perform in
League Two, but at the moment we need all the experience we can get as we aim to get the 50 points we need to avoid relegation this season.
I am looking forward to Saturday's game at Darlington, if only to see my old mate David Hodgson again. We were good friends in our Anfield days and have always kept in touch, more so now we are following a similar career path.
We speak at least once a week on League Two matters and, in fact, the first time I saw Chester this season was when he was at the Saunders Honda Stadium with Darlington the weekend I was appointed to the Chester job.
Darlington were 3-0 winners that day, so even though we are mates, I will by trying to spoil his weekend by avenging that defeat.
