That was a typical FA Cup match on Saturday.

As soon as the game against Barnet started, it was obvious how it was going to go with the opposing fans having a go at each other and both sets of players really up for the match.

We played very well for the first 20 minutes, some of our best football for a while and took the early lead.

And after that, Barnet just played on pure enthusiasm, buoyed by the crowd. That is how FA Cup football is played.

They had nothing to lose and just went for everything with the crowd behind them all the time. It is not always that nice playing against lower division teams, you just don?t want to lose to a team a division or two below you, so you are on a bit of a hiding to nothing.

In the second half we stepped it up a gear and their ?keeper basically kept them in the game with some great saves.

As for myself, I was denied by three very good saves and I think he probably made five in total.

We are relieved as much as anything to be through to the next round and we are quite happy with the draw. We play either Lincoln City or MK Dons.

I remember losing to Lincoln in a league game when playing for Man City in Division Two and they treated it like a cup match.

They beat us and were running all over the pitch and getting excited. So from that point of view, I think I would rather play Milton Keynes or Wimbledon, whatever you want to call them.

I remember getting some decent results against them over the years, including a 4-1 win in the League Cup final a few years back ? probably the last time we met in the cup ? where I got one of the goals.

I know the gaffer is keen on a cup run and I can see why the club would be, with all the extra revenue that would bring us. If we can get through this next round and got a big, money-spinning tie that would be great.

But realistically we are never going to win this competition, so when we look back at the end of the season and realise that the extra couple of games we played hurt our league form late in the campaign, maybe it would have been better not to have had the run.

Don?t get me wrong, we are still going to give our all in the FA Cup ? we certainly don?t want to be losing to a lower division team ? but we all need to stay focused on our main task, which is finishing with a strong league position, ideally the play-offs.

Talking of which, we have a big game on Saturday against second-placed Swansea at our place.

The media are all getting pretty excited about it and the TV crews have been out in force.

Back at Man City, Thursday used to be our media day and if they were interested in you, you could spend about an hour doing different interviews, moving from camera to camera to camera and then newspaper guys and also the radio reporters.

At Southend, things are a bit different. There is the guy from the local paper and maybe I get interviewed for the TV every couple of weeks.

At City there were normally four cameras at a time so things are pretty different here. But this week has been quite busy with a few TV crews from the national stations coming down to do interviews. They always seem to go for me even though it is a team game and I want them to do some of the other guys.

But that is just one of those things. I don?t go looking for the cameras, that is not my style, but I don?t mind doing the work.

It is good for the fans to see another side to us than just playing out on the pitch.

But my favourite media is still because I get to talk directly to the people back home in Bermuda.