Thorne feels he's letting the fans down.

Last updated : 17 January 2003 By Michael Morris

"I'm pulling my hair out at the moment." Thorne told the Echo.

"Hitting the bar or the post seems to be the story of my life right now. During your career you go through situations like this and the best way of dealing with it is to work even harder. Then it normally comes together. I have been in similar circumstances before and you just battle away. It's a horrible experience at the time and that's what I'm going through right now to be honest.

"It really hurts me because I feel I'm letting the supporters down. What makes it worse is after matches the guys are coming up to me and telling me to keep my head up and continue battling away. It's no fault of their own, but it makes me feel even worse. I know my wife will be pleased when I start smiling again coming through the front door after games."

Thorne also revealed he has been staing behind after training to work on his shooting and heading.

Thorne will lead the attack with Robert Earnshaw tomorrow against lowly Cheltenham. One goal maybe will kick start his season

"I'll keep battling on, you have to believe that goals are just around the corner. I'm not going to start to change my positional sense or make different types of runs into the box. I just know that when I get that one goal, I'll be off.

"I know that come the end of the season it's not important that Peter Thorne gets promoted - it's Cardiff City gets promoted. And as long as I still get stuck into headers and supply Robert Earnshaw, then great.

"As long as someone is scoring I'm relatively happy. I have to put myself in certain positions away from the danger area because Earnie is a lot lighter and shorter. To me, if that gets the team goals then so be it.

"I'll take all the physical stuff and the knocks and the bruises, hobbling to the team bus or the car seems to be the regular thing.

"But it doesn't hurt so much if we have just won."