Divine Intervention

DRIVING to work on Saturday I heard that a lot of the roads in Central London were closed. Glad to see the Met Police were anticipating a lot of travelling Gasheads for our game against Dagenham and Redbridge, I thought.
Actually, it was because the Pope was in town, but we were lucky to get some divine intervention ourselves.
It came in the form of Jeff Hughes, a player who, so far this season, has been taking a lot of flak on the message boards for his performances this season. Someone even said his displays, along with those of our highly rated young midfielder Chris Lines, had amounted to "a comedy show".
And the general concensus seemed to be that the two of them should be dropped for our game against the Daggers.
Well, who's laughing now? Ninety minutes later, and Rovers have won 3-0 to land their first success on away soil.
It's a fantastic result.
And what is more, Hughesy grabbed a hat-trick.
Thank goodness our manager Paul Trollope doesn't listen to what we fans have to say.
I guess Trolls, who hasn't been Mr Popular himself of late after a pretty ropey start to the season, will survive or fall by being his own man.
Fair play - that, at least, shows he has some managerial credentials.
I've known men in charge of teams before who have reacted to just about everything the fans have to say, with dire consequences.
Management by Committee simply does not work.
As an example, I remember an Irish winger called Miah Dennehy who used to play for the Gas. He had been booted out by Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest to be replaced by a certain John Robertson.
He started ok, but pretty soon we were getting a bit fed up with his inconsistent performances.
One Boxing Day 1978 I turned up to watch the Gas in a League game and Miah was playing. Well, in truth, he was wobbling around the pitch looking every bit like he had a serious hangover from Christmas Day.
Me and my mates all agreed - the manager should take him off. He was useless, just useless.
No doubt we shouted similar messages to the dug out.
The game ended something like 4-2 to the Gas, the manager ignored us and Miah weighed in with a hat-trick. *
He got the man of the match award even though, to this day, I still maintain he had been abysmal for the majority of the 90 minutes.
Still. What does the Dagenham result mean to my beloved Gas? Not that much, taken by itself.
The three points came against a side who had managed just one win this season after being promoted to the lofty heights of League One.
They don't have the same resources as us, and were only playing non-league football a short time ago.
But, to be fair, they had been unbeaten at home so far this season and if they are to survive under the wily management of ex-Gas assistant boss John Still they know it is at Victoria Road (or the catchily renamed The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Stadium) where they will have to get the majority of their points.
I think a lot of teams will find it pretty hard travelling to this outpost of East London and achieving the same kind of result. After all, as the joke goes, you are up against two teams - Dagenham AND Redbridge.
Key for Rovers and Trolls now is the confidence that this result will have given the team, and the hope that they can carry it on into two consecutive home games against Notts County, another promoted team, and struggling Tranmere.
This division looks pretty tight at the moment and even the sides most predicted would be charging away with it - Southampton and Sheffield Wednesday - have had indifferent starts to the season. Two wins and we will find ourselves among the early pacesetters, two poor results and we will be down among the dead men.
Intriguing, but at least this week I'll be walking around with a smile on my face.
Might even find myself praying to the great redeemer Jeff Hughes to produce a few more miraculous displays.

*Anyone remember this game, know who it was against, or can enlighten me on whether I've got the facts right? Please let me know