Field of Dreams

SOMETIMES, as a Gashead, something brilliant happens.
Something so unexpected, so heart warming and so utterly unpredictable that you go around with a smile on your face for the whole weekend.
And yesterday was exactly one of those days.
Yorkshire club with new ground, pots of money, good players and high expectations 0 Bristol Rovers 1.
It was such a busy day yesterday in the offices of the national sunday newspaper where I work that only occasionally could I get a glimpse of Sky's Soccer Saturday as it warbled on in the background.
By half time we were still drawing 0-0 at Huddersfield, and going into the final minutes nothing much had changed.
Fine, I thought. After the abberation that was our home game against Tranmere in midweek, a draw was the best I could expect - yet there was still a nagging feeling in my mind that we might leave the Galpharm empty handed, scuppered by a late goal which would maroon us at the lower end of League One.
At around 4.40pm I took a seat in front of the box and started to scribble down some of the scores from our division. After all, it was my job to put together the League One page for Sunday's edition and I wanted to make sure I had them right.
Carlisle 0 Peterborough 1 (the Posh are beginning to gear up for a real Promotion push),
Dagenham 2, Swindon Town 1 (a bit of a surprise to say the least, particularly after our 3-0 win at the same ground a few weeks back), Notts County 0 Sheffield Wednesday 2 (yeah, thought it was about time the big guns in our division got going)...
As I bent my head to scribble that particular result down on a piece of paper one of my colleagues shouted out "Rovers".
I was literally petrified to look at the screen. Had we lost to a last-minute strike?
Had a player been sent off?
What?
I finally raised my head.
And stared in disbelief.
It was Bristol Rovers that was in red on the scoreline at the bottom of the screen.
Red, for those who have been stuck on a dessert Island and never had the pleasure of a satellite dish, refers to the team that has scored.
In brackets, afterwards... (Will Hoskins 90).
I couldn't contain myself. "Yaaaaaaaah! Hoskins!!!!"
My boss gave me an icy glare.
I didn't care.
Then the final score popped up.
We'd won. Away at Huddersfield. With the last kick of the game.
And, oh day of days, at the same time Bristol City had crashed 3-0 at home to Norwich and were currently lying precisely BOTTOM of the Championship.
You know Bristol City: that big club which has spent all that money, signed the England goalkeeper and every striker outside the Premiership, and is currently trying to drum up support to build a new stadium on the grounds that "it will help Bristol's bid to bring a World Cup game to the west country in 2018". Yeah, right. No self-interest involved there, then.
And all the time that little ditty so beloved of Gasheads is circling around and around in my brain.
"Never felt more like singing the Blues, when Rovers win and the City lose..."

It's payback time.
Time to have a go at the Saints supporter and all his mates who made it pretty clear to me that they had money on "that good Bristol team" to win promotion this season.
Time to take the mickey out of the guys in the office who had backed Huddersfield to notch up a convincing home win.
Time to tell the world: "Yeah, that's right I'm a Bristol Rovers fan. A Gashead. A true blue. And this is how it feels when we defy the odds and win a game of football."
The smile stayed on my face for the whole night.
Even when I was stuck in pouring rain in a traffic jam in central London for an hour and a half.
Even when, just before Membury Services, my car decided to start jumping around like a Kangeroo on crack.
Even when I pulled into the services and rang the AA, who kindly told me that someone would be with me in an hour and a half - or maybe later.
And even when I finally crawled into the house with the clock clicking around to 4am.
Of course, though my bed was beckoning, it was straight onto the BBC I-player to watch the Football League show and savour the glorious moment.
And it didn't disappoint.
Hoskins, on the left, performed one, two, three stepovers, cut inside and curled a beauty into the bottom corner. Get in.
And now, though we've got a home game against Aldershot in the PaintPot Trophy at the Mem on Tuesday, as far as league football goes I can savour this moment for eight days!
Because we don't play another game until we travel to Swindon on Monday week, due to the international break.
Wonderful.
Why am I a Gashead?
Because the plain truth is, if it wasn't for all the disappointments, I don't think the highs could feel as good as this.