Football, Bloody Hell!

The worst thing about being a supporter of a lowly, cash-strapped Football League side is that a kick in the unmentionables is always just around the corner.
As a Bristol Rovers fan they come fast and often.
Less than a month ago I was on a real high. Bristol City were rock bottom of the Championship and we were up to the lofty position of ninth in League One.
It actually seemed we were getting things right.
But at the time I wrote:
"As a Gashead you KNOW it can't last.
At some stage, you know, City will start winning games.
And at some stage, you fear, Rovers will start slipping backwards."
Slip backwards? At the moment we resemble an Italian tank on the Cresta Run.
Being beaten 3-1 by Plymouth Reserves in the League was bad enough, but on Saturday came another low.
Non-League club from the north east who used to have a bank robber as chairman 2,
Southern softies 1
We know all about giant killings. In fact, we have enjoyed quite a few ourselves in the past.
Only three seasons ago we went all the way to the quarter final of the world's most famous cup competition, beating Fulham and Southampton on the way.
But this abysmal reverse, on top of our 6-1 Carling Cup humiliation at League Two Oxford earlier in the season, has left me in the depths of despair.
It wasn't just a first round cup exit.
It was the fact that our most skillful player by a mile, Will Hoskins, picked up a ligament injury (which are pretty damn difficult to shake off) and won't be available for some time.
This weekend has left me with an awful feeling.
I can't see past Rovers slipping down the table alarmingly.
We have got a tough run of games coming up.
Today it's Wycombe away in the second round of the Paint Pot Cup - another team in a league below us but a team with a very good recent record against us - and on Saturday it is home to an improving Leyton Orient.
After that? High flying Brighton and Charlton away, Goal machines Bournemouth at home, the giants of Sheffield Wednesday away and Colchester, who've lost only once this season, at home. The pessimist in me - in the style of a European song contest judge - predicts Nil points from any of those games.
Our manager Paul Trollope's words have an empty ring about them today.
"We must bounce back," he says.
It reminds me of the bloke in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who is barring the way to one of the Knights.
They fight and every time the bloke loses a limb he tells the knight he isn't beaten and he's still going to battle on.
Eventually he has no arms and legs left and the knight passes him.
"Come back," shouts the limbless man, "I can still bite ya."
Still, I was determined to find some slither of hope in the grey that surrounds us, and I guess it is this.
Twice in recent years I have felt that all hope is gone, and a few days later I've had a pleasant surprise.
The first came on Boxing Day a few years ago when we drew 0-0 at home to Luton Town.
This is Luton Town who not only hadn't paid their players for months, were bottom of the league, and had been reduced to EIGHT men at the Mem. We couldn't beat eight men.
"That's it then, no hope for us this season, we're on our way down," I said.
Two days later we beat promotion chasing Carlisle 3-0 and I couldn't believe my eyes.
Fast forward to last season and I was about to go and see a Rovers team who had been revitalised after signing the experienced striker Paul Heffernan on loan from Doncaster.
Before Heff joined we had been absolutely abysmal.
I was just about to leave the house for our home game against a decent MK Dons side when I heard that Heff had been recalled and that we had cut short the ineffectual Darryl Duffy's loan to Carlisle to cover for him.
Oh rats. That's it then. We won't win another game this season and relegation is still a very real possibility, I thought.
What happened? We really got stuck in, won 1-0 and it was one of the best, fighting Rovers performances I've seen in a long time.
Oh how we need two of them right now.
A gutsy performance in the Paint Pot and a valuable win in the League.
If not, I'm afraid, it's going to be a long, cold winter ahead.