Heaven and Pell

Oh when will this agony stop?
I've run the full gamut of emotions over the busy Easter period, and at the end of it I am no clearer about the League One fate of my beloved Bristol Rovers.
At times it seemed we were down.
At others, the Great Escape was really on.
And in the end we are left clinging to hopes of redemption with two monumental games in the next two weeks.
At times like this we football fanatics look for omens - anything that will point us in the direction of salvation.
Is there someone up there, looking down on us and giving us a sign that everything will be all right in the end?
Some supreme, all-knowing football deity who wants us to cling on to hope, keep the faith in our heroes?
I'm normally a pretty sensible kind of bloke.
But even I fall for these last-resort measures to lift my spirits and keep me believing.
There was a perfect example of this on Wednesday night.
I had to make the long drive to Suffolk for an appointment the following day.
And speeding up the A12 I got stuck behind a lorry.
On the back of it was written the name of the company it represented. PEL. In big letters.
Two minutes later I looked to my right to see a big football ground looming up.
On the side of it was written, the Community Stadium.
Colchester's new home.
The place where our fate may well be sealed next week, provided we are still in the hunt after tomorrow's game against Sheffield Wednesday.
Well, the conclusion was obvious.
Obvious to me, anyway.
The Gods were telling me: Bristol Rovers will win at Colchester to stay up and Harry Pell, our young midfielder, will grab the winning goal.
Phew, that's a relief then.
I'm amazed that the hope is still there.
At times over the Easter weekend I thought we were down.
At others I thought we were taking a giant leap towards safety.
At the end of it all we were still in the relegation places, but none of our rivals had managed to grab a victory to make our plight Mission Impossible.
My torture began at about eight minutes past three on Saturday.
I was in work while more than 6,000 of my fellow Gasheads were at the Mem for what everyone was saying was a must-win game against Charlton.
And we had gone 1-0 down.
Things weren't looking good.
Shortly after half-time things were bleak. It was 2-0 to the Addicks and my mind was giving up the ghost, ready to accept it would be League 2 football next season.
Then came the first twist of a weekend that made a trip on the Nemesis at Alton Towers appear like a gentle cycle across the Netherlands.
Charlton had one player sent off. Then two.
We were up against nine men with 30 minutes to go.
On came our forgotten midfielder Wayne Brown, who was signed with great hope from Fulham at the start of the season and has barely managed a sniff of first-team action under any of our four managers.
And, lo and behold, he pulled one back.
Six minutes to go plus prolonged stoppages and former Bristol City player Gavin Williams equalised.
With every finger crossed, and myself willing us to get a winner, I sat out the remaining minutes.
But it didn't happen. We drew 2-2.
Plymouth having won at Dagenham the night before, and Walsall also having failed to pick up any points, we had actually GAINED on our rivals, though our goal difference is so poor we hadn't managed to rise any places in the table.
Notts County, coming back from 1-0 down to win 2-1 at Swindon, made them virtually safe. So then there were three.
Easter Monday. A visit to Bournemouth.
I couldn't make it, though my pal Haydn had made the trip by persuading his family it would be a nice weekend away on the coast.
To be fair, the weather was scorching.
But my hopes were fading.
We were starting to run out of players due to injuries.
What followed was arguably the most exhausting and ultimately deflating afternoon of all afternoons in my 40-odd years supporting the Gas.
We went 1-0 up in four minutes, and it was Brown on the scoresheet again.
Everything was looking good.
Dagenham losing, Walsall drawing.
Three points would give us a huge lift.
Then one of our centre backs, Dave McCracken, apparently attempted to decapitate an opponent in the Bournemouth penalty area, from OUR corner.
It was a straight red and suddenly my stomach sank.
This was going to be a typical Rovers sob story.
But 10 minutes later Danny Hollands, the Cherries midfielder, brought Chris Lines crashing down and received a second yellow.
Now it was ten against ten.
Then we lost our caretaker player manager and figurehead Stuart Campbell to injury.
And the second half became a full-scale assault on the Rovers goal.
But we were hanging on.
Every minute seemed like an hour, every 10 minutes a day.
It was torture.
Sixty minutes, 70 minutes.
We broke away at the other end.
A clear-cut scoring opportunity for our full back Danny Senda.
He blazed over the bar, and I was in agony.
And, inevitably, on 82 minutes Bournemouth equalised.
Three minutes later they went ahead.
Meanwhile, Walsall had taken a 1-0 lead at Oldham and we were all but down.
I can't tell you the agony I was in, the feeling of having been handed a fortune only for it to be snatched away by someone playing a sick joke on me.
I couldn't speak to the wife. Couldn't smile at the baby.
It was all over.
Rather rundown British seaside resort 2, Rather rundown Bristol football team 1
Then, in the last minute Oldham, down to 10 men, EQUALISED against Walsall.
And we lived to fight another day.
Whether my heart can take it, though, is another matter.
Over to you, Harry...