ROVERS FANZ VIEW COLUMN
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It has been a long time in coming but it felt so good to see Rovers top of a league table again. As we were playing the night before everyone else, going into the game with Southend last Friday we knew that if we avoided defeat, we would go into the weekend looking down on everyone else from first place. And at home to a team lying joint bottom and without a win this season - what could go wrong? As it turned out, Southend looked a much better side than their league position suggested and they put up a real fight. Adam Barrett signed for his hometown club in the summer after Rovers dithered over offering him a new contract and our former captain turned in a tremendous performance in the centre of the Shrimpers' back line. On top of some committed defending, he also popped up at the other end of the pitch to score their equaliser with a super header. Early heckling from the home crowd eventually made way for a standing ovation at full-time, something I'm sure Barrett will treasure, and I am proud that most Gasheads showed their appreciation for his efforts over the past two years. I don't know whether we would have been quite so generous had Rovers lost the game but James Hunt's epic late winner certainly put the fans in a fantastic mood. Lee Thorpe had earlier claimed the final touch on Steve Elliott's header that put us in front and this was his third goal in his last four starts if you include the back end of last season. Hunt does not score that many but he kept his nerve perfectly in the dying moments to side-foot home in front of the Blackthorn End after Ali Gibb's low cross had skidded across the box. Our closest challengers Macclesfield and Scunthorpe then drew with each other on the Saturday, which left Rovers two points clear but as soon as that lead had opened up, it was gone again as Scunny beat Northampton on the Bank Holiday Monday while we only took a point at Rushden. Despite falling back to 2nd spot, the goalless draw was a decent result against stubborn opponents who had beaten us in all four games we had played with them before, not to mention the defeat on penalties in the final of the Isle of Man tournament. The clean sheet was also the third on the trot away from home as we maintained our run of not conceding on our travels this season, discounting the single goal we let in at Brighton in the Carling Cup. The last time we seriously had a go at promotion was under Ian Holloway in the ill-fated 1999-2000 campaign and I remember him saying at the time that a two points per game average would be enough to go up. This season Ian Atkins' squad has collected 14 from the opening six league matches, so according to Ollie's logic, we are ahead of schedule so far. Atkins says he is not afraid of rotating the playing staff to keep people on their toes and already we have got decent results playing both with wingbacks in a 3-5-2 system and also with a 4-4-2 formation, when Craig Hinton has come in at right-back at the expense of John Anderson. Players like Craig Disley, Aaron Lescott and Jon Beswetherick haven't even had a kick yet, so there is plenty of back-up ready to step in should things start to stagnate.
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