Joey Barton was full of praise for his Bristol Rovers players after they overcame a "horrendous" build-up to pull off a historic win at Charlton Athletic on Saturday.
The Gas has not claimed a victory at The Valley for 64 years until John Marquis struck a brilliant brace off the bench to come from a goal down and defeat The Addicks 2-1, leaving Rovers sitting ninth in League One at Christmas.
But the game very nearly never happened at all. Freezing temperatures all week across the country left the game in doubt and the days and hours ahead of the game were far from ideal preparation for the Gas.
Training plans were torn up, there was an unplanned coach stop, plenty of time sitting in traffic, an illness for James Connolly and the uncertainty of three pitch inspections, with mixed messages coming from South London until the game finally got the go-ahead two and a half hours before kick-off.
"It was horrendous, it was weird," Barton explained. "We had to train over at Bristol University because we had sheets down on our training pitch, but it was -10 and they froze through so we had no training ground.
"They kindly let us use their facilities and their astro turf, so we did a short session on that. We set off at about 3.15pm to get across here.
"An hour into the journey, we got a call saying the game was off, so we pulled into Leigh Delamere services and, kindly for us, our coach driver Stevo got on the mic and sang a few songs. For the hour we were in the services it kept the spirit going with some peculiar choices of songs, but very entertaining.
"And then we found out it was back on so we travelled across to London and we got caught in all the traffic. We left at 3.15pm and got in at 8.45pm, so the lads were fed, bed. We got up in the morning. ‘Was the game on, was the game off?’"
Away trips are typically well-planned to make the build-up as seamless as possible for the players, so it would be understandable if the chaos led to a disjointed performance on the pitch, and for a while after kick-off it was trending in that direction as managerless Charlton caught Rovers cold in icy conditions.
But Barton heaped praise on his players for their resolve, overcoming all the challenges placed in their was to secure a win to remember.
"Credit to the players for that level of professionalism and for keeping prepared and keeping their minds focused," he added. "The Gas haven’t won here since 1958 and I’m buzzing to send the Gasheads home with a nice early Christmas present of three points and a victory at The Valley for the first time in a while."
SIGN UP: To receive our free Rovers newsletter, bringing you the latest from the Mem
