Neil Howarth: It was a pleasure to see Robins supporters at Morecambe
FIRST and foremost I would like to give a massive congratulations to all those fans who made the journey up to Morecambe on Friday night.
Whether you are all mad or just passionate Robins I don't know, but to see some friendly faces up there in the worst of conditions was a pleasure.
We had been told on Thursday, when we were covered in snow and freezing, that there was to be a pitch inspection at 9am on Friday to see whether the game would go ahead or not.
We obviously had to prepare as normal, with us planning for the game to go ahead, but I must admit I was very sceptical of the chances of it going ahead.
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On Friday morning I was awoken by cheering from the kids because there had been another deluge of snow and the wife told me that there was no way on earth that I would be going up to Morecambe.
I started to mentally put plan B into operation, namely what would our training regime be over the weekend in the event of the game being postponed?
However, when the gaffer phoned me at 9.15am to tell me the match was still on as there had been no snow in Morecambe I was, if I am being totally honest, very surprised.
However, I texted all the lads to confirm that the match was going ahead and I put on a few layers to dig my car off the drive!
We had already decided to leave Cheltenham early because of the problems associated with the M6 on a Friday afternoon and the plan was to arrive at our destination about 1.30pm and give the lads the afternoon to rest up and get ready for the match.
With the snow still falling heavily and players struggling to get to their meeting points on time we were well behind schedule, but we did eventually manage to pick everybody up who we were meant to at the right places and we settled into our seats for the long journey.
The snow was still falling heavily and there was only a couple of the lanes of the motorway open and we were bewildered as to how our game was going to go ahead, but the further north we travelled the lighter the snow was until we got to Preston and all the white was gone.
As a player I used to hate the uncertainty of whether a game would go ahead or not when the conditions were indicating that it would be very unlikely, but that is where the professionalism of each player kicks in.
When we got to the Globe Arena at about 3pm to put the kit out we wandered on to the pitch and you could see why the pitch had passed the inspection.
There was no snow and the covers that had been on since their last home game a week earlier had protected the pitch from any frost and the surface was actually soft.
However, the pitch in general was very poor as it was very bare and rutted and the icy cold conditions were crisping it up.
When kick-off came around we knew we had to roll our sleeves up and be strong and I thought that was exactly what we did.
On another day we could have come back home with three points, but the lads and the supporters deserved a lot of credit for the way they battled the conditions for the cause.
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