Beelief

 With apologies to entomologists everywhere.....

My decision to avoid all media contact from 3pm to 4.50pm served me well only in that it saved me from 1 hour and 50 minutes of fretting to a lesser extent. However, the wait until @ 5.05pm was almost unbearable. I realised that our delayed result meant that something had happened and all kinds of thoughts went through my mind.

I occupied myself with washing, ironing and cleaning. My domestic duties were completed during the usual 90 minutes plus half time of course.......I was indeed a busy bee.

I switched on BBC1 at 4.50pm to discover we were winning 1-0 and then the full time results were read out by Tim Gudgin who was performing his duties for the last time after 40 odd years with the beeb.......thank you sir. Tim made only one error yesterday in that despite what it said on the screen he read the score as 0-0.....arghh, maybe the screen caption was wrong and it was 0-0 !

There then followed, quite rightly, a review of Tim's time at the BBC which of course meant no news of our final result. By now I'd gone onto the t'internet to discover the reason for the delay. Much relief when our win was finally confirmed.

It seems we dug in yesterday and maintained our self-belief and came away with the 3 points. Not the most convincing of performances by all accounts but Griffin Park isn't an easy place to go. Sir Chris sorted things out at half-time and we played much better in the second period I understand.

As we all know sometimes you have play badly and win...winning ugly as they say. Over the years we've had a few players and one manager in particular who knew how to win ugly eh ? It is supposed to be the mark of a good side.

One good cross from Green and a clinical finish from BWP, the footballing equivalent of a rolled up copy of a newspaper, was enough to see off the Bees. After that little to report it seems save for time at the end for the delightful Alexander to wind up a few players and yellow cards to ensue.

The one sour note is Skip's injury which we all hope isn't too serious although it does sound as though he'll be out next week at least. I've no idea who got the armband when he went off. I hope it's Taylor who is made skipper, he's clearly passionate and is always talking, shouting and communicating in general with all and sundry. He's the logical choice for me.

In light of Skip's injury the decision to recruit Ephraim looks a good one for the options he brings alone aside from clearly bringing some more quality to the team. In addition, I like what he said when he joined.

A massive game awaits next week then as we face a Huddersfield team sans Lee who got sent off yesterday. I'd have preferred it to have been Jordan Rhodes of course. Their undefeated record is some achievement, however, as I said before I'd rather be top of the league courtesy of having won more games.

I'm pleased that the Terriers have maintained their unbeaten run and established a new record. For one thing they've done that now and may be less determined and two they come to us under pressure to keep it going as a result.

We have tasted defeat this season and they, of course, haven't. It'll be interesting to see how they respond if and when that happens.

I increasingly like the way Sir Chris conducts himself and how he interacts with the players. He manages to remain calm and thoughtful on the sidelines. Some may misintepret that and feel it's a lack of passion, however, I'd rather our manager remained in control as opposed to some maniacal posturing or gestering. In any case I don't think anyone can doubt Sir Chris's passion, desire or will to succeed. One does feel these players do really want to play for him.

His post-match comments were spot on yesterday and clearly he said the right things at half-time too. Well done to him and the team. Well done too to all those who went yesterday and gave good support to the boys. It's great to know that we've got support in such numbers.