The long road to victory

We've had a fantastic last week at Annan Athletic with three wins in seven days.

Two hard fought single-goal victories against Stranraer and Elgin were followed by our biggest win of the season when we defeated East Stirlingshire 5-1 at their own place.

It's put us in a great position as we approach the business end of the season and with three of our next four games at home we have an excellent opportunity to strengthen our position even further.

As much as I would like to talk about our victories I decided last week that I would give you an insight in to our long trek to Elgin last Saturday and I'll stick by that, so here goes.

The bus was due to leave Galabank at 0645 GMT which meant me and Jack Steele had to be at Moffat for 0715 GMT.

I struggle to jump straight out of bed when my alarm goes off so it was set for 0530 GMT to allow me an extra half an hour with the snooze button.

My bag was packed the night before so all I needed to do was get a quick shower and get the club tracksuit on, while my breakfast would be consumed on the bus.

The bus is normally buzzing by the time it reaches us; the music is on and the players are fighting for a seat at the only two tables before the card school begins.

As it pulled up all we could see were pillows against the windows with the players spread about so they could have two seats to themselves.

I think the only player that spoke was Andy Aitken.

I never really sleep when I'm travelling anywhere so it was a read of the papers for me with the headphones on listening to music.

By the time we picked the rest of the boys up at Strathclyde the snow had already started.

The weather wasn't looking too clever so we started a sweep to see how far we would get before we found that the game was off and we had to turn back.

Every time Alan Irving's (the club secretary) phone went off we would all look up to see if we were in the money.

The snow never really let up as we travelled further north, but it got worse from Perth to Inverness and we really began to worry that our journey could be wasted.

As it turned out Elgin must have been the only place in Scotland not to have been hit by the snow.

Before we reached Elgin we stopped at a hotel in Inverness for some lunch where the boys filled themselves up with chicken and pasta.

On arriving at the ground we found the pitch to be quite firm as it had been cold the night before but sleet was also beginning to fall.

We concentrated the team talk on making sure we made a good start to the game.

The last time we had been there we lost two early goals and never recovered and we wanted to make sure this didn't happen again.

It seemed to work and we were by far the better team in the first half and went in to the break 2-0 in front.

We were comfortable, and I never saw any other result than an Annan win; although I thought it would have been more comfortable than it was to turn out.

The game changed completely when we lost Andy Aitken to a straight red card minutes in to the second half.

From there on in it was backs to the wall as Elgin came at us and quickly got back on level terms.

Craig Sommersgill made a great save to keep us in it before we were very fortunate to get the win with a late own goal.

I think we deserved the win due to our first half performance when we should probably have been more than two goals up.

Being down to ten men changed the game and I'd like to think Elgin wouldn't have caused us as many problems if we had continued on a level playing field.

It was a very loud and happy changing room and I make no apologies for that.

Victories away at Elgin always seem that little bit sweeter and it's purely because of the journey and nothing to do with having a dislike for Elgin or their players.

Nobody looks forward to the journey but when you achieve the three points it certainly makes the return that little bit more pleasant.

We were quickly on to the bus and headed straight to Tesco to stock up on some refreshments for the way home.

You know you've had a good day when the chairman pulls you to the side to tell you not to buy any beer because he is sorting the boys out.

A few of us enjoyed one or two beers on the way home but we were sensible because we knew we had another game on Tuesday night.

The snow had started during the game and continued down the road until we reached Perth.

There were worrying moments again as the snow got pretty bad in places but the two drivers did us proud and got us through, albeit at a very slow speed.

It took us so long to get back that we finished watching two movies before we even reached Glasgow; one of them was 'Gladiator' - and that's about three hours long.

I eventually got back through my front door just short of midnight - so I had been on the go for 18 hours.

As I said before, it's a journey no-one really looks forward to and I'm glad we don't have to face it again this season.

Fingers crossed we won't be making it next season either.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/chrisjardine/2011/03/the_long_road_to_victory.html

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