Wycombe 1-3 Bristol Rovers (Abandoned, League Two)

How can you translate in to words the feeling as a Rovers fan at Wycombe yesterday afternoon without swearing? With great difficulty.

I've never seen anything like it as a Gashead and I hope that I'm not unfortunate enough to have to go through it again. For the first time in a long while Rovers were playing with confidence and with an aplomb that was refreshing to witness. Every time we got on the ball and attacked we looked like we could score. Our midfield 4 looked sharp and in control whilst David Clarkson and Matt Harrold were causing no end of problems for the Wycombe back-line. We looked assured and there was a genuine belief that we could score every time we went forward.

A large number of Gasheads descended on Adams Park and didn't have to wait long for Rovers to open the scoring - less than 10 minutes in fact. Clarkson was released down the left and ran towards the byline before laying the ball in to the path of Lee Brown who swept home a right foot shot in to the top corner. It was absolutely no less than we deserved and you couldn't help but think that we could go on to dominate the entire match. Unfortunately there was a temporary hiccup as Richard Logan was able to steer a header past Sam Walker when left unmarked 8 yards out. That sort of slack defending has been a trademark of Rovers performances over recent years but we did look decidedly more steady with Tom Parkes at centre half. Instead of letting our heads drop and confidence drain, we continued to take the game to the home side and with 10 minutes until half-time regained the lead in sensational style. A couple of ricochets off Wycombe defenders saw the ball roll in to the stride of Eliot Richards, who unleashed a blockbuster effort from 30 yards that darted past Nikki Bull and in to the top corner. It was that special that all the Rovers subs left the dugout to re-watch it on the big scoreboard to the side of the Rovers away end. Celebrations had barely died down when Richards got his second and Rovers third. A diagonal in to the box was headed down poorly by a defender for Richards to lash home in to the roof of the net. It was a fantastic feeling. We were leading comfortably and thoroughly deserved it.

Going in to half-time things were as perfect as they could have been. The atmosphere was positive and I could already taste our first victory of the season. But things took a dramatic turn for the worst as the second half was about to begin. Relentless rain begin to fall and the players were soaked before the referee had even blown his whistle to kick-off. The pitch took a matter of minutes before becoming saturated and then thunder and lightning began to introduce themselves. At this point there were genuine concerns among Rovers fans that the ref would halt proceedings and abandon the game. But, reassuringly, we played through the worst of the conditions and weathered the storm so to speak. There were breaks in the clouds and the rain was easing to a point where it seemed inevitable that it would stop. However, the referee decided that he would take the players off for a period of 10 minutes and allow the groundsman to drain any surface water. Okay, fair enough. But as additional time elapsed over the scheduled 10 minutes, fear began to increase. The odd Wycombe and Rovers player became visible at the front of the tunnel but never did a complete re-emergence seem imminent. With all supporters totally perplexed as to what was going on, it seemed as though a decision had not yet been reached by the officials. As far as I was concerned there was no decision to make - the rain had stopped and the pitch could be made playable within a matter of minutes. But in typically unfortunate circumstances Rovers were to receive no luck at all.

The soaking conditions at Adams Park

Mark McGhee angrily walked out on to the pitch and waved his arms to signal that the game had been abandoned. Understandably Rovers fans were outraged. The boys in blue and white made their way across to the away end to thank us for our support and looked as dejected as any one of us. They'd been robbed. The stewards explained that the decision to abandon the game had been made by the club's health and safety officer who reckoned a bolt of lightning struck the away stand and made the stadium 'unsafe'. That's debatable in itself but if that was the genuine concern then the right decision was reached - but it clearly wasn't. If it posed that much of a threat to supporters then why on earth did no evacuation take place? Why was it not announced over the PA system that fans would need to leave the stadium? As soon as the decision had been made there were no measures put in place to help Rovers fans exit the stadium which has to infer that there was an ulterior motive in the mind of Wycombe's H+S officer. His side were 3-1 down after 65 minutes and showed no signs of getting back in to the game. He had the chance to implement the cancellation of the match with the game needing to be replayed from 0-0 and he took it. It may be somewhat of a conspiracy view but it doesn't quite add up and I feel absolutely cheated.

We've been denied our first 3 points by decision-making and it wasn't even down to the referee - we were told he was keen to re-start the game but was overruled. An absolute joke.

So if things had gone as they should have done we'd be 3 points and a top performance better off than we now are. But one thing we can take out of the debacle is that we outplayed a team on their own patch who feel as though they can be among the play-off pack come April. That has to be a real confidence boost heading in to next weekend's game at home to Morecambe. Credit to the players and support for their efforts yesterday, we deserved so much more.