Joey, that was a game that had a bit of everything.
Yeah, and again the character of our team. We go a goal down in a big game in a hostile environment. To manage the first half in the manner they did, not only to climb off the canvas but get themselves in the ascendancy and to give another performance.
I challenged the lads at half time. It’s not about hanging onto a 2-1 lead. We had to be smart and calculated, but we needed to win the second half. Credit to the lads, they won the first half 2-1 and the second half 1-0.
I can’t ask for any more.
For that seven or eight minutes, it was harem-scarem and they were pinning you back and it seemed like there was a nerve or two in there, but they settled pretty quickly after that.
You’ll have to ask the lads that, I’m not sure. They were quietly confident going out.
They’ve got a passionate fanbase that were right after us from the opening gambit. They got themselves in the ascendancy but I did feel on the touchline they scored too early.
I felt we were much the better side. I felt that when we played them at our place even though they beat us that night and we had 10 men.
Watching them in the build-up, I could see they were a really good side and they’ve had a great run and are still two points ahead of us in the table with a huge motivation based on what a top guy Darrell (Clarke) is and the bereavement and sadness in his family.
You knew the players would be fighting and giving everything for him because he’s a top bloke, but today I said to our lads that we wish Port Vale and Darrell well, but for a 24-hour period we’ve got to be absolutely focused on the job we have at hand.
I thought our lads today showed a level of maturity after that opening skirmish, a level of maturity way beyond the years of some of them.
When you’ve got players like we have, you’re never out of any contest because firstly, they never give up, secondly, they are the fittest they can possibly be, and thirdly, there is an enormous number of match-winners littered throughout the squad and even on the bench.
Three goals today and the first one owed a lot to Paul Coutts, who was immense for you today.
Yeah, I think that in recent weeks. When I watch him, he feels as fit as he’s ever felt and I think he’s finding that new lease of life.
As the challenge, intensity and pressure rise, that suits Couttsy because he has an ability to slow things down and find space and calmness in the midst of the chaos sometimes. It is a really special quality and that’s what he does on the pitch.
Everything he does off the pitch as a captain is 10 times that. I couldn’t put a price on the captain we managed to recruit. He’s been superb and his performances in the last period as the pressure has gone up have got better and better. I thought he was outstanding.
Lovely for James Connolly and Ryan Loft to get their first goals for the club.
Yeah, I wasn’t sure who scored that and we’ve been working hard with Connor Taylor and James Connolly at getting a goal at a set play, making yourself a nuisance. It is a real opportunity to attack your opposition defender.
They’re young lads and you forget they are both 20, but the way they’ve handled James Wilson, who’s played for Man United in the Premier League and the Champions League, and Proctor, who is a nuisance, an absolute handful at this level, and Garrity, another who has scored a lot of goals.
Between them, Coutts, Hooley, Connor, Josh Grant and Beefy, I thought they were exemplary after the first period.
And it keeps alive the dream of automatic promotion. It’s even tighter than it was before the match.
I told you at Exeter when we got stuffed 4-1 and at Barrow, I told you we were coming. You’ve got to understand when you turn a group around and change from what the club was when we got here to what we want to be, it takes time.
You can accelerate it if someone sticks a drill in the ground and manages to strike oil or some other really precious commodity. You can change it with money if you spend a couple hundred million. In Everton’s case, maybe not.
But money doesn’t give you that. You’ve got to embed your culture, you’ve got to put your daily principles and standards in place and it takes a little bit of time to bear fruit.
I speak a lot about gardening analogies, but it’s almost like your garden. You’re not just going to get everything you want after you’ve dug it up and planted some stuff in there. It takes a bit of time to come to the fore for you and our team is the same.
We are just going to keep getting better. The group is built on a solid foundation, we’ve got some really talented boys, we’ve got some lads who are out on loan.
What we have got that you can’t put a price on is the character and the dressing room is overflowing with it.
Two points behind the automatic positions with three games left to play. It is all set up for a very interesting couple of weeks for you.
Yeah, that’s what we want. Pressure is a privilege and you want to be in these situations.
The best players, you think about Liverpool and Chelsea and Man City, this is a daily occurrence. Every game the stakes get higher and as a player you should move towards that. That’s what you do it for, you want to push yourselves as far as you can.
The mantra for us pretty much since November has been ‘Can we take care of the next game?’ The next game for us is the team that sits top of the pile. It will be a huge challenge, but we’re in the Mem and it’s become the fortress we’ve always wanted it to be and I can’t wait to get in our stadium in front of our fans on our pitch.
Finally, a word on those fans. What a noise they made, those 2,000.
Yeah, and it’s so nice to be able to bring a fanbase like that and then feed it the way they did. To score that goal and the lads getting in there and throwing their tops in and young fans coming on the, that is the lifeblood of the football club.
I have spoken so many times about our fanbase and standing on the touchline at the start of the second half, I thought ‘Wow, that is a Premier League following’. If we can engage the fanbase at the level the lads have in recent weeks and we keep fostering that, great things can happen at the football club because without the fans, it’s tough to be a successful footballer.
When they are behind you at the level they are, I think you see our players are just thriving and growing with every single performance.
Joey, when you see those scenes at the end, is it ever a consideration of when you were a kid watching football, the memories you’re making for those young lads and girls coming on the pitch at the end? They probably shouldn’t do that, but they get a memory for life. Today is probably the best away day they’ve been on and it could be one they talk about forever.
Yeah, we’re hoping there’s going to be better days down the pipe, but that was certainly a good day.
That was the thing that struck me even at the Mem in home games, seeing families and the people coming down, young supporters. We want every supporter we can, but it’s so good to see the social media after. The great thing on social media is the ability to have a more personal relationship with the fanbase because you see a lot more of their reactions.
It’s been tough for the club, certainly getting out of League One last year, but when you look at all the positive shoots and really good things happening around the football club.
For me, seeing a young girl get on the pitch to ask for Hooley’s shirt, seeing a couple of young lads running on and getting Sam Finley’s shirt, the stewards might’ve said something about it but I’d have definitely been over the advertising hoardings when I was a kid, because that was special. It’s a memory for life.
The Gas are coming. I’ve been saying it for a while. This is not just about League Two, this is about giving Bristol a Premier League club. There is a race on. City have had a long run at it for a long time.
We want to create that Bristol rivalry. I think Bristol should have an elite-level rivalry. It’s a big enough city. The city I’m from has got one, other cities and towns I’ve played for have got to the Premier League.
We’ve got to do the blue half as much justice as we can, but the ambition is to build a team that last the ages. I spoke to you when we were at our lowest ebb about that. Today, it’s a lot easier to speak about it and we’ve got lots of work to do.
But that’s what we came here for. We came here for that fanbase, we came here for that owner and to create the football team we’ve got is an enormous credit to everybody. Everybody has played their part in this.
There is probably no such thing as a perfect performance, but for Paul Coutts that was probably as close as you can get? I thought he was outstanding. You were really up against it in that first seven or eight minutes and he creates a goal from nothing by stealing the ball and playing it through. He marshalled you through every difficult moment. That was brilliant, wasn’t it?
Yeah. People forget early on in his career he picked up an injury. He was destined for a real high level. Lots of people were linked with him and you can see why.
He had a huge setback with a really bad injury and he is saying now when you speak to him it’s the best he has felt since that injury. They are great signs for us.
I saw big Harry Souttar, who was sitting along the bench here today. He has had a bit of a setback. I spoke to Ashley Westwood last night, who has had a terrible setback. Sometimes they happen in football and it’s horrible and hard, but it is how you respond to them that’s the key.
Couttsy for me, I can’t speak any more highly of him as a man and as a captain, and I’m so pleased now everybody is seeing his performances because he was getting a bit of stick in the early part of the season.
His performance today, you’re thinking ‘Can he maintain that level?’ He didn’t, he actually took the performance on today. Hopefully, he can do that in the next three games because if he plays as well as that, that means our team is playing well.
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