With Bristol Rovers a man short, Joey Barton believes the home crowd made the difference for the Gas in their dramatic late win against Walsall on Saturday.
Rovers played more than 50 minutes with 10 men after Luca Hoole's first-half red card, but Barton's side defended manfully to restrict Walsall to a minimum of chances before Aaron Collins headed home a 90th-minute winner to send the Mem wild.
Incredible scenes followed at first time, with Barton and midfielder Antony Evans leading the celebrations on an afternoon that could be season-defining for the Gas.
The victory – the Pirates' fourth in five games – saw them capitalise on Swindon Town's dropped points at Colchester to close to within six points of the play-off places with a game in hand.
After the game, Barton was quick to thank supporters for the way they backed the team.
"There’s a marked change here," Barton said. "We went down to 10 men but we had our 11th man with us because the 12th man stepped up and drove the lads on.
"The scenes at the end... superb.
"I didn’t think it was possible months ago because it was difficult here but we’re finally moving to where we want to move and the best is yet to come from this team.
"The club is united, off the field as well as on it. We’ve got a lot of work to do to reactivate the passion of the fans and that comes through winning games of football.
"We’re just going to keep building and building. My intention is to give the Gasheads a team that they could get behind and be proud of and I think if nobody was convinced of that before today, they certainly are now."
Barton believes referee Keith Stroud was wrong to dismiss 19-year-old Hoole. The right-back was first booked for dissent before seeing a second yellow four minutes later for a mistimed challenge.
But in the circumstances, the manager would have settled for the point.
"I’d have taken 0-0," he admitted. "We were downhill and downwind in the first period, huffing and puffing without creating any good goal-scoring opportunities and then I just felt the officials got in the way of the game.
"It was a strange decision to book Luca considering it was that he protested or asked for a yellow card after their lad had absolutely poleaxed James Connolly after the ball had gone. Then to compound it by, five or six minutes later, giving him the second one.
"I said to the ref at full time 'He’s 19' and he says 'Well, how am I meant to know that?'. I said 'Just look at his face'. He hasn’t got a hair on his face, Luca.
"You’ve got to give him the benefit of the doubt. If it was a bad challenge, really late, reckless, I could understand dismissing him from the pitch.
"But, he’s not been great for us that referee when he’s been here and I’m not going to talk about him further because the focus should go on the credit that the players deserve. The fans as well for sticking with the group."
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