Bristol Rovers were fired up after Cobblers' poor sportsmanship
Stuart Campbell had been going forward well inside the visitors' half when referee Steve Cook stopped the play because of a head injury. The drop ball which should have ended with Rovers getting possession again, saw the ball booted way up field for a throw in by our corner flag.
It angered the crowd – which had been quiet for most of this uneventful end-of-season game – and we at last stepped up a gear.
Jo Kuffour deserved to get the winner but why had it taken such an incident to spark us into action? Paul Trollope had called for his side to finish on a high but they made very hard work of beating struggling Northampton.
On another day some of our defensive lapses would have been punished by better finishing than the Cobblers showed.
Once again we were slow out of the blocks. Whatever it is our boys say during the pre-start huddle it doesn't seem to work. Maybe they were discussing where to go that night or which were the best Easter eggs to get.
But the ball was in the air far too often which suited our visitors and we could not blame the pitch.
Lennie Lawrence's pre-season prediction of plenty of sexy football this campaign seemed a lifetime away.
My wife made a rare appearance at this game – I know how to treat a woman at Easter – she had not been regularly since her idol Harold Jarman packed up.
But wait a minute, who was that pale-face frail looking player in a Rovers shirt out there with skinny arms and matchstick legs? Sadly Jeff Hughes does not skip past defenders and slam the ball into the roof of the net in the way Harold did.
But David Pipe did turn in a good display of wing play, particularly in the first-half with some lively runs and accurate crosses.
I wish some of his colleagues were as committed in the tackle as the powerful Pipey who always gives 100 per cent.
The win took us into the top half of the table, maybe we would be higher up the league if we had a Jarman or another Pipe patrolling our left flank.
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