History boys

LET'S get this out of the way straight away. The free-kick was absolutely hilarious. But we all know it wasn't the most important thing which happened at Prenton Park yesterday.
We witnessed history. No other Cheltenham Town team in the 129-year history of our club has done what this squad has managed to do (and no, I don't mean completely cock up a free-kick, which has now been watched 7 million-plus times on Vine, and rising).
It is a fantastic achievement and one that deserves to be celebrated and hopefully not overshadowed by a viral set-piece routine.
21 games unbeaten, six straight wins, three straight clean sheets, 14 wins in 16 games. In any other season we'd be over the hill and far away from the rest, trying to work out in which game it would all be done and dusted.
The fact that we are not is down to that lot from up the hill, and you have to say fair play to them. Even when they went one down on Saturday, there was a sense of inevitability that they would turn it round.
They did, and then all we had to worry about was whether we would hold out for the win. We did, so as you were with 12 games left.
On the way up, I'd have been happy with a draw, as I saw this as, on paper, one of the toughest games we had left to play.
But if this is one of the toughest, then we have nothing to fear from other upcoming 'tricky looking on paper' away trips to Braintree, Wrexham or Eastleigh.
Tranmere were fourth at the start of play, but trailed us by 21 points. That gap is now 24 points.
To put that chasm into context, top side Leicester have 53 points in the Premier League. 24 points behind them would be 29 points, and Bournemouth, in 15th, have 28.
That shows how fantastic we have been, so maybe the lesson for me is that I need to have more confidence in my team...! A classic case of worrying more about Tranmere's reputation as a 'big' club in this league than what they were actually fielding against us.
Unchanged team, unchanged bench showed Gary Johnson's confidence in his team and, as we seem to have done so often on the road, we made a magnificent start.
As Danny Wright left Michael Ihiekwe on his backside, the result was inevitable, and in went Danny's 21st of the season, his eighth in six games, and 11th in the last 11. Flames.
I had confidence this time... confidence that he wasn't going to miss.
The only surprise after this was that we didn't score any more, as Tranmere seemed to be doing their best to help us.
They had a strange reluctance to close us down at all, leaving James Rowe and James Dayton loads of time and space to run at them, and Asa Hall and Kyle Storer were left free to win the ball and pick passes out at will.
Many of the Tranmere side have big reputations at this level and above - people like Michael Higdon, Jeff Hughes and Gary Taylor-Fletcher, but all three of them looked to have their best years (and trim waistlines) well behind them.
It was all too easy for us, in the first half especially, and crosses and long balls up to Higdon were their only tactic, with Dillon Phillips having a couple of saves to make.
I actually felt a bit sorry for James Norwood. The poor guy was having to run his socks off, simply because the majority of those around him simply couldn't run.
Their immobility was summed up by a loose ball in the first half which Taylor-Fletcher and George McLennan went for. It was about an 80-20 in favour of the Tranmere man, but George won it easily.
The fact George won it so easily was also symptomatic of our players' fantastic attitude and work rate.
Defending from the front, led by Wright and Dan Holman, and closing down in midfield from Hall, Storer, Rowe and Dayton kept the pressure off our back four and kept Tranmere at arms length.
Rowe and Dayton especially were outstanding. They were a constant threat and have added a different dimension to us in recent games.
In the second half, Wright and Holman (with an audacious 25-yard lob-shot-chip sort of thing) had other chances to score and Tranmere became slightly more dangerous when they bought some players who could actually run on to the field, especially Adam Mekki.
Even the loss of Jack Barthram through injury couldn't derail us, as Jordan Cranston slotted in seamlessly, as players have done all over the pitch of late.
We saw the game out well, and the players fully deserve their place in the record books. Now all we have to hope is that they get the league title they deserve as well in 12 games time.
The players deserve it, but so do the fans. Saturday's support at Prenton Park was just fantastic - the noisiest and best following I can remember in a long time. Non-stop singing, and 300 sounded like 3000, easily drowning out the 5000-odd home fans.
It was also brilliant to see Harry Pell, Aaron Downes and Amari Morgan-Smith in there leading the songs with the chairman as well - more evidence if it were needed of the togetherness at the club from top to bottom.
That has to be another major factor in this run and title challenge, the unity has been great to see. Long may it continue - you certainly wouldn't have seen many players from the last few seasons getting such a warm welcome in the away end...!
It's just been a remarkable run and season - just bear in mind too that the two games we lost were both decided by stoppage time winners. Without them, we could be The Invincibles!
Talking of stoppage time goals, our main title rivals have now salvaged seven points of late. As I said above, they deserve credit for not giving up and we did the same of course in several games, but we could so easily be 11 points clear now...
Ifs buts and maybes though. We remain in the driving seat, and the pressure is on FGR to keep up with us, to keep winning and to stay in touch.
It's proved too much for Grimsby and the others who have fallen by the wayside and now we know the VNL title is coming to Gloucestershire. All we need to know now is what colours the ribbons will be...