Column by Forest Green Rovers boss Dave Hockaday

The squad was informed and a hard double session ensued. Tuesday was a repeat and once again the players gave their all. Thursday saw us spend a good four hours at the stadium helping to clear the snow off the pitch but when we left it felt that there was little hope of getting the job done by Friday.

We trained at the indoor rubber crumb at Filton College and we played a game of 2x30 minutes just to try and get some "game time" into the players.

Friday morning and we were at Cirencester using their indoor Arena to prepare for the possibility of a match on Saturday.

It is here that I have to thank the sterling efforts of everyone who contributed in whatever way to the clearing of the pitch to allow the game to proceed against Gateshead. I cannot thank you all enough and my squad certainly felt a huge responsibility to not let your efforts go unrewarded.

The match itself started sluggishly with both teams struggling to get into any rhythm after a two week lay-off. It was 0-0 at half time and I encouraged my players to have more purpose in their play and to get in behind the opposition. We started so much better in the second period and upped the tempo of passing and created a lot more pressure on the Gateshead goal. Just when it seemed that we were losing our momentum Tomi Ameobi went on a surging run with the goalkeeper unable to hold his shot, leaving Isiah Rankin with the simplest of tap-ins.

The final 20 minutes were certainly not the prettiest and yet we managed to hang on for a valuable win which took us out of the drop zone. A beautiful ugly win.

A good winning habit to take with us to Notts County on Tuesday for a great experience in the third round of the FA Cup.

We will certainly go there with our tails up and give it our best shot, which is all a manager can expect from his team. And if we play to our potential, football can be a funny old game!