Bristol Rovers v Huddersfield Town - The Resurrection Men

It’s another trip to the Memorial Ground for me tomorrow and – despite feeling Rovers were all but relegated after watching a wretched performance recently at home to Colchester – I wonder whether we’re about to see one of those Roy of the Rovers type revivals?

Stuart Campbell has been handed the Player-Manager reigns to try and steer his adopted club to safety against mounting odds and I’ll keep everything crossed for him as he is a good honest pro and deserves more than the poisoned chalice some people might think he’s been handed.

Midfielder Campbell has been missed on the pitch this year due to injury. There’s no doubt in my mind that his leadership qualities as skipper have been missed as well. I wonder whether he’ll captain the team tomorrow as well? Maybe the board have got him down to cut up the half time oranges too?

Whatever the role thrown at him though, Campbell is no shirker and the Gasheads will know he’ll bust a gut to keep them up.

But he needs their full backing as well and said:

“Huddersfield are one of the best teams in our league, especially going forward, and it's going to be a very tough game, but the lads will be up for it and hopefully the fans will be too. I'd like them to come out in their numbers because we need as many of them in the stadium as possible. We need them 100 per cent behind us.

I've been at the club so long now, but it was one of my proudest moments when the chairman asked me to take over. I was a bit worried and wary about how the players were going to respond, but as soon as they got on the bus for Tranmere I could tell they were right behind me.

They played with a smile on their faces and you could tell they were enjoying their football again, and that's all I wanted. We enjoyed the trip back on Tuesday, but now we have to focus on what is a massive game for us tomorrow."

Fellow midfielder Chris Lines could be the key tomorrow if Campbell gives him the room to play and he has told the media:

“We will all back Stuart 100% in the job he has and, on a personal note, I was very happy to get the winner at Tranmere for him.

I think he’s a top man and will do a top job over the rest of the season. The difference in people’s attitudes and moods has been noticeable over only a couple of days.

It didn’t quite work under the previous manager, but with Danny (Coles) and Byron (Anthony) there as well, it just felt so much better as a unit. That hasn't been the case in the past few months when we have been playing so poorly, but Tuesday was totally different.

We are buzzing for every game again now and have to do the same against Huddersfield as we did on Tuesday. We will be underdogs against one of the best three sides in the league, but we can go into it with confidence.”

And Lines is right to mark Rovers down as the underdogs in this fixture. Lee Clark is proving to be one of the top young managers in the country and you can see shades of his former Newcastle manager Kevin Keegan in the way he has his side playing.

In the last seven games the Terriers have only won two, but they have drawn the rest. Clark is a realist and has said:

“We are not really playing as well as I would like us to at the moment, there have been flashes of what I want to see, but it is all about picking up the points over the last 11 games. We will be staying down south after the Bristol game and we have the facilities available to us down there to ensure we have the best preparation to take on Brentford on Tuesday."

This is a massive game for both sides. Huddersfield could force their way into the automatic promotion places with a win. Three points and a second win in a row for Rovers won’t see them move out of the bottom four, but it would do wonders for the confidence of players and fans alike and scare the living daylights out of the other clubs in and around the relegation zone.