Last-minute winner better than any medicine

I often ask myself why I bother going to see Forest when most of the time they make me miserable, but just occasionally something brilliant happens which makes you realise it's all worth the pain and anguish so you can really appreciate the good times.

Lewis McGugan's injury time winner against Huddersfield turned what I thought was turning out to be a pretty awful start to 2008 into a fantastic day, which had not started very well at all for me as I woke up feeling sick and generally felt ill all day.

Usually, I like to get to Nottingham at least four hours before the game, but feeling so ill and lethargic, I couldn't face hanging around in the cold for that long, so I took the risk of catching a later train. Fortunately it got me there at 13.00 and my fears were allayed that I would miss the match.

I wasn't really looking forward to the game at all, but there was no way I could miss it, as it really hurts having to miss a home game, and I knew I would regret it if I didn't go. Fortunately my efforts were rewarded with victory and a pretty decent performance, despite the harsh sending off of Kelvin Wilson, when his header back to Paul Smith somehow saw a Huddersfield player fall to the ground at the same time, which the referee must have thought was as a result of Wilson fouling him.

To be honest, although it looked bad at the time for Forest, the sending off actually helped create a really good atmosphere. Everyone was so incensed with the referee's decision that he was constantly booed for the rest of the game, and the players were so determined to get justice that they really upped the tempo, and finally got their rewards when McGugan's sweet strike from a tight angle in the first of four minutes of injury time made it 2-1 to us and broke Huddersfield's hearts, but left 17,000+ Forest fans with beaming smiles on their faces.

The day got even better when the results came in from elsewhere. Swansea had only managed to draw at Swindon, and Leeds shockingly had lost 3-1 at home to Oldham! I would have put money on them beating Oldham at Elland Road. I had predicted, as you may recall, that Leeds would overtake us after New Year's Day, but two defeats on the spin has left them four points adrift of us again, and we have played one game less. Losing to Swansea was always a possibility, but a heavy defeat at home to Oldham must surely have given their supporters the jitters. Are the wheels starting to fall off now, I wonder? Or perhaps more likely it was just the usual case of the players being a bit hung over following the New Year celebrations.

We now have a fortnight's break without any matches as it's FA Cup weekend next week. Our would-be opponents in League One, Millwall, are still in it, so we get a good rest, which we could really do with. It will give Nathan Tyson time to recover from his injury, and hopefully he'll be back for our next game, which is at home to Leyton Orient, who after a really good first half of the season are now finally starting to fall away, just as we all knew they would. January could be a very interesting month as we will also meet the leaders Swansea at the City Ground. We are currently two points clear in second place, and this month as we have so many home games we have the chance to break away from the chasing pack.

It's just a shame that we will be without Junior Agogo for up to a month while he goes on international duty with Ghana. We had better pray that Colin Calderwood brings somebody in during the January transfer window. There's been plenty of talk of signing various midfielders, but I think we have enough of them as it is. We absolutely must sign a striker, otherwise without Agogo, and Tyson struggling with niggling injuries, where on earth are our goals going to come from?