LET me take you back just over six weeks to November 22, 2016.

A winless run of ten League Two games took us to Cheltenham on a cold and damp night.

Down on the touchline, John McGreal’s body language didn’t betray the pressure that he must have been feeling that night.

We saw an uninspiring first half stalemate and at 8.30pm that night (half-time) we stood rock bottom of the entire Football League, below Newport County on goal difference.

The half time hot chocolate didn’t taste very good.

The second half saw us take our foot off the brake and open up.

Three minutes after the break Craig Slater slalomed his way into the penalty box in front of the away fans, and cracked the ball into the net.

That was the pivotal moment.

We have hardly looked back since.

We now stand seven games and 19 points further down the line, in eighth place in the table.

We faced Cheltenham in the return game at home on Monday.

Since the momentous away game, Cheltenham manager Gary Johnson has bought in new boys De Girolamo and Onariase, both built like heavyweight boxers.

Evidence suggests that Johnson has decided that his team will muscle their way out of trouble.

They were robust on Monday and will rarely be lucky enough to encounter such a lenient referee.

Several dangerous challenges went inadequately unpunished.

It was very last century.

Word will get around and Cheltenham have a date with destiny with a trigger-happy referee who may need a larger than standard notebook.

We scored an early goal with a looping Eastman header with keeper Griffiths badly positioned and Brennan Dickenson sealed the winner with a late left foot effort.

Job done - unspectacularly; deservedly; joyously.

Our short game was very tidy but our longer game never quite clicked.

It didn’t seem to matter, particularly in our second hard-fought game in four days.

The attendance was above average at just under 4,000 and all will have gone home buzzing and looking forward to Carlisle tomorrow, hoping for more success.

Fixtures for January look harder on paper, but no one will fancy visiting the U’s on current from.

Let me pick out three players who have excelled in the last six weeks.

George Elokobi first. George loves to play football, and he loves to play for Colchester United.

It shows in his face and in all his actions.

George gives total commitment, setting a standard for the team.

It reminds me so much of our glory days when Wayne Brown wore the number five shirt, and the message to his team-mates was ‘I am not out here to muck about and neither are you’.

The subliminal message from George is exactly the same, behind the broad smile.

A manager could spend millions and not buy that.

Craig Slater is cast in the same mould.

He never stops working, making the maximum of his ability, which is a great tribute to the character of any footballer.

After having come down from Kilmarnock in the summer he has taken a short while to find his identity, and he is now part of the beating heart of the team.

It has been said so many times that it is a cliché, but N’Golo Kanté works so hard for Chelsea that he is worth two players.

The same can be said of Kurtis Guthrie for the U’s.

He covers a phenomenal distance, he makes sure he is always there for the ‘out’ ball, turning balls into space into good balls, he is great on set pieces at both ends, he drops deep into midfield when needed and works virtually the width of the pitch, he’s (increasingly) got a trick or two and he scores goals. That’s not a bad job description.

We are not going to remain unbeaten for month after month.

We’re not going to win the league, but boy, things are fun at the moment and the last seven matches have been something special.