WHAT an eventful and memorable night we witnessed last Friday when 120 hardy (or rather mad) U’s fans embarked on a mammoth away trip to Barrow AFC.

The trip up was another slog of roadworks, rain and Friday traffic, taking us eight and half hours in the car.

This turned out to be getting off lightly as the CUSA supporters coach sadly took even longer and annoyingly for them, resulted in them all missing kick off.

As luck would have it, although the game proved to be very eventful and entertaining, they missed nothing of note and arrived just in time for the game to really kick off.

The first incident was the sad episode of our young keeper Shamal George being allegedly subjected to racist abuse.

This is something that has no place in the game and fair play to Shamal for doing the right thing and highlighting the incident and then for the officials and home club to take the correct action in a very firm and timely manner; hopefully they find who it was and throw the book at them.

But it did show how professional and mature beyond his relatively young age George is, in that he was able to regain his focus and get his head back into the game to produce a very fine display and play his part in the excitement to come and the three well-earned points for the U’s.

Ok Barrow’s first goal was one that we would all rather forget with the manner we fell behind, but in a way it was one that made the comeback all the more sweeter.

Two quick-fire well-worked goals saw us take a well-deserved 2-1 lead into the break. But while sipping our half-time coffee, we had little idea of what lay ahead in the second half.

The second 45 made all the travel worthwhile, it had everything.

After being reduced to 10 men with Luke Chambers receiving two yellow cards in 18 minutes, we feared we would be in for a long final 22 minutes.

This became even more nerve-racking after we made life even harder for ourselves and gifted them a way back by giving away a penalty.

With the scores now tied at 2-2 with 14 minutes left and at a man disadvantage, we could have been forgiven for fearing the worse and thinking a point would be a good outcome.

But one man had very different ideas - step forward and take a bow Colchester United legend and around good guy Tom Eastman, who got on the end of a wonderful corner delivery from Charlie Daniels to fire us into a lead.

That sparked scenes of pure joy amongst players and fans alike, as they become one to celebrate.

The remaining minutes did not help the nerves, but with the hosts being reduced to ten after James Jones got his marching orders and the U’s holding on for the seven minutes of added time, the final whistle finally sounded.

Full-time saw the players celebrating with the travelling fans in a way that really had a feeling of finally things have turned and this is our time to shine, this season.

It was a game that had everything; the highs and lows, a game that really makes everything all so worth it.

The Shamal George incident did take some of the gloss off the game but all in all, it was one of the best away trips we have had in a long time and one that will take some beating.

Let's hope for three more points on Saturday with Crawley coming to town...but maybe with less drama and with it being a bit easier on the nerves. Up the U’s.