WHEN Bill Shankly said “football is not a matter of life and death, it’s more important than that” I think most football fans understood what he was trying to say.

Yet when Fabrice Muamba collapsed on the White Hart Lane pitch, the legendary Liverpool manager’s famous quote sounded plainly ridiculous.

When faced with the young midfielder’s very real fight for life, as Kevin Davies put it, football suddenly became irrelevant.

Nobody grumbled when Bolton’s planned match at Aston Villa was cancelled or when rumours surfaced that the club hierarchy were considering forfeiting their place in the FA Cup.

The only thoughts anyone had were for Muamba as it seemed the football world stopped spinning for a few days and concentrated on praying for the stricken midfielder.

Yet not even a week had passed and Fab’s team-mates found themselves grouped in a huddle in the middle of the Reebok, chants of “Fabrice Muamba” ringing in their ears as they prepared for kick off.

Whatever was going through their minds it was clear that the outcome of this football match had assumed great importance to every player and fan in the ground.

So what changed in those seven days?

For many people, even the doctors who treated Fab, his progress seemed like a miracle.

It felt like our collective prayers had helped pull him through, and the Bolton players seemed determined to show the same fighting spirit on the pitch that had helped to bring their friend back from the brink.

As I held my piece of card aloft in the East Stand before the game, as thousands of others did to spell out Muamba’s name while those chants reverberated around the ground, Bill Shankly’s words made a little more sense to me.

The fact is that when every football fan takes to the terraces, they carry with them all their hopes and dreams, fears and frustrations.

Whether you are facing redundancy, a loved one is poorly or you’re stressing over exams, a victory for your side can make you feel that maybe, just maybe, things are going to turn out okay.

Likewise, when your team loses, it feels like the whole world is against you.

The fate of your team becomes symbolic – more important than a mere result.

On Saturday, Bolton v Blackburn certainly didn’t feel like it was “just a game”.

The difference, however, was that for once every fan shared the same emotion.

Lee Dixon described it as a serene atmosphere and it certainly was.

The sun was shining and it felt like there was a real bond between Bolton and Blackburn fans in and around the stadium.

Fab's plight had created a connection between everybody there.

For me, I must admit I lost myself in the moment.

The almost giddy scenes after Wheater put us 2-0 up turned to real anguish as Blackburn pulled one back. The rest of the half took an eternity to count down as the singing stopped and a nervousness gripped hold of the fans.

We were desperate to win it for Fab.

I was stood with my dad, and we were screaming our lungs out. At that moment, I felt incredibly lucky that we were able to share this together. My dad was knocked down when I was nine and spent a month in a coma, a year in hospital and a long struggle to overcome his injuries.

Fab will, of course, have to summon up the same kind of courage in the years to come. Whether or not he will ever pull on a Bolton shirt or even kick a football in anger again is irrelevant.

However symbolic Saturday’s result felt, in the long run a 2-1 win for Bolton clearly isn’t important.

The important thing is that Fab sticks around to one day enjoy the same kind of moment with his own children.

After the spirit and fight he has shown this week, he will certainly always be sure of a rousing reception at the Reebok.