Matt Hamshaw's family miss out on Rotherham United's big moment

The manager was brought up in a Millers-supporting family and has been a fan himself since boyhood.

But he asked those closest to him to stay away from Oakwell this afternoon so that he could apply his full focus to his team.

His players rewarded him with a 1-0 victory that ended a 55-year wait for a win on Tykes soil, stretched the club's unbeaten run to five matches and lifted them to 15th place in League One.

“I'm just dead proud,” he said minutes after the final whistle. “I know what it means to everybody.

“I actually told all my family and my dad not to bother coming today, so he's still not seen the team win here yet! But he'll be as pleased as punch. I've had loads of texts from them already.”

The boss tries to remain calm in victory but couldn't help a public show of emotion at the end as he headed to the away end and indulged in a number of fist pumps in front of nearly 2,000 travelling followers.

“I got a little bit carried away,” he conceded. ”I need to stop that punching stuff. I don't really like it, if I'm honest. It's become something in football that I'm not keen on. I might just go for one punch or do something different!”

Rotherham were second best in the first half but came into the contest in the second half – during which Kian Spence fired in a spectacular winner – after bringing on Sam Nombe to partner Jordan Hugill in attack.

Hamshaw believes there is much more to come from a squad that he assembled in the summer and is still developing.

“I'm really pleased with the performance, really pleased with the result,” he said. ”We're in a good vein of form at the minute. But I've just said to the group, I don't think that we're playing anywhere near the levels that we can achieve, which is really positive for me.

“First half, I thought that Barnsley had a little bit of quality, to be fair, without much end product. Conor (head coach Hourihane) is quite tactically savvy, so that first half was a little bit of a game of chess.

In the second half, we created good opportunities. Obviously, having the extra man up front made a difference. Jordan has been a bit of a battering ram this season. He kind of kept knocking and knocking and knocking.

“I'm just proud that we've made those away fans go home happy. A lot of them had never seen their team get a result here, so it's nice that we've got one over the line.

“I'm also delighted to keep the unbeaten run going.”