Barnsley caretaker boss Glyn Hodges was spitting fire at the end of this draw in Essex.
His Barnsley side dominated the game from almost the start to the finish, played most of it against ten men, but somehow failed to turn their dominance into three points.
At the end of the game the angry Tykes boss, and the Barnsley players, were blaming the officials having seen two goals they thought were good ruled out for offside.
Hodges said: "I feel cheated tonight, we had the ball in the net twice and twice they were ruled out for offside." At the end of the game his players had to be stopped from arguing with the ref and the linesmen.
It looked earlier on as if Barnsley would run away with the game, Colchester simply had no answer for the sparkling wing play of Kevin Betsy and the running of Bruce Dyer.
Barnsley had the early pressure ,forcing the first of many corners in the first minute, but the home team scored against the run of play ten minutes into the game.
Kemal Izzet showed composure in the Barnsley penalty area and instead of trying a shot through the defensive wall he squared it to Sam Stockley, who coolly finished past Andy Marriott in the Barnsley goal.
Barnsley were level five minutes later, keeping the ball following a corner and when it eventually came into the box, Dyer found space to volley home.
Worse was to come for Colchester when Dyer got free again and ran clear on goal and when Daniel Steele brought him down he had to go for a professional foul.
Colchester boss Steve Whitton took off creative midfielder Thomas Pinault and replaced him with Pat Baldwin and that was the end of the home side as an attacking force.
In the next 25 minutes Dyer, twice, Betsy and Chris Lumsden all had good chances to score and former Colchester player Paul Gibbs smashed a shot over the bar.
As half time approached Betsy flashed in a cross from the right and somehow Brown kept out Dyer's point-blank header.
The second half was one-way traffic and twice Barnsley thought they had taken all three points Dean Gorre volleyed in and was given offside and then in added time Dyer's shot seemed to be going in when Rory Fallon's shot smashed over the line but the linesman's flag was raised again