Cummings and Goings - a fan's-eye view, with Stephen Cummings

HOPE, concern, fear, relief - four words which not only sum up the events of Saturday afternoon, but also seem entirely appropriate as a description of the Clarets season,

This has been a campaign which has seen the hopes and expectations of the Turf Moor faithful see-saw violently from one game to the next. The last month of the season has been as tense and thrilling as anything witnessed at the Brunshaw Road club in recent years.

But back to Saturday for a moment. What an afternoon. The energy which was drained from the night on 20,000 supporters inside Turf Moor, would have proved sufficient to run a small electricity sub-station for a month or so.

Anybody still harbouring the frankly absurd notion that football is just a game would have had their eyes well and truly prised open.

Ninety minutes have never flown by so quickly. And to be perfectly honest it's all a but of a blur. But certain fragmented images continue to re-occur in the mind's eye.

Nervy, pre-match banter with fellow fans, three sides of the ground rising up in joy as news filtered through that Bristol Rovers were beating Brentford, stewards and mounted police attempting to restore calm on the pitch as the fans charged excitedly towards the players' tunnel to hail their heroes, two magnificent goals from Andy Cooke, being hugged by a complete stranger moments after it had been confirmed we were stopping up, Turf Moor packed to the rafters. . .I could go on and on.

Yet one's image will endure beyond all others. Leaving the ground, we passed a long line of coaches, full of Argyle fans who had made the arduous journey up from Plymouth.

Recognising that the misery clearly felt by the occupants of the coaches could so easily have been ours, hundreds of Clarets' fans broke into a spontaneous round of sympathetic applause.

Okay - for the most part of the season, we have wished each other nothing but the worst of luck, but there exists such a thing as the fraternity of football fans and (having been there ourselves), we knew just how the travelling hordes from the South West must have felt.

Finally, congratulations to Chris Waddle and the team. Whether the manager lives to fight another day is very much open to debate. But in the meantime, relax, enjoy the summer and prepare for next season. It promises to be a cracker.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.