Praise and Grumble

When the fixtures came out at the end of July 08 and we saw that the final game was away at Torquay, we thought wow that will be a great weekend away.

Who would have thought we would be heading for the greatest achievement in Burton Albion’s history?

In January, we were top of the league and had been since the end of November. Eleven of us booked to go to Torquay from Friday to Sunday. Nine of us had been supporters for between 15-30 years.

When the weekend finally came, our nineteen points lead had been cut to just three and things were getting a bit tense.

Burton fans everywhere

Torquay seemed like it was taken over with Burton Albion supporters. In every pub we visited, we chatted about the highs and lows of the season and who we wanted as our next manager if Roy didn’t want the job.

Brewers fans on Saturday morning, trying to relax!

We were nervous. Burton Albion dominated all our dreams and nightmares.

Could Cambridge pull off what seemed impossible a few weeks ago and pip us on the last game?

On the day of the match, we made sure we got there in plenty of time so that we could stand down at the front.

Mounting tension

The atmosphere was fantastic. The tension mounted as the game kicked off almost 8 minutes late because it was on live TV.

We went 1-0 up. Then is was 1-1. Then 2-1 down. All the time we checked the latest score at Cambridge.

Then we heard the news we longed to hear. Their game was over and they’d only secured a draw.

We were still playing but nobody was bothered. We were CHAMPIONS.

Brewers drink to success

Champagne corks popped at the final whistle. Stridey came over to where we were standing, a bottle in his hand.

Someone soon relieved him of that and Hayley the youngest of our group bought it home. There were lots of tears and lots of very smiley faces.

And Nigel Clough, the person we all wanted to see out there on the pitch, had left. We owe it all to him for all the work he did over the ten years he was with us.

The team did us very proud over the whole season. Thank you to them and to all at Burton Albion - from Ben Robinson down to the ball boys. Hope they won’t mind me saying that.

Thank you again and again.

Pat Parker