I WAS utterly amazed by Burnley's selected team on the opening day of the season.

No Andy Payton, no Tom Cowan. Graham Branch and Paul Smith included. This seems to be a return to the daftness of exactly a year ago when a vital good start was sacrificed in order to demonstrate the need to "show four the door".

What has happened to the decision-making process since the end of last season? In the 50-plus years of my avid support there has not been a season to compare with it in terms of logic-defying incidents.

The sackings, the cup exit, half-time on the pitch, and the sheer chaos of the 6-0 City league defeat led to an urgent meeting between Ternent and his new chairman. The situation seemed irretrievable: The manager had clearly 'lost' his players, and relegation seemed inevitable. Yet somehow this meeting led to an almost honourable televised defeat by Preston and an unbeaten run to avoid the drop.

What made the situation even more fantastic was the fact that this was achieved with two loan players, Paul Cook and Tom Cowan playing out of their skins.

It is a mystery which will continue to fascinate us for some time.

Whatever the truth is, after a summer in which your newspaper has helped build up a spirit of optimism, the Clarets are far more likely to throw away the opportunity of a solid start which the fixtures computer appears to have afforded us.

B EVANS, BEvans5088@aol.com

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