A fan's-eye view from Turf Moor, with Stephen Cummings

NOW just hang on a minute.

An away win with four goals into the bargain? In excess of one million pounds spent in seven days? An international call-up for one of our midfielders? A positive, go-ahead chairman with tangible ambition?

I mean, this is Burnley Football Club isn't it? The same Burnley Football Club that I have grown to know and kind of love over the past 23 years?

I hope you will forgive me for opening this week's column with a tirade of questions. It's just that, like many Burnley supporters, I am left somewhat shell-shocked by the recent sequence of events.

We're just not used to this kind of stuff. One minute we are the classic, cliched, under-achieving sleeping giant, and the next the national media are labelling us "big-spending" Burnley. And with Stan Ternent's comments at the weekend that he has his eye on one or two other players, the spending may not be over yet. However, (come on, this is Burnley, there's always a "however"), there is a downside to all this. For a start the expectation level, already high amongst the Turf Moor faithful, will be raised yet higher by the activity of the past few days. Secondly, from now on we will also be perceived by other, less monied clubs, as being wealthy, thus increasing their desire to put one over on us.

With regard to the latter point, this should not be too much of a problem for the Clarets. Ever since we were relegated to the hinterland of lower league football, the club has always been a big fish in a small pond. Teams visiting Turf Moor have raised their game accordingly. In short, we are used to it.

But the expectation level is something else all together. Ternent's claim at the weekend that the standard (and thus by logical extension the expectation level) for Burnley Football Club comes from the early 60s is only partially accurate. Supporters such as myself not even born when McIlroy and company ruled the roost, expect Burnley to achieve more because we see clubs smaller than ourselves doing better than us.

But at least Burnley now appear to be taking steps down the right road. It is now Stan Ternent's job to turn those steps into strides - big strides, strides big enough in fact to be recognised as being those of a giant.

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