It began with thousands of flat caps raised in tearful silence for a hero and ended in a cacophonous cavalcade of noise and joy that reverberated around a city with a dream of £60 million salvation.
Such was the emotional collision of mourning and hope that Sunday morning in May 2007 at St Marys.
Southampton Football Club were ninety minutes away from assuring themselves a top-six Championship finish and a crack at their £60 million return to the Premiership.
Before a ball had even been kicked against Southend United, though, the 32,008 capacity - the clubs first sell-out since being relegated two years previously - were united in the same sense of grief.
Southampton legend Alan Ball had died two weeks previously and the St Mary's faithful paid colourful and vibrant tribute.
Supporters sported Ball's customary cloth cap, holding aloft a coloured card depicting his image, while his children led out Saints icons Lawrie McMenemy and Matt Le Tissier for an emotional minutes applause.
The occasion carried such emotional weight that the game initially failed to go to script.
The occasion appeared to paralyse George Burley's young side and the stadium was stunned into nervous silence on thirteen minutes when Southend centre-half Adam Barrett crashed a volley past goalkeeper Bartosz Bialkowski.
The tension was palpable and deepened minutes before half-time, when popular club captain Claus Lundekvam - in his testimonial year - crumpled to the turf in agony and had to be stretchered off with a serious ankle injury.
Rather than falter, however, Saints took inspiration from their stricken skipper and the occasion itself.
The fightback had already begun on 29 minutes, when Kenwyne Jones met a deep cross from seventeen-year-old Gareth Bale by heading the ball downwards past Darryl Flahavan to make it 1-1.
Fuelled by a half-time rallying cry from Burley, the side returned with a renewed, ferocious determination and it was youth who ultimately took the contest by the scruff of the neck.
Four minutes into the second half, a sliced, defensive clearance landed perfectly in the path of 20-year-old Leon Best to eagerly tap the ball home from close range to finally ease the torturous tension.
From thereon, the home side blew apart their doomed opponents, surfing the momentum of the kind of atmosphere that felt waiting to erupt.
With less than ten minutes remaining, Bale squeezed in another delivery for Best to side-foot home his second of the afternoon.
Two minutes later, Jones was able to squeeze in a fourth goal - netting his second - to rubberstamp a 4-1 victory.
After the game, the Trinidadian striker revealed that seeing Lundekvam being carried off had spurred the team on.
We had to win the game and get the play-offs for Claus, he insisted.
On the final whistle, the release of raw emotion was palpable as fans danced in the stands before swarming around the stadium's ticket office to book their place at the looming play-off semi-final against Derby County.
- Check back on Saturday for pictures of the fans at the Saints v Southend clash in 2007.
