"You don’t get over it..” “Utter relief..” former Sheffield Wednesday men Darren Purse and Dave Cusack describe the highs and lows of last day survival shootouts

One of joy; black-and-white memories of goals by Mick Prendergast and Eric Potts that earned them a famous 2-1 win over Southend United in 1976 that saved them from relegation to Fourth Division football.

And one of pain; a painful techicolour 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace in 2010 that consigned them to the drop from what is now known as the Championship.

On both occasions only a win would do, on both occasions that win would consign their opponents to relegation. This weekend, of course, Sheffield Wednesday go through it all over again. What side of the emotional see-saw they land on remains to be seen.

Two of the men who have some idea of the pressures current Wednesday players will be facing at Derby on Saturday are Darren Purse and David Cusack.

Purse, Owls armband wrapped around his bicep, scored the late equaliser that only served to make the 2010 date all the more agonising.

Cusack, he too a strapping, no-nonsense centre-half, put on a famous performance in the famous Southend win 34 years earlier.

“I don't remember too much about the build-up to the weekend,” Purse told The Star, “but there was obviously a lot of pressure on it, we all knew that.

“We were told by the Thursday it was a sell-out at Hillsborough, they'd opened up all the corners of the ground and all that.

“It's a tie I try to forget if I'm totally honest, but the day and the support we had that day was unbelievable. It wasn't the point we got that day that did us, we drew so many games that season and it was the culmination of the 45 games before it.”

There will be no supporters at Pride Park of course, the sad reality of the ongoing coronavirus crisis meaning the what many are billing as the biggest game in the modern history of both these proud clubs will lack any semblance of atmosphere.