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It was though our first point on the road since the week before Christmas and with the cup games as well it means we've lost just once in the last six games.
Birmingham away was going to be a tough game I thought. They hadn't looked a good side at the Turf earlier in the season when a fortunate late equaliser gave them a 1-1 draw, but here they were third in the league and surely a side going to provide us with our toughest remaining away game of the season.
Those were the thoughts as we made our way down the M6, stopping only at one of our favourite lunch stops in Staffordshire, and I'm sure at that time we'd have more than settled for a point against Alex McLeish's team which had been strengthened during the transfer window.
We were in good time at the ground, and that was happen as well as we encountered a military operation before being admitted. There are stewards, stewards who push things to the limit, and then there are Birmingham stewards. The searching outside was to the point of being ridiculous and holding people up. In desperate need to use the facilities inside it was only when I advised my searcher that any further delay could cause him to have a warm, wet hand that he finally decided I could go through with my fully paid up adult ticket priced £15.
There's no need for it. Birmingham City Football Club had proved themselves to be very helpful earlier in the day and this only served to detract from that.
Once inside, and by now more comfortable, I took my seat to learn there was one change from the side that had beaten Birmingham's neighbours West Brom in the FA Cup four days earlier. Rhys Williams was back with Kevin McDonald missing out. He was on the bench as was Chris Eagles who was returning from a chest infection that had kept him out of the midweek cup win.
I reckoned we would need a positive start. We didn't want to allow Birmingham to get an early foothold into the game. No matter what I thought, I wasn't expecting what actually happened. Right from the kick off we went at them, and in no uncertain terms.
We got the ball into the Birmingham penalty box right from the start and I don't think the play ever went too far from it before we took the lead in the third minute. Did any Birmingham player get a positive touch on the ball? I don't think they did. They gave away a free kick, a corner, they tried to clear frantically but they had no answer.
Then Wade Elliott crossed from the right. It went right across to Robbie Blake who played it back in for Martin Paterson and he made no mistake from close in beyond the far post. What an incredible start. It's not that a goal becomes inevitable so soon in the game, but the pressure was so great it was more than on the cards.
We didn't ease off either, and by 3:30 we should have been so far in front that the three points were ours. But no matter how many chances we created we contrived to miss the lot of them. Steven Thompson fired over after a mistake by goalkeeper Maik Taylor and that was only a couple of minutes after the goal.
Robbie missed the next one. Set up by Paterson you would have put your money on him not missing the target. It would have been a bad beat as he somehow screwed his shot wide of goal.
Thompson hit a poor shot straight at the keeper and then Chris McCann joined in with two poor misses. He shot weakly wide with the first one and then with the second hit his shot tamely at Maik Taylor although on this occasion was given offside.
What were Birmingham doing during this start? They were desperately trying to halt the wave of superb attacking play towards their goal by any means possible and other than that the answer is nothing. They certainly weren't giving us any problems.
Off the field they were providing us with some entertainment, one fan in particular with a party piece fall as he tried to get away from the police. It was all good fun but I suppose when your side is being totally and utterly outplayed at home then you have to find some alternative entertainment.
You really couldn't see anything other than a comprehensive Burnley win. We were playing as well as we've played all season, and all we needed was a second goal and I think it would all have been over.
But this game of football as a nasty habit of kicking you when you least expect it and here it happened in the most bizarre of circumstances. Michael Duff won a header and it fell for Steven Caldwell who decided to play it back to Brian Jensen. He got it wrong but so did the Beast who made a bit of a hash of things. Had he not been backtracking he would have been better positioned but concerned at having a free kick given against him for handling a back pass he tried to head it away. It went no distance at all and left Kevin Phillips with the easiest of chances.
The remaining few minutes of the half were more even as we came to terms with it all but as we made our way in at the break surely no one inside the ground could have believed that we were only level.
Birmingham were out very quickly for the second half, long before us. Perhaps McLeish had little to say to improve things. His team seems to be based on the ugly side of the game. They play little football other than hitting it long for such as Cameron Jerome and Scott Sinclair whilst persisting in niggling little things.
They make sure you can't take quick free kicks by standing over the ball without any intention of retreating or they knock the ball away. They push and they shove and all the horrible things we've seen recently from Preston and Charlton. In these sort of games you hope for a strong referee, we got Keith Stroud who was as weak as anything and I'm not even sure he spotted it going on.
Eventually we did come out, but we were never really able to get on top as we'd done in the first half. There was a spell of Birmingham pressure but it came too often from free kicks hit into the box from Sebastian Larsson. From one such kick he forced Jensen into a good save but in truth that was about all they created.
They brought on their Costly loan player but it made little difference and as the half wore on we came more and more into it. Robbie tried a shot from wide that nearly evaded Taylor and then we created the best chance of the half. Wade got in a cross for Thommo but the striker failed to make the most and put a header straight into the keeper's hands.
We made late substitutions and two of them almost combined in the last minute of stoppage time to win it. McDonald played the ball to Eagles. His cross went straight back to him and this time he tried to curl one into the far corner from an almost impossible angle. It went wide and with it our chances of a win.
Managers will always say that they are happier if their sides are missing chances rather than not creating them. You can't disagree with that and there's no doubt had we taken half our chances in this game we would have come home with a big win.
Talking today I said if we could play the first half hour of each of the remaining games the way we played in the first half hour of this game then we would walk it into the play offs. Simply we could not play like this again and miss so many chances before making awful errors to concede a goal.
We didn't win this game because of individual errors at either end of the pitch, but overall we really couldn't have any complaints about the performance. It was another good one from the Clarets, but we all know goals win football matches.
The teams were;
Birmingham: Maik Taylor, Sebastian Larsson, Martin Taylor, Liam Ridgewell, David Murphy, Scott Sinclair, Lee Bowyer, Lee Carsley, Hameur Bouazza (Carlos Costly 63), Cameron Jerome (Keith Fahey 74), Kevin Phillips. Subs not used: Colin Doyle, Franck Queudrue, Damien Johnson.
Yellow Cards: Lee Bowyer, Liam Ridgewell.
Burnley: Brian Jensen, Rhys Williams, Michael Duff, Steven Caldwell, Christian Kalvenes, Wade Elliott, Graham Alexander, Chris McCann, Robbie Blake (Chris Eagles 77), Steven Thompson (Kevin McDonald 90), Martin Paterson (Jay Rodriguez 84). Subs not used: Diego Penny, Joey Gudjonsson.
Yellow Cards: Steven Thompson, Christian Kalvenes.
Referee: Keith Stroud (Hampshire).
Attendance: 16,763.