Oxford United hero Billy Turley said he was so proud of his teammates after they wrecked Burton's promotion party and kept their own season alive.
The U's keeper made some outstanding saves as Chris Wilder's men beat the Brewers 1-0 at the Pirelli Stadium in a dramatic last away match of the Blue Square Premier campaign.
"I'm just so proud of the lads tonight because they were magnificent," Turley said, "and we've got some young players there. But they showed tremendous character."
A fourth successive clean sheet lifted Oxford to sixth place, and means they will be sweating on other games today.
But betting company Blue Square believe they have a chance, making them 12-1 to win the play-offs after leaving some Burton fans in tears.
The Brewers needed only a point to go up, but Adam Chapman's 70th-minute free-kick in a tense and hard-fought televised promotion battle leaves them still biting their nails.
United's defence came under intense pressure late on, after Chris Willmott was shown the red card with ten minutes to go.
But they refused to wilt.
"I think the last five minutes epitomised what the club's about – blocking shots, sticking bodies in the way, doing everything to win the game," U's manager Wilder said.
"I thought in the first 15 minutes we were a little bit uptight. After that, for a good period up to half-time I thought we were the better team and controlled the game.
"Then Burton had a go at it, and missed a great chance when Batts (Damian Batt) threw the ball inside. But fair play to him, perhaps he shouldn't have played, he had been ill all day yet wanted to play.
"We came back into it, got a great goal and did fantastically well the last 15 minutes, especially when Motty gets sent off.
"He'll be disappointed, but I think quite a few players went down a bit too easily tonight all over the pitch, which was not great to see, and I think we paid the penalty in terms of Motty's sending-off.
"I didn't want it to end tonight," stressed Wilder. "We wanted it to go to the last game of the season.
"We'd heard that, if Burton played well, they'd win comfortably, apparently. Well they did play well, but didn't win.
"Today there are going to be games all over the country and other teams are going to have to win games to overtake us.
"We're now on 77 points, which is really 82 with the extra five, and I think that would make us second tonight!"
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