mikec

I remember watching that game as a boy. Wasn't that the match that led to Bill Shankley accusing us of playing "alehouse football"? I think he thought that Lindsay was fouled as he made the header.

I liked this stat from John Motson on the BBC site: "Only one club has stayed up after losing eight of their opening 10 Premier League games, but looking on the bright side that team was Southampton (in 1993-94). "

Scored 12 PL goals in 65+1 games. Highest seasonal total was 7 in 1995/96.

Scdajfu?

Derby 4-0. That was the best game for me because it was the only game I got to see this season. Lee's goal was certainly special and I was right behind the net and got a great view of it.

Last 2 times we were promoted to the top league, our first home game was against a fellow-promoted side. Man City in '66 and Bolton in '78. I'll say home to Blackpool!

1993-94 West Ham 3 Saints 3 Saints under Alan Ball needed to win to guarantee staying up. Goals from Maddison and 2 from Le Tissier gave us a 3-2 lead. A pitch invasion, then West Ham equalised, then another pitch invasion and the ref finished it a minute or 2 early. Other results meant we were safe anyway. 1995-96 Saints 0 Wimbledon 0 On the final day the 3rd relagation place was between Coventry, Saints and Man City. All three teams were all on the same points but City, now managed by Alan Ball, had the worst goal difference. Everything seemed to be ok when City went 2-0 down to Liverpool. But then they pulled it back to 2-2 with still 20 minutes to go. Another City goal would have sent us down but it did not come. Legend has it that someone wrongly told Ball that we were losing so he told his players just to defend for the last few minutes. 1996-97 Aston Villa 1 Saints 0 Saints needed a draw to stay up, Villa needed a draw to guarantee a European place. Cynics said they would play out a dull 0-0. Of course being Saints, it was not that simple and we had to rely on Middlesborough and Sunderland not to win to keep us up. 1998-1999 Saints 2 Everton 0 The year of the "great escape". Having been in the bottom 3 for virtually the whole season a win the previous week at "Dellhurst Park" had put survival in our own hands. 2 goals from Marion Pahars secured the win while Charlton lost anyway to go down. 2000-2001 Saints 3 Arsenal 2 Fairy-tale ending for the last ever league game at the Dell against 2nd-place Arsenal. After 74mins it is 2-2 with the 2 Saints goals from Kaschloul - when on comes legend Matt Le Tissier for one of his last few appearances. On 89 minutes he scores the winner with a left foot volley. 2004-2005 Saints 1 Man Utd 2 Although they had nothing to play for and had a cup final the following week, United turn up with a full strength team (thanks Fergie). Saints needed to win and hope other results went our way. There was brief hope when we took the lead with an own goal and news came through that Norwich and Palace were losing, but when United equalised any spirit seemed to disappear and Van Nistolroy completed the misery with a 2nd half winner. After 28 seasons in the top flight, Saints were relagated. 2006-2007 Saints 4 Southend 1 Saints under George Burley needed to win to guarantee a play-off spot against already-relgated Southend. Before the game there was an emotional tribute to Alan Ball who died earlier that week. Southend briefly threatened to spoil the party by taking the lead but 2 goals each from Kenwyn Jones and Leon Best took Saints into the playoffs. 2007-2008 Saints 3 Sheff Utd 2 Nigel Pearson had been brought in on a short term contract to try and prevent relegation to League 1. Once again survival was in our own hands but again, we conceded the first goal. A brilliant save from Richard Wright prevented us from going 2-0 down and we then went straight up the other end and Saganowski equalised. Stern John then put us ahead in the 2nd half, but Sheffield then scored again to make it 2-2. A second goal from John put us ahead once again and then he managed to get himself sent off to leave a tense final 10 minutes. 2011-2012 Saints vs Coventry ???

Imagine if we draw against Coventy but West Ham win their 2 games and edge us out on goal difference - no promotion and you miss out on £380.

I'm a different Mike but you are right strictly speaking, although it would have taken some freak results for us not to be promoted by then. Brighton needed to win and us to lose to Spurs and there also needed to be a 8 goal turnaround in goal difference. Therefore it was the draw at Orient that effectively sealed promotion.

Oh I see you beat me to it saintj - and how could I forget Paul Sturrock?

I've been trying to come up with the complete list of managers that we have had in those 20 years: Ian Branfoot Alan Ball Dave Merrington Graham Souness Dave Jones Glen Hoddle Stuart Gray Gordon Strachen Steve Wigley Harry Rednapp Dave Bassett George Burley Jason Dodd / John Gorman Nigel Pearson Jan Poortvliet Mark Woote Alan Pardew Nigel Adkins I make that 18 in total (if you count Dodd/Gorman together). Did I forget anyone?

Thanks Um Bongo - the replay of the goals starts at exactly 3 minutes in.

The away teams have scored in all the other League 1 games and are winning (except Charlton-Carlisle 1-1). Come on Saints!

Sadly there's no prize money based on league placing - that's only in the Premiership.

When did we last play Bournemouth in a competitive match? I have been following Saints since the 60's and I can only vaguely remember perhaps a single League Cup game. It seems strange that we havn't drawn them more often although I suppose they were often out of the cups by the time we entered.

Isn't that a good enough reason?

Out of interest - did anyone who had to pick up duplicate tickets from Wembley on the day have any problems getting their ticket, or finding someone else in their seat?

It was more than 5 seasons. I think it was 1994 that we won at 3-1 at Coventry after conceding the first goal and the next time it happened was something like 2006 when we won 3-2 at Burnley.

... and I've got a £1 stake in the national lottery with potential returns of over £5 million so I don't think I'll bother with a JPT bet

Me too - and why do you never hear "Oh my, what a referee!" being sung any more when a decision goes against your team? And what was wrong with the old half-time scoreboards marked A, B, C etc so you had to look over someone's shoulder who had a program to see what the scores were? It's just not the same these days

Branfoot wrote a piece that was included in Matty's biography where he denies that he was about to sub him just before that Newcastle goal. He says something like "I was delighted that the kick up the backside worked" by which I suppose he means that he was only threatening to substitute him. Sounds a bit dubious to me but I suppose only he knows whether it's true or not. He also includes a story about how Alex Ferguson refused to shake his hand and told him to eff off after a game at Old Trafford because he didn't like the way that Saints had played. A few weeks later Fergie phoned as he was interested in buying Shearer and Branfoot took great pleasure in telling him to eff off in return. I'm sure that he was generally a decent bloke and I didn't like the amount of venom was directed towards him, but it's hard to forget the sheer awfulness of the way we played under him and the poor quality of the players he brought in (Ken Monkou excepted). I'm sure he would have taken us down eventually had he remained in charge.

Going to the new Wembley for the first time with 44K other Saints fans, great day out, great atmosphere, chance to see Saints win a trophy. And if we lose, well - it's just a Mickey Mouse cup No downside to this as far as I can see!

Just managed to get a ticket online To begin with it said the online server was unavailable due to the high volume but I kept hitting refresh and it did eventually prompt for the login details. Only showed 2 blocks available, so get in quick if you can!

...but this was posted later on another thread: Twitter: officialsaints Sorry for confusion, just been told by ticket office that online sales for Wembley will start @ 8.30 tomorrow - same as phonelines #saintsfc

But I bet a fair number of these "number 2's" are people who hardly ever go to Saints games but just fancy a trip to Wembley - and they are getting tickets at the expense of us non-ST holders who are regular fans but didn't make it to the MK Dons match. I think it would have been fairer if they had limited ST holders to 2 tickets each regardless of whether they went to the semis or not.