35 years ago today

[Green]

Southampton 4 - 1 Liverpool https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_vRya0_9kCg&pp=ygUZU291dGhhbXB0b24gbGl2ZXJwb29sIDQtMQ%3D%3D

[derry]

I was sitting at a street cafe in Kuala Lumpur when I heard the result emphasising the youngsters brought in, Benali, Shearer, LeTissier, Rod Wallace, Dodd etc. This is the first time I saw this since then. I was operating a Boeing 737-400 on a wet lease to Malaysian Airlines so they could prove their routes before they got their aircraft. I was only there six weeks. The aircraft stayed eighteen months with pilots rotating. I didn't really fancy going back.

Edited 21 October, 2024 by derry

[Bob60]

That brings back memories what a team we had then. 

Good times

 

[Lord Duckhunter]

I was working in the States with a few Scousers at that time. Had an incredibly enjoyable few days taking the  piss after that result. I think The Evertonians amongst them enjoyed it even more than I did. 

[The Kraken]

I was in Southampton with my cousins but didn't have tickets to the game.  We stood outside a Rumbelows near Debenhams that had Ceefax page 303 on for about the whole second half.

[ecuk268]

In terms of a comprehensive win over top opposition, one of the best games that I saw at The Dell.

Liverpool were on fire that season. Won the league by 9 points scoring 78 goals with a goal difference of 41.

But we took them to the cleaners with Kenny Dalglish saying that it could have been 8-1.

Edited 21 October, 2024 by ecuk268

[Elmore Saint]

Sat up in the west that day, one of the occasions that I was there with my dad. I lost him a few years later, well before time, but times we spent together like that game are those that live longest in the memory. A lovely share - thank you ☺️ 

[Football Special]

One of my favourite games in one of my favourite seasons, good old Chris Nicholl and his 4-2-4 tactics, the club never did acknowledge his death did they ?

[Football Special]

QPR away the week before was also a great one, Norwich at home that season one of the best hat tricks you'll ever see 

[Turkish]

That is probably still the best Saints performance I’ve ever seen. We absolutely destroyed them it could easily have been 6 or 7. Rideout hit the bar from 30 yards at 0-0, he hit the post in the second half in front of the Milton where I was. they couldn’t cope with us.

crazy team really Jason Dodd had only made his debut a few weeks earlier, up against John Barnes who was probably one of the best players in Europe at the time in his position, a young Benali at left back, Flowers in goal who had just taken over as full time glovesman from John Burridge. we had a very young shearer, Wallace and Le Tiss up front with rideout. If that was today they’d be worth £100m each.  
 

we had basically a load of young players plus Case, Cockerill and Russell Osman. I can’t remember who the other crntre back was that day, Neil Ruddock? Kevin Moore and him seemed to be one of those two alongside osman IIRC

[Toussaint]

7 hours ago, Turkish said:

That is probably still the best Saints performance I’ve ever seen. We absolutely destroyed them it could easily have been 6 or 7. Rideout hit the bar from 30 yards at 0-0, he hit the post in the second half in front of the Milton where I was. they couldn’t cope with us.

crazy team really Jason Dodd had only made his debut a few weeks earlier, up against John Barnes who was probably one of the best players in Europe at the time in his position, a young Benali at left back, Flowers in goal who had just taken over as full time glovesman from John Burridge. we had a very young shearer, Wallace and Le Tiss up front with rideout. If that was today they’d be worth £100m each.  
 

we had basically a load of young players plus Case, Cockerill and Russell Osman. I can’t remember who the other crntre back was that day, Neil Ruddock? Kevin Moore and him seemed to be one of those two alongside osman IIRC

The days when we had a mix of old war dogs and youth were the best days. I really haven’t enjoyed the recent tendency towards buying young characterless players in the hope of flipping them for big bucks. Having lallana in the team is a bit of a throwback, if only he was used more.

[Midfield_General]

Alan Shearer and Paul Rideout as twin centre forwards with Rod Wallace on one side of them and Matt Le Tissier on the other. That’s just a ridiculous forward line. Teams have won the league with far worse than that. 

I was at that game as a kid, and watching that footage just brings home how much more fun the football was then before the massive influx of money ruined it. We were never going to win the league but we and teams like us could afford to compete and keep it interesting each week. Powerhouses like Liverpool or Man Utd could come to our ground and get a hiding if we were on our game. Cheap tickets so kids and families could actually afford to go. Standing, rowdy crowd so there was a great atmosphere that made it thrilling to be there, whoever we were playing. Fairly regular bragging rights over the big boys so kids wanted to support their local team. Being able to actually keep good players for a decent chunk of their careers. 

Compare that to ‘the product’ now where every single thing is about money, and the people responsible for running the game seem hell-bent on turning every league in the world into an uncompetitive procession where only one or two of the same teams can win it and everyone else is just there to line up with ten behind the ball to be hammered by them. £50 a ticket to sit in a half-silent ground full of tourists and obediently watch on every week hoping you can keep the score down to 3 or 4 against. Watching an exciting young prospect have a great game and knowing that it all it means is that in the next window he’ll be bought by someone who will triple his wages to sit in their reserves.  I’m genuinely amazed we still get 30k plus turning up every week for that ‘experience’. 

What a bit of skill by Matty to set up that third one though. Jumpers for goalposts, isn’t it? Marvellous. 

 

 

[Football Special]

25 minutes ago, Midfield_General said:

Alan Shearer and Paul Rideout as twin centre forwards with Rod Wallace on one side of them and Matt Le Tissier on the other. That’s just a ridiculous forward line. Teams have won the league with far worse than that. 

I was at that game as a kid, and watching that footage just brings home how much more fun the football was then before the massive influx of money ruined it. We were never going to win the league but we and teams like us could afford to compete and keep it interesting each week. Powerhouses like Liverpool or Man Utd could come to our ground and get a hiding if we were on our game. Cheap tickets so kids and families could actually afford to go. Standing, rowdy crowd so there was a great atmosphere that made it thrilling to be there, whoever we were playing. Fairly regular bragging rights over the big boys so kids wanted to support their local team. Being able to actually keep good players for a decent chunk of their careers. 

Compare that to ‘the product’ now where every single thing is about money, and the people responsible for running the game seem hell-bent on turning every league in the world into an uncompetitive procession where only one or two of the same teams can win it and everyone else is just there to line up with ten behind the ball to be hammered by them. £50 a ticket to sit in a half-silent ground full of tourists and obediently watch on every week hoping you can keep the score down to 3 or 4 against. Watching an exciting young prospect have a great game and knowing that it all it means is that in the next window he’ll be bought by someone who will triple his wages to sit in their reserves.  I’m genuinely amazed we still get 30k plus turning up every week for that ‘experience’. 

What a bit of skill by Matty to set up that third one though. Jumpers for goalposts, isn’t it? Marvellous. 

 

 

Same for me mate, 9 years old and football just seemed magical then , shame to see what it's become , have a watch of this video as well, marvellous 

 

 

[Whitey Grandad]

2 hours ago, Football Special said:

Same for me mate, 9 years old and football just seemed magical then , shame to see what it's become , have a watch of this video as well, marvellous 

 

 

Can I cry now?

[OldNick]

16 hours ago, Football Special said:

QPR away the week before was also a great one, Norwich at home that season one of the best hat tricks you'll ever see 

The way Matt and Rodney Wallace combined was magical that day. 

[OldNick]

2 hours ago, Football Special said:

Same for me mate, 9 years old and football just seemed magical then , shame to see what it's become , have a watch of this video as well, marvellous 

 

 

Has Andy Townsend got off his arse yet. The way MLT sat him down lol

[OldNick]

On 21/10/2024 at 11:08, Green said:

Southampton 4 - 1 Liverpool https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_vRya0_9kCg&pp=ygUZU291dGhhbXB0b24gbGl2ZXJwb29sIDQtMQ%3D%3D

what an exciting team. Sadly the big clubs came and took them from us, leaving just MLT who would have been taken away as well if it wasnt for his wife. 

Rodney Wallace and MLT my favourite pairing, although Ekelund and Matt were awesome before injury ruined that before they really shone.

[Charlie Wayman]

One swallow, a summer does not make……...

The past is a foreign country……...

Just saying! 

[Charlie Wayman]

5 minutes ago, OldNick said:

Sadly the big clubs came and took them from us

 

At least we don't have that problem any more.

Unfortunately!

[OldNick]

5 minutes ago, Charlie Wayman said:

One swallow, a summer does not make……...

The past is a foreign country……...

Just saying! 

We only have that foreign country these days

[Lord Duckhunter]

12 hours ago, Turkish said:

That is probably still the best Saints performance I’ve ever seen.

Performance, irrelevant nonsense.
 

What were the possession stats? 

[Midfield_General]

5 hours ago, Football Special said:

Same for me mate, 9 years old and football just seemed magical then , shame to see what it's become , have a watch of this video as well, marvellous 

 

 

I was at that game too - I would have been 13 for that one. It's burned vividly into my memory for two reasons.

One was that we were at the very back of the very top of the uncovered concrete family stand, what felt like miles up into the freezing night sky on a Tuesday night in February and it was to this day the coldest I've ever been at a football match. It was brutal. I remember my sister's boyfriend was wearing a Campri ski jacket (as was the style at the time) and we found out that you could unzip and remove the arms so we did that and turned the arm sleeves into makeshift ski hats as a desperate attempt to stave off hypothermia.  

The other was that Matty scored those world-class goals and destroyed them single-handedly - I'd never seen an individual footballer that good before. When he put the second and third ones in we soon forgot about freezing to death and looking like twats and just watched in awe. What. A. Player. Peerless. 

[Saint_clark]

7 hours ago, Toussaint said:

The days when we had a mix of old war dogs and youth were the best days. I really haven’t enjoyed the recent tendency towards buying young characterless players in the hope of flipping them for big bucks. Having lallana in the team is a bit of a throwback, if only he was used more.

No more buying a third division player for £10,000 and him turning out to be the glue that holds the team together. 

[Midfield_General]

2 hours ago, Saint_clark said:

No more buying a third division player for £10,000 and him turning out to be the glue that holds the team together. 

Exactly. Jimmy Case.

Three European Cup winners’ medals, four Division 1 (Prem equivalent) winners’ medals plus one each for winning the UEFA Cup, European Super Cup and League Cup.

Paid thirty grand for him and he bossed the midfield for years. 

Edited 22 October, 2024 by Midfield_General

[Gloucester Saint]

6 hours ago, OldNick said:

We only have that foreign country these days

That’s the reality and has been since the club was sold to Gao and then even worse, SR. 2017 represents the end point of Southampton FC history for me, Wembley was nice last year but although I expected the worst this season, it’s been far worse than that with no resemblance to any of the Saints teams and players discussed here. They don’t even have the fighting spirit of the 1990s squads, limited as they were. 

The club is just MK Dons with red and white stripes these days. No heart, no soul, just a set of ‘philosophies’. Eastleigh and Sholing might be the beneficiaries for lapsed Saints fans who still want a proper football experience.