Blog
SOUTHAMPTON’S DEBUT IN THE FA CUP
Posted: 26th May 20231st Qualifying Round: Warmley v St. Mary’s 3 October 1891 When Southampton FC – or St Mary’s as they were still then known – made their bow in the English Cup in October 1891, they were still a junior club and so had to compete in the qualifying rounds. The club was not yet six […]
THE 1897 FA CUP-TIE, A TALE OF A BROKEN LEG, A LETTER TO THE LOCAL PRESS AND THE SAINT WHO MURDERERED
Posted: 7th December 2022Having beaten Cowes, Reading and Swindon, Southampton St Mary’s were now drawn against Heanor Town, then top of the Midland League, to see if they could reach the last 16 for the first time ever. The players and officials prepared for the game in Andover for most of the previous week, doing special training while […]
Terry Paine’s trilby and Bill Shankly.
Posted: 17th November 2021In the late 1950s the Saints two young wingers, John Sydenham and Terry Paine could often be spotted wearing a trilby, be it on a golf course or while travelling to an away match, as the main image shows. Nothing unusual in that, but Terry Paine could be prone to wearing it at a jaunty […]
99 NOT OUT
Posted: 11th May 2021The recent death of the Duke of Edinburgh, two months short of his 100th birthday, inevitably prompted thoughts of three ex-Saints who likewise died in their 100th year and led us to check on the health and welfare of a former Saint in his 99th year. Ernie Nicholls was coming 17 when he first turned […]
Unlikely disaster at White Hart Lane
Posted: 16th April 2021On the morning of 2 April 1949, 15,000 expectant Saints supporters were making their way to White Hart Lane in North London. It was the day of the big match against fellow promotion hunters, Tottenham Hotspur, but the fans, who caught the train from Southampton Central or motored up the old A30 in a procession […]
WHEN SAINTS WENT TO WEMBLEY IN 1971
Posted: 18th March 2021When Jimmy Gabriel left Everton for Saints he did so with Alan Ball’s comment “you’ll win nothing down there” ringing in his ears. Everton’s World Cup winner and future Saint was as smart as you like on the pitch, but his parting prophetic shot to Gabriel was to prove untrue. Back in 1968 the Daily […]
SUE LOPEZ – A PIONEER OF WOMAN’S FOOTBALL
Posted: 14th March 2021When the history of women’s football in the 20th century is written, one name, Sue Lopez (M.B.E.) will be hugely prominent. Although women’s soccer was not officially recognised by the FA until 1972, when Sue was already in her late 20s, she still managed to have an outstanding career which not only included winning eight […]
What’s in a surname ? A bit of fun.
Posted: 4th March 2021Surnames of footballers are a lot different to the days when Barnsley always seemed to have an Awkwright and Newcastle a Milburn in their sides. Today’s influx of foreign-born players have certainly spiced up the team sheets with Southampton being no exception. While putting the www.saintsplayers.co.uk website together, I noted that Saints did not have […]
A woman’s letter describes a Southampton football match in the 1890s.
Posted: 28th February 2021Has anybody, like me, ever wondered during a drab interlude at St Mary’s stadium, what it must have been like to have been a Saints supporter at a game, way back when the club was in its infancy at the tail-end of the 19th century? For instance, were the Victorian fans as passionate, raucous and […]
Southampton v Bournemouth in the FA Cup
Posted: 15th February 2021As the only previous FA Cup encounter between Southampton and Bournemouth took place in November 1953, it is doubtful there are many current fans who can claim “I was there”. Rationing was still in place, the Korean War had just ended and the Queen’s coronation, captured on tv for the very first time was still […]
Ernie Pearce – A Finger for Freedom
Posted: 9th February 202120 April 1944 was a date young Saints player, Ernie Pearce and Adolf Hitler would celebrate for vastly differing reasons. While Hitler was toasting his 55th birthday – his penultimate before taking his own life in a Berlin bunker, Ernie Pearce meanwhile was becoming a free man for the first time in nearly four years, […]
The Curse of the Ex-Saints Players
Posted: 7th February 2021Ex-players returning to punish their previous clubs is a common enough event but in 1908 Saints fans had cause to rue the reappearance of not one old boy, but two. As Saints prepare to go to Molyneux this coming Thursday, this article looks back to 1908 when Wolves and Saints met in a FA Cup […]
Saints 1897 FA Cup “Away Day”.
Posted: 1st February 2021During this lockdown “away days” following Saints have been sorely missed, but have you ever wondered what an “away day” would have been like for Saints fans in the 1890s? What follows is a contemporary account of a cup-tie away to Swindon through the eyes of a Southern Echo reporter who went under the name […]
PREVIOUS CUP MEETINGS: Saints vs Shrewsbury
Posted: 1st December 2020The recent third round FA Cup draw paired Southampton and Shrewsbury together for the third time in the competition’s history and also taking into account two League Cup encounters then January’s fixture will be the fifth time the two sides have gone head-to-head in senior knockout tournaments. The first was nearly 68 years ago when […]
Playing for England and Southampton
Posted: 13th November 2020When, in 2020, Danny Ings came on as a substitute v Iceland and then scored against Wales, he became the 38th player to play for England while on Saints books and the 9th to score for his country. Sincen then he has been joined by two more scorers (Ward-Prowse and the 39th player to play […]
Fred Wheeler – one of Saints fallen.
Posted: 2nd November 2020As Ralph Hasenhuttl and Carlo Ancelotti shook hands at the end of the Saints’ recent 2-0 defeat of Everton, they would have had much on their minds, from the hosts’ deserved win to the red card that would dominate the pundits’ post mortem. It prompted, though, thought of a little-known conflict between their two countries […]
Paul Arnold – The Nearly Man
Posted: 23rd October 2020Paul Arnold is not a name that will be familiar to most Saints fans, unless that is, you regularly watched Saints Reserves in the mid to late 1970s or took an interest in local Dorset football in the two decades that followed. But “Arnie” – as he was affectionately known to those who played alongside […]