Southampton is one of those clubs that is surprisingly a lot more fun to visit than you might have thought.
The Saints represent a beautiful traditional club that you quickly develop sympathy for, even though the stadium tells a different story.
Southampton is a port city in the south of England. Port cities often host large, traditional football clubs and Southampton FC is no exception. Just think of the beautiful red and white shirt, so beautiful that a Spaniard promptly took 50 to his home country and dressed two clubs in it: The clubs we now know as Athletic Bilbao and Atlético Madrid.
It's not a club with many trophies to its name, but they have an extensive list of special players: From Alan Ball and Kevin Keegan to Matt Le Tissier, and Gareth Bale. There are plenty of stars who adored the stripes over the years.
St Mary's Stadium on Britannia Road is not a very special stadium in itself. If you changed the colour of the seats it could easily have been in Leicester, Cardiff or Blackpool. However, it is pleasantly close to the city centre and right on the very important harbour for the city. It gives the stadium, which opened in 2001, somewhat of a raw edge when you walk past the run-down industry. On top of that, the stadium still has a name with a reference to the history of the club and not a generic sponsor name.
Inside, St Mary's can accommodate over 32,000 fans, which is just right for a club the size of Southampton.
When it was founded in 1885, the club was given the name 'St. Mary's Young Men Association FC', after St Mary's Church in Southampton, hence the nickname 'The Saints'. This St. Mary's Church still exists and is located on St. Mary's Street, near the stadium.
The authentic stadium, The Dell, was loved by everyone, but it was clear that Southampton had to move in order to grow. Only 15,000 fans could get in and irrespective of the capacity limit, the stadium built in 1898, was hopelessly outdated.
The square of the same name 'The Dell' arose on the site of the stadium and apartment complexes – built with a little imagination in stadium form – on the historic ground bear the names of club legends such as Ted Bates and Matt Le Tissier.
The completely failed statue of Cristiano Ronaldo in Madeira was news all over the world, in Southampton they had their own concerns in 2007 with their own statue soap opera. A well-deserved statue was erected for Ted Bates, after no less than 66 years of service and having held practically every possible position, including that of player and manager. So no one had a bad word about this statue, until the day of the unveiling when the supporters could not believe what they were seeing. The proportions between Bates' arms and legs were completely off (read: enormously short legs) and curiously enough, the statue looked a bit like Milan Mandaric, just former chairman of arch-rival Portsmouth. The popular anger resulted in a completely new statue that now, fortunately, resembles Ted Bates,
Southampton doesn't have many trophies to their name and they've never won the league, but the FA Cup win of 1976 felt like a league title. Southampton, then active in the second tier, surprised friend and foe by beating Manchester United 1-0 in the final at Wembley. Back home on the south coast, a folk festival broke out the likes of which the city had never seen. The Saints took a bus tour through the streets of Southampton that brought in as many as 250,000 people, and especially the endpoint of Guildhall Square was full of people. Here the players were honoured at City Hall, and the FA Cup was shown one more time, on the small balcony on Civic Centre Road.
If you are called 'Le God' at an originally religious club, you are a big one. Matthew Le Tissier, shadow striker from the island of Guernsey, was awarded this honour. Le Tissier played for Southampton for almost his entire career and achieved hero status in the city through his many goals and undying loyalty to the Saints. A pub was even named after him, Le Tissier Arms on Chapel Road, near St Mary's Stadium. For reasons incomprehensible to us, the name was later changed to the blander Chapel Arms, but luckily it's still a proper Southampton pub, filling up with football fans before home games.
On the north side of St Mary's Stadium is a pedestrian bridge over the track, connecting the stadium area with the northern suburbs of Southampton. This bridge has been completely overhauled and offers a kind of crash course about the club's history. You'll see plenty of club legends, from the club's founders to Marians Pahars and a young Gareth Bale.
You can buy tickets a few weeks prior to the match through the club's official website, while tickets last, even without a membership. Already sure which game you want to go to later in the season? When you become a premium member of The Saints you can immediately buy tickets for all remaining home games of the season.
Shuttle buses run from Southampton Central train station to Chapel Road around the home games, near St Mary's Stadium. Buses leave from the south side of the station and a return ticket costs £3. From the city centre, the same buses leave from Town Quay, opposite Terminal 2. You can also walk to the stadium from the city centre in about 20 minutes.
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