Sir Rickie Lambert - the most underrated player in recent times, except for at SMS. Mick Channon - good for us and England MLT - no explanation needed. Alan Ball - best one touch footballer I’ve watched, plus I just loved his enthusiasm. Ron Davies - 37 goals in 41 league appearances in the top flight, in first season. FA Cup 1976 Last league game at the Dell Premier League promotion 2011/12 Second place finish 83/84 The great escape Mane’s hat trick JPT final - I wasn’t there but loved the joy it gave to Markus Liebherr
Le Tiss Stokes Lambert Benali Channon FA Cup 76 Last game at Dell Both Promotion seasons Great escapes I think celebrating a single game (ie: against Inter) is a bit silly personally. They were sh*t at the time, and the comp was sort of mickey mouse for them.
I get that but on paper it's a fantastic result and not many clubs of our size have a competitive win over a European giant. For me personally too it's one of my favourite SMS games ever which gets it in as an iconic moment. I think the second place in 83/84 is a weird one. I get that's our best ever league finish but defining it as iconic is just celebrating failure imo.
Lol that was because if I remember rightly you met up with fellow Not606ers before the game It wasn't only second that year, it was also a FA Cup Semi loss in injury time. Won't mention his name. As Lawrie said that year, "it was a fabulous season, it was an inch away from being a miraculous one"
If we are talking about people who saved the club then Leon Crouch deserves a mention. This is from his Wiki... It was claimed by a representative of a Southampton Supporter's Club on Sky Sports News in late May 2009, that the only reason for Southampton's continued existence as a business was due to Leon Crouch putting money into the club "out of the goodness of his own heart" He also paid for the second Ted Bates statue out of his own pocket.
If you had lived that era, i'm sure that you would feel differently, the football we played was spectacular on many occasions.
And Liverpool were probably the best team in Europe and Everton won the league I think the following year, so not too shabby to do what we did.
It's our best ever league finish. That's our best achievement apart from the FA Cup. Seeing that as a failure is a twitter attitude, imo.
I also think it helps if you lived it too. I was 14/15 in 1984 so probably at my peak adolescent footballing fan condition.
Not really. A successful season for a club of our standing sure but ultimately you don't get anything for finishing second. Like I say I understand it being our best league finish but it's surely something that's looked upon better in retrospect rather than iconic moment which was celebrated wildly at the time? Maybe I'm getting bogged down in terminology but an iconic moment to me is something which was a huge thing at the time. If we'd have won the league a couple years later it would barely get a mention.
True. If we finished 2nd in the Prem next season, I don't think any Saints fan would call it a failure.
Yeah this is definitely a factor for sure. It's like I said not long back about the two L1 seasons and then back to back promotions will always be my favourite period following Saints. And that even if we go onto win a cup it probably still won't beat it as I'm not invested as late teens - early 20s me was back then.
I'm quite proud that I've managed to be accused of a twitter attitude though without ever once using it
I just think celebrating playing a quite famous club in a second rate Euro competition, that we failed miserably in, is more embarrassing than celebrating our greatest ever league finish.
