It's my own fault I know. Bank holiday Monday and I was out in town so thought I would buy a newspaper to read about saints brilliant display when I got home. Absolutely no need, I was at the game, saw what happened and watched every minute of the 96 odd minutes - no Leaving early. The Daily Mirror has a pull out section on football so I brought it today....it's pull out is entitled "the engine room of football" Great - open out the football supplement and there we are, a double page spread on the first 2pages. 3 columns of text and at a rough count just over a thousand words. As it happens only 49 of those 1,000 words were describing anything about the match and in those 49 they included players full names. The other 950 plus words were all about Chelsea - Benitez this, team selection that, fa cup this, , top four finish that. Hands up, it is my own fault and I should have known better for buying a tabloid. I just thought that with lowly Southampton beating the champions of Europe we might just have been given a little more credit. Well daily mirror you can shove your engine room of football up your arse. Has anyone else actually given us any credit?
I had a tea in a cafe today and The Mail and Express gave us no coverage. The Times did some coverage and The Mirror was as you described. The other people in the cafe must have thought I was mad...I would get up, sit down, flick through the paper,then get up, fetch another paper and repeat the procedure. I think we suffered from the fact that Chelsea were playing today, but annoying as you said.
Just watching the build up to the Fulham v QPR game and Gary Neville has been giving it the full monty on how we were able to beat Chelsea, the more I listen to him the more I like him.
I picked up a Guardian which someone had left on a cafe table today, hoping for some reasonable coverage, and found a biggish piece, about a quarter of which described the match. So pretty much the same as above. Face it guys, nobody wants to write about us, because they find us impossible to understand, and because are no longer "plucky little Southampton". Maybe in a few years we will be less embarrassing.
I got the Guardian today and the entire article was about Benitez, one real mention of Saints and that was saying Jay was MOTM.
You maybe right Fran about Chelsea playing today but the sports pages at the back of the normal paper had a couple of pages dedicated to that. This was the write up under Southampton 2 Chelsea 1 and yet by passed the game completely. They must sell hundreds of thousands of papers. It doesn't matter in the big scheme of things - I am ok with saints playing brilliantly and slipping under the radar. It is nice however to read how well you have played especially when you have claimed Chelseas scalp
Read these instead. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21909243 http://www1.skysports.com/football/live/match/261866/report http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...362/Southampton-2-Chelsea-1-match-report.html http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/matchday/matches/2012-2013/epl.html/southampton-vs-chelsea http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/mar/30/southampton-chelsea-premier-league http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/mar/31/southampton-chelsea-premier-league-report They should keep you away from paper and ink. The last one is the Guardian, the one above is the Observer. They are different.
If in a few years we're one of the big teams, and the media give us loads of attention, I wonder if we'll get annoyed when they pay no attention to our opponents. I hope we'll remember what it was like to be like them.
At the end of the day, mainstream media has to cater for the majority. The fact is, more people care about Chelsea and London teams in general as they have bigger fan bases. One of my best friends is a sports journalist, who is also a massive Villa fan. Yes, he writes a fair few articles on Villa, but at the end of the day if he did that continuously he would get a fraction of the interest as writing about Man U/Arsenal/Liverpool/Chelsea.
Does it really matter if we're not getting coverage? All that matters is that we're winning and playing well.
In reality, no of course it doesn't really matter. But I am a proud saints supporter and I expected a bit more when a club playing league one football two years ago beats the European champions
Interesting that factoid myth, isn't it. Strictly speaking, Chelsea have a smaller fanbase than Saints to call upon, but because they've been traditionally more successful they pinch supporters from other parts. Saints could call upon 240K [304K including environs such as Totton, Eastleigh, etc...] within the city itself, which is a little bit more than the 158K of Kensington & Chelsea. Clearly, Saints need to get the message out and start to win things to get those bigger crowds banging at the stadium doors.
Promotion has done that already, amazing the number of people in Hampshire who suddenly remembered they were massive Saints fans. Still can't complain, only gonna help the club in the long run, I just wish more people would watch Championship football. Yes it's not as good quality but it is still very enjoyable to watch and much more competitive.
I guess it's not all about the mud on boots 90 minutes of football. The fans and media are hungry for other stories, be it sacked managers, transfer rumours, discontented fans ,players shaking hands or what fans are chanting. It all makes football the fascinating spectacle it is.
Southampton's support is largely from Hampshire, S Wilts, parts of Susex and Dorset. Chelsea's is ......global now! It would be interesting to know the statistics of overseas visitors who go to a match at Stamford Bridge and compare the figures with those who attend St Mary's. They have a big following in the Gulf States for starters.
According to Andy Townsend Petr Cech should have saved Lambert's free-kick, but then he always blames the keeper!
Yes, but do you see the point I'm making..? It's only global because they've been very successful. I'm old enough to remember them back in the 1960-70s, and they were a moderately successful London club back then, but nothing hugely special. An FA Cup here, another trophy somewhen else. In comparison though, Saints were a tiny parochial provincial club which was just happy making up the numbers. Yes, we've grown since then, but we've not even begun to really grow, until starting now. There's a huge potential fanbase out there, who are not normally that keen on football, but are just waiting for SFC to be worth supporting. In years to come, present Saints fans may have to budge-up, as they say.
