Saints look to make history

On Sunday, May 15th 2005, Southampton Football Club were relegated from the Premier League, ending a 27-year-stay in the top flight of English football and thus beginning a tortuous cycle of boardroom wrangling, administration and further relegation, leaving the club less than 48 hours away from liquidation.

Tomorrow, Southampton (or ‘Saints’ as they are affectionately known) will play Coventry City in their St Mary’s Stadium, knowing that a win will take them back into the promised land for the first time in seven years.

It is a game worth an estimated £90m and after spending the entire 2011/12 Championship season in the top two places, promotion will be surely deserved.

A very brief synopsis of the last seven years is a story of a club on the brink. Following relegation, two unsuccessful seasons attempting to return to the Premier League were fruitless and the financial implications of dropping from the league took their toll.

Without the Premier League’s riches, players had to be sold. Starlet Theo Walcott was sold to Arsenal for £12m while a number of other promising youngsters, including a 17-year-old Gareth Bale were also offloaded.

The dire financial situation at the club culminated with administration, meaning a 10 point deduction and eventual relegation to League One on April 25th 2009.

In May 2009, administrator Mark Fry said the club faced imminent bankruptcy if a buyer was unable to be found.

Enter Swiss Billionaire and Southampton FC saviour Marcus Liebherr, who took full control of the club installing Nicola Cortese as new Chairman of the club.

The new owners brought in new manager Alan Pardew who won the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy in his first season - the clubs first silverware since 1976.

On August 11th 2009, owner Marcus Liebherr tragically died, while Nigel Adkins replaced Pardew as manager, with the change seeing the team promoted in 2011.

This brings us to present day, with the game against Coventry, and Paul Topley -who has been a season ticket holder for over 25 years and is Managing Director of Churches Fire Security, who are a main sponsor at St Mary’s, say’s the club is looking forward to the day.

Paul said: “We’re looking forward to it. I mean, this is football, anything can happen, but on paper it’s the game you’d prefer to have. We’ve been top all season, they’re relegated, we have the best home form in the league, they have the worst away record.

“A lot of our players are never going to have another chance at playing in the Premier League so I’m quietly optimistic.”

Southampton won the opening game of the season 3-1 at home against Leeds United and haven’t been out of he top two since, they would have been Champions already if it weren’t for a barnstorming late run from Reading that saw them win 15 games from 17.

Paul claimed: “Nobody saw the Reading run coming, we had been established in the top two all season and would have been promoted with West Ham. Teams have come and gone, Brighton started well, Middlesbrough were up there, but Reading came from nowhere.”
Saints have spent most of the season locked in a battle with big spending West Ham United and Paul thinks that the St Mary’s crowd has helped the team this season.

“West Ham have a brilliant away record, they’ve won 13 games away this season, that’s a club record, but the fans are happy to get on their back at home.”

Southampton have won 15 games at home this season, breaking on their own record, nearly going an entire calendar year without losing at home.

Reading’s brilliant run of form coincided with the signing of front man Jason Roberts from Blackburn, and Southampton’s own January arrival, striker Billy Sharp, has had a big impact on the second half of the season.

Paul said: “Billy came in after Tadanari Lee was doing so well, Billy isn’t much of an impact sub where as Lee has a lot of pace, but he’s scored seven goals in seven games and is starting to build a partnership with Rickie.”

Rickie, being Rickie Lambert who has scored 31 goals this season, providing the firepower Saints needed to climb the table. Lambert cost Southampton £1m from Bristol Rovers in 2010, small change compared to some of the money changing hands in the league this year,

Leicester City spent £15m on new players while West Ham have the biggest playing squad in the Championship.

Paul said: “Our squad is relatively cheaply assembled compared to others. We haven’t spent more than £2m on one player. Jose Fonte, Jan Hooivilet, Danny Fox, Billy Sharp were all around a million pounds, we’ve only really spent the money we got from selling Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to Arsenal.”

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain signed for Arsenal in the summer of 2011 for £12m and the club have been careful on how to spend the money. It’s this frugal approach which has seen the club’s financial position improve. Since the death of owner Marcus Liebherr the club have invested £15m into Southampton’s Staplewood training ground.

Paul said: “It is fair to say we were forty-eight hours away from being dissolved, so the owners fiscal prudence is encouraging. It was obviously terrible when Marcus died, and with the investment in the team and training ground, they have just converted their £33m loan to the club into shares, removing it as a liability , so I’m confident his family want to honour his legacy

“We are attempting this sort of Barcelona model of training putting faith in youth and academy and I think it has results.”

Whatever the result against Coventry tomorrow, a club that has spent the best part of decade in decline can certainly celebrate a bright future.