Black Day for the Saints

A truly low point for Southampton FC this afternoon with a 1-2 lost match at St. Mary's in front of a poor crowd of only 15,000-odd. Tom and I arrived at St. Mary's quite early and took our seats in the Chapel Stand together with our usual season ticket acquaintances. We had high hopes of a win which would have seen us rise above the relegation zone. Doncaster Rovers, who were just below us had been in the Conference League only a few seasons ago and had only been promoted to the Championship at the beginning of this season. Saints on the other hand had spent 27 years in the Premier League until four seasons ago. Saints started well with a few shots close on target but never finishing and we felt frustrated that we were still 0-0 at half time. Our colleague who sits next to me (Andy, "Shaun's Dad") felt so confident of a win that at half time he put £10 on Saints to win 2-0 at 7/1. He had just resumed his seat telling us about his bet when, less than one minute from the start of the second half, Doncaster scored. We all found that amusing in the context of the £10 bet. After that Saints looked dejected and when "Donny" scored the second, the fans started either leaving or singing "Swing Lowe, Swing Rupert Lowe, Swing him from the Itchen Bridge" and chants of "Lowe Out". It started to look ugly in the Northam Stand with clear scuffles as fans got ready to invade the pitch. Indeed, two hapless souls did just that at the end of the game and were brought down by about six safety stewards. Saints scored a consolation goal in stoppage time but that was not enough to prevent Saints ending the day second from bottom with a 3 point gap between them and safety. Our only hope is that there are three teams worse than us at the end of the season. At the moment that does not look likely and the radio pundits predicit we will be playing in League 1 next season. One silver lining today though was that my home childhood team, Grimsby Town, beat League 2 leaders Wycombe Wanderers 0-1 and with Bournemouth losing at Rotherham have increased the gap between them and non-league football to 10 points. Sara and I ended the day by watching the film "Mesmer" on a DVD which we both thought was poor - although Sara remains in love with Alan Rickman.