Book Review ! Southampton Greatest Games
Friday, 18th Nov 2016 09:15

The list of Saints related books grows bigger by the day with the latest edition to the shelves looking at some of the greatest on field moments for the club.

This is a book that will spark debate, of course everyone has a favourite game that they have attended, but the reality is that most will have more than one, they will have favourites in terms of the actual result, they will have favourites because it featured a great goal or moment and they will also have favourites purely because it was just a great day out.

Southampton's greatest games looks to try and cover all those aspects going back to the first ever Football League game at the Dell almost a century ago back in 1920 right up to the home win over Sparta Prague in this season's Europa League.

It starts with what is unarguably THE Greatest game in the club's history, May 1st 1976 at Wembley, given that this is now over 40 years ago it needs to be well documented so that future generations can see what the fuss was all about.

There are some other great memorable matches, for older fans there are games from the 60's, a 5-0 drubbing of Nottingham Forest in a second replay in the FA Cup of 1963 or the day that Ron Davies was named the greatest Centre Forward in the land by Matt Busby after his Manchester united team had been destroyed 4-1 at Old Trafford.

The 70's is not just about Wembley, the season after saw some great results including a -1 win over Fulham who had George Best sent off and England's World Cup winning captain Bobby Moore humbled by Ted MacDougall.

The 80's of course started well with Kevin Keegan, got even better in the middle and ended with the emergence of the likes of Matt Le Tissier and Alan Shearer, hard to think that it's almost 30 years since those fresh faced youngsters came to the fore.

Then there are the 90's not as much as a struggle as some would think they were, but was Dellhurst Park really 18 years ago come the end of this season, it feels like yesterday sometimes.

Most who pick up the book will remember the ups and downs of the 21st century and these are covered here in detail along with a raft of photos from throughout the era's covered in the book, many rarely seen.

The book is available in all the usual book shops etc and is priced at £16.99 although retailers on Amazon have it for as low as £11.50 including postage.

As I said this book will evoke many memories and debates, everyone will have their favourites, personally I counted that had been present at 34 of the 50, so how many have you been to and what are your favourites ?

Photo: Action Images

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ThereIn76 added 10:55 - Nov 18 I hope the home match v Sunderland in December 1975 is included. They were runaway Division 2 leaders, we were 12th. Goalless at half-time but Saints were so thrillingly dominant in the second half that the final score of 4-0 flattered the Mackems. Anyone else remember that one?
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SaintNick added 11:49 - Nov 18

Good memory, it hammered down with rain and Mick Channon missed a penalty with 7 minutes to go so it could have been even better.

In fairness 12th sounds worse than it was we were only 4 points off of 4th after this game it was a very condensed division and by the turn of the year we were 4th only 3 points off the promotion spots, by early January we had games in hand due to postponements but the cup run meant we took our foot off the gas in the league.

Wouldnt have swapped the cup win for promotion though

ThereIn76 added 15:06 - Nov 18 Oh no way, although I remember David Bobin interviewing Bobby Stokes and Jim Steele (before the semi I think) in which they both said they'd choose promotion over winning the Cup. Bet they felt differently afterwards!
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