With a national railstrike on Saturday it was always going to be difficult to get down to St Mary's on Saturday, but getting to Southampton isn't the problem is is getting back again, read on for the details.

According to their website South Western Railways will be running trains to Southampton on Saturday from London Waterloo, they will be running two fast trains per hour from 7.30 am with the last train leaving at 5pm .

But the problem isn't getting to Southampton to see the game by train it is getting home again, the last train from Southampton Central is due to leave at 16.59, only minutes after the final whistle will have blown at St Mary's meaning that anyone wanting to catch that train would need to leave the ground by about 16.30, with around 15 minutes or so left on the referee's watch.

Even then it would need to be a pretty brisk walk to make the train, the distance is approximately 1.25 miles depending on what part of the ground you are in and at an average 20 minute per mile pace would take around 25 minutes.

This is also the last train on the London line so those coming from Basingstoke or Winchester would need to be on this train as well.

So although there are trains running on Saturday into Southampton, they are little use to Saints supporters due to the timing of the last train, given that there is little traffic running on this line on Saturday, you would have thought that South Western Trains would have had put a little more thought into their planning and perhaps run a last train at 17.30 to allow fans to watch the end of the game and get back to Central Station.

But at least that route does have trains, there are no trains on Saturday 1st October in any direction between Southampton & Bournemouth & Southampton to Salisbury.

Although the game is very nearly a sell out with Saints now having only around 800 tickets left and Everton selling out their 3,000, it is very unlikely that the ground will be full, there will be those who can't get there now due to a lack of transport and although some may be able to make alternative arrangement, there will be some for whom the train was their only viable option.

We could also spare a thought here for Brentford fans who are playing at Bournemouth on Saturday afternoon and will be also be unable to get there by rail.

Photo: Action Images

NewburySaint added 22:00 - Sep 29 Train is my only route to football from & to Newbury because I don’t drive so my journey on Saturday will consist of a bus to Basingstoke from Newbury, train to Soton from Basingstoke (have a refundable National Express seat booked just in case!), bus from Soton to Winchester, bus from Winchester to Whitchurch & taxi from Whitchurch to Newbury! FYI my journey would normally be return trains journeys from Newbury to Reading & Reading to Soton. What this does prove is that, despite the disruption, if you have the will to get out about without trains, whether that be to football or wherever, it can still be done so the greedy b’stards that are striking are still only causing minimal disruption. Having said that I would never be able to get to football on a Sunday or week day if a game fell on a strike day!

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SanMarco added 22:22 - Sep 29 I don't agree they are greedy b'stards - I support the democratic right to strike. A strike that had no effect or that nobody noticed would be pretty pointless.
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NewburySaint added 13:32 - Sep 30 We'll have to agree to disagree San Marco - i'm old school and am just happy to be employed in a job that has no prospects of a pay rise!
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