Saints have once again sold out an away section in the Premier league, this time at Newcastle United.
Saints selling out their allocation at St James Park came as a bit of a shock in that the game is not only our longest trip of the season, but has been moved to a Sunday lunchtime, meaning that many of those making the long trip to the North East wont be getting home till nearly midnight.
But perhaps it should not have been too much of a surprise when we look at the support throughout the season and how its been building up over the last three years.
Its fair to say that the last time Saints were in the top flight, although we usually put out good numbers for the trips to London and selected games further north as the occasion warranted, in the main our support although very vocal, rarely filled out the away sections and thinned out the further north we went, although some games would be more popular than others, ie we would usually take three times as many to Liverpool than we would Everton where prior to this season our turn out was always poor.
The change started to happen ironically at our lowest ebb for over half a century and our relegation to League One, perhaps it was the chance to go to new grounds we had never been too before, but suddenly a lot of old faces were back at away games and joined by fresh faced newer supporters who had rarely ventured further than home games, hence being a big fish in a small pond stimulated our away support.
Our second season is League One was just as good and big numbers travelled everywhere even for away games midweek up North, including Oldham, Rochdale and Hartlepool, this continued into the Championship and again Saints always seemed to have the numbers on their travels.
But would it continue in the Premiership with many being put off by higher prices and for the first time in a few years the fact that we wouldnt actually win many on the road or even have the chance to perhaps, initially this seemed to be the case, the 1,900 who went to Man City was some 900 short of filling the away section, yes high prices were part of the reason and a televised unday game was another, but you would have thought that the first Saints game in the Premier league for over 7 years might overide that, it didnt bode well for the rest of the season on the road.
But this has proved to be the exception rather than the rule, OK we are still not yet up to the standards of some of the bigger clubs in this division, but when compared against the rest we are doing very well with sell outs at many of the grounds we have gone to including the latest at Newcastle United.
This site for many years has harped on about more supporters going to away games and has usually been shouted down by those who have told it that in this economic climate its stupid of me to ask our supporters in this affluent area to actually travel, notwithstanding that ironically the clubs with the best away support generally come from the most deprived areas ie Manchester, Merseyside the North east etc, but now it seems that finally our support has woken up to the joys of an away trip.
A decade ago urged fans to go away and stay away and sang the praises of long weekends in Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and even Birmingham, now the masses have listened judging by the number of Saints fans you see not only going to these games up North but enjoying a night out in the city afterwards, it seems that its not about money but perception.
Long may our great support on the road continue, of course perhaps the novelty will wear off a little next season perhaps, but as I said a decade ago, it doesnt need to be the same 2-3000 going every week, it only needs a few more supporters just to go to an away game once or twice a season instead of not at all, hopefully they will see the fun that it is as have many this season , not to mention the benefit the team gets, earlier i mentioned the word perception and now Saints players perceive that they are not alone in the vast stadiums up north and are backed by fanatical support, this has to help, it certainly did at Aston Villa for instance.