Saints have become the first club in Europe to install LED floodlighting to significantly increase the light whilst reducing the energy costs.

Saints are installing a new floodlighting system at St Mary's for the 2014/15 season and will become the first club in Europe to have LED floodlighting.

This continues Saints history of innovation in this area, in 1950 The Dell was the first football ground in England to have floodlights permanently installed and on 31st October 1950 the first game was played under them a friendly against Bournemouth, a year later and we had the distinction of playing the first competitive "official" match under floodlights when on 1st October 1951 Saints reserves took on Spurs reserves in a Football Combination fixture ( This was the old reserve league)

Wembley would not see an England game under lights till 1955 and then came the first football league match under lights, our near neighbours Portsmouth deciding for once to come out of the shadows and follow where we had lead (not LED )when they took on Newcastle under lights in 1956.

The new LED lighting will be positioned 360 degrees around the stadium meaning that not only will Saints supporters watching a game in the ground itself see the benefits but those watching on television will have enhanced viewing because of it, not least in slow motion replays where the limitations of the current lighting can be exposed, now though Saints will be the first club to reap the benefits.

One of those benefits is that the lighting will be able to be switched on and off as required with no warm up period needed, saving energy by reducing the time it needs to be fully on as well as reduced energy costs to run the system.

Photo: Action Images

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