With Southampton Football Club on the brink of a return to the Premiership, a clash between the top two in the Championship should not have an empty seat in the house.
Over the past few years i have often posted articles about attendances at St Mary's, but perhaps Friday's visit of Reading is a game when it really needs to be emphasised that a full house should be a given and not just a hope.
To put it bluntly, on Friday Saints meet up with their rival for not only promotion, but the Championship title itself and although we are six points clear of West Ham in third, nothing is yet certain, from many points of view, this is our most important game to be played at St Mary's since that horrible Manchester United game in May 2005 that saw us drop out of the top flight for the first time in 27 years, how could any Saints supporter not want to be present at this game if they are in the vicinity.
Two years ago we took around 50,000 to Wembley for the Johnstone's Paint Trophy Final, so the fanbase is there, now some of that fanbase need to get up off their rear ends and do their bit for the cause, of course there will be those unable to due to various reasons, but the stark truth is football clubs are not supported in front of TV screens, they need their supporters in the ground and solidly behind them and now is one of those occasions, we need to create an artmosphere and roar the team on to three points, three points that would put us only one win from the promised land.
Im sure that the same old cynics will post messages decrying me for daring to suggest that football supporters should actually do what the title suggests and support their football team, call me old fashioned but I was brought up in an age when a supporter was judged on his commitment to his team, not which Sky sports package he subscribed to.
Whatever a Saints fans reason for not going to the other games this season, with an average gate so far of 25,000, it does mean that 25,000 Saints fans who went to Wembley arent going that regularly, that of course is life and we all have our reasons for not being able to do things, be in geographical or financial, but not all 25k have these excuses.
Many fine words have been spoken about Markus Liebherr, his love of the Club and his desire to see us in the Premier League, Markus put his money where his mouth was for this football club and made sure it did have a future and a decent one at that, if he a man, with no connection to this City could do that, then surely its not too much to ask for others to put their own hands in their pockets and help crank up the atmosphere on Friday