One good thing this season has been how Saints supporters have travelled in numbers to all of our away games.

As Saints hit rock bottom in 2009 and played in the third tier of English Football for the first time in nearly half a century one of the plus points was that suddenly away trips became fun again, perhaps it was the years of being a top flight club followed by a few years of decline, but Saints supporters bad become blase about following the team on the road and going to the same teams year in year out.

The relegation to League One changed all that, we had some new grounds to visit of varying sizes and standards, but as it seemed a new birth of the club under the Liebherr's it marked a re birth of our passion for travelling away and whereas a thousand supporters rattling around in Newcastle's cavernous stands seemed to be poor support, the same number at Hartlepool on a Tuesday night two season's running almost took over the ground.

What it did do though was make following Saints away fun again and as we rose from the ashes eventually to climb back to the Premier league, our support stayed with us and grew as the club did.

There were some who said it would be a passing fad, that in our first season back we would obviously get good support on the road as a whole generation of fans had not had the chance to go to the big grounds, but this season Saints fans have proved that even with the honeymoon period over they are still prepared to go North in big numbers.

From the very start of the season when the whole away allocation of 3,000 at West Brom was sold out it was clear that it would be hard to get tickets for some away games, of course it was easy to sell out the allocations at Man Utd and Liverpool but it wasn't just there, 2,700 travelled up to Stoke, and then over the Xmas period in a matter of three days firstly over 2,000 hit the road to Cardiff on Boxing day and an even larger number roared the team on at Goodison Park despite the game being changed to a Sunday lunchtime kick off.

In 2014 the trend has continued, the trip to Fulham saw over 3,000 snap up the official away end tickets and around another 2,000 buy seats in the neutral zone, a mid week trip to Hull is as bad as it gets in terms of travel, but still 1,100 made the trip and were rewarded with a win and many of them hit the road again days later to Sunderland for a 12.45 kick off that meant that the coaches set off before 5am in most cases.

With six away games left, three of those in London, the sell outs look to be repeated as Saints look to consolidate their place in the top eight and perhaps catch the likes of Manchester United ahead of them, one thing is for sure our away support has been outstanding this season, its been fun and long may it continue.

Photo: Action Images

saintmark1976 added 17:50 - Feb 21 Nick, as usual a good article supported by facts. However I can not help but wonder what last Saturdays events at Sunderland are going to do for home support let alone the away following. Every Saints fan I have spoken to during the past week have been pretty fed up to say the least. If ever a good away win was needed to confirm that the players and management "still mean it" then it is in London tomorrow.

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