No one said the Premier league would be easy, but if Saints fans want the Club to stay there then they have to do their bit for the cause.
The mark of a football club is how the supporters react in times of strife, its easy to support a succesful club, easy to watch the likes of Chelsea or Man United on the television and then proclaim yourself a supporter of that club, despite the fact that you may live a fair distance from the stadium and have never been there.
But for Clubs like Southampton its a lot more difficult, there is of course the community spirit and the tradition of supporting your local team, but more and more in these days of technology and football on the box seven days a week, clubs like Saints have to compete in a market place when some of those who should be supporting their local team are armchair fans of the big five.
But thats half the fun of supporting Saints, its like a big family, anyone who has been to Florida will have seen the swathes of English football shirts in Orlando being worn by tourists, see another Saints shirt and its great you can stop and talk knowing that you have a lot in common and may actually only live a mile or two apart, supporters of United or Chelsea dont have that bond, if they see another nited shirt for example the chances are the wearer will live a hundred miles oor more away with nothing in common.
So Saints being a family football club and a part of the community now need to do what families across the ages have done in times of adversity and thats close ranks and support each other, Saints have done this on a number of occasions over the years stretching right back in modern times to the relegation battles of the early 90's and sadly its now time to do it again.
Supporting a football club is not easy, its time consuming and in the Premier league expensive, but we now need to make St mary's a daunting place for the visiting teams, just as we used to do at the Dell.
The atmosphere at St Mary's is quite good, certainly on my trips to the away games I have rarely seen a club with a singing section so numerous or as loud as those in the Northam/Kingsland Corner and from that point of view we can be proud of ourselves, but nows the time to make sure that every game is sold out and that every part of the stadium gets behind the team, OK everyone cant stand up and sing but all encouragement helps.
Swansea on Saturday is a massive game, it will either be the start of our fight back or another nail in our coffin, we as supporters can make sure that its not the latter or at least play a big part in that.
Im sure that some will say its another Nick Illingsworth crowd threat, yes perhaps it is, but as a supporter I want to see my Club do well, I want to see a full house and i want other supporters to look at coming to St Mary's as an experience, Arsenal are ridiculed for their support at home, I dont want that for Saints and If I can do something no matter how small to help fill the ground then Im going to do it, to many people slag off those doing something positive, whilst doing nothing themselves.
So if your not planning going on Saturday, re consider, if you are going then see if you can persuade someone else to go, at the moment ther is too much negativity surrounding the club and its easy to see why, however Southampton Football Club has been here for 127 years virtually to the day as we speak, it will be here for another 127 years as long as there are supporters for it, Chairmen, players and managers come and go, but Supporters are there forever, without them a club dies, lets show that we in outhampton are not going to meekly accept relegation and if we do go down that we go down kicking and sceaming