Saints V Rotherham Where Have We Met Before ?

Saints take on the Millers at St Mary's in the first league encounter since 1966, for those that like a good omen that was the season we were promoted to the top flight for the first time.

Southampton V Rotherham is not a fixture that you see very often, in fact the last time we played them at home was in March 1966 when despite taking the lead through Terry Paine in the 2nd minute, Rotherham who themselves were in the top half of the table equalised to make it a 1-1 draw, to add to their 1-0 victory up in South Yorkshire earlier in the season.

Although fixtures between the sides were fairly common in the early 1960's we shared a division with them in the then Second division for 6 straight seasons before our promotion in 1966, up to that point our only other meetings had come in the two seasons between 1951-53 and before that our only other meetings were in 1922/23 season.

All in all though it has been a fairly close fight in the League, we have won 9 encounters, Rotherham 6 and 3 have been draws.

Since that game in 1966 we have met them just three times, all in cup competitions, all away, In November 1983 we lost at Millmoor 2-1 in the League Cup, all goals coming in the first 36 minutes, not that Saints centre half knew much about it, he was stretchered off after only 6 minutes after debutant keeper Alistair Sperring broke his nose in a collision.

In 2001/02 season Rotherham became the last side to beat us in the FA Cup before Arsenal in the following season's FA Cup Final, the game was delayed 11 days because of the cold weather, but the trip to the North didn't suit us and we lost 2-1, Marian Pahars scoring our consolation.

Our last encounter with them came in September 2008, another League Cup encounter but not at Millmoor as they were playing in Sheffield at the Don Valley Stadium, they beat us 3-1, Stern John notching our goal.

So if we add Cup games to the equation then the two sides go into the game at St Mary's even stevens, 9 wins apiece and 3 draws.

Rotherham arrive to defend their unbeaten record against us stretching back to April 1965, almost 60 years meaning that there won't be many Saints supporters present on Saturday who have seen us beat them.

Hopefully that will change tomorrow and for those looking for omens it will lead to promotion as it did in 1966.

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