Down! And the slow bounce back:- In the summer of 1973 Lawrie McMenemy was brought from Grimsby and appointed "Team Manager Designate", and so well did Saints start the season Ted Bates stepped down in favour of the protégé during December.
Before the year was out form took a u-turn and Saints slowly slid down the league, much like a custard pie slithers down the face of a pantomime dame, and they finished twentieth, with thirty-six points. In any previous year this would have been disappointing but not problematical, however it had been decided to introduce three up, three down that season and Saints were the first victims. They remain the team with the highest points aggregate (under the old two points for a win system) ever to be relegated.
THE MILTON END 1974
It took four seasons for Saints to get back into the First Division, a tedious episode relived only by, at long last, winning the F.A. Cup in 1976.
LAWRIE McMENEMY
Back into top flight; to stay!- 1978, and Saints end the season with a scoreless game against Spurs at the Dell. Both points would have seen Saints as champions, but they have to settle for runners-up. Spurs were more than happy with the draw, which saw them promoted in third place. The fact that a large contingent of the visiting supporters spent most of the match trying to kick their way through the newly erected fences on the Archers Road end, presumably so they could aid their side's traditionally desperate defence, may have had an influence on Saints apparent reluctance to net he ball.
1978-79, and Saints have a comfortable return to the First Division, and, for the first time, make it all the way to the Final of the League Cup. Despite Peach homing in on goal in the 17th minute, and a peach of a goal by Holmes in the 89th, Nottingham Forest lift the trophy with three strikes.
European Footballer of the year, Kevin Keegan, arrives from S.V. Hamburg and Saints qualify for the UEFA Cup two seasons running, but his abrupt departure to Newcastle in the summer of 1982, after a disappointing World Cup in Spain, sours memories of a bright sojourn at the Dell. After a rocky 1982-3 Saints bounce back with their best ever top flight performance and finish as runners-up to Liverpool, in a season marred only by an inexplicably poor performance against a very ordinary Everton side in an F.A. Cup semi-final at Highbury, and an equally perplexing home defeat to Notts County. 1984-85 and Saints are frustratingly enigmatic, but, despite internal descent and the mid-season departure of Steve Williams to Arsenal, Saints again qualify for Europe. However, they are not placed in the draw for the UEFA Cup, the repercussions of the Heysal tragedy see Saints banned from Europe with all the other English qualifiers.
Page Five: The History Of Southampton Football Club 1985 - 1997