Saints To Open Tottenham Hotspur's New Stadium

Saints have been invited to play in the inaugural game at Spurs new stadium on 24th March possibly as we are their oldest rivals dating back to our days in the Southern League in the 19th Century or possibly not.

Southampton Under-18s will be the first visitors to the new Tottenham Hotspur stadium, the London club has announced.

Paul Hardyman’s side will face their Spurs counterparts on Sunday 24th March, at 3pm GMT, in an Under-18 Premier League clash that will represent the first test event at the new ground.

The game, which had initially been due to take place at the Tottenham training ground this week, will have a capacity of approximately 30,000 general admission tickets.

There is no truth in the rumour that this was initially scheduled as an under 16 clash but the stadium opening has overrun so much that the teams have moved up two age groups.

It is though unlikely that Saints fans will get any of the 30,000 tickets available in what will be the first of several events scheduled to make sure the stadium is ready and able to be functional for Spurs home games with full capacity.

But the bigger question is football is whether Spurs should actually be able to play at the stadium this season, there is a school of thought that says that it would be unfair for them to play the final few games in a different stadium and this could have an effect on the results and league placings overall, perhaps not so much to Spurs themselves but other teams in the league.

Whether that affect would be positive or negative for the home side is another question, usually clubs moving to new stadium start badly as we did back in 2001 at St Mary's, so will Spurs be making a mistake in transferring there.

They seem determined to play there Champions League quarter final there, but perhaps they would be shooting themselves in the foot, if they played at Wembley it is a stadium they are now very used to, but the new ground would in effect be a neutral venue, yes it would be mainly Spurs fans there, but apart from that they would have no real advantage in feeling at home and knowing how the pitch plays etc.

Whats your view of the situation, should Spurs be allowed to play at their new ground this season ?

Vote now in our online poll using the link below

https://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/southampton/members/!/polls/2261/should-s

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