Having covered Saints last two opening day wins in part 's 2 & 3 we now go back to the one before in 1986.
Queens Park Rangers were the opponents on the firs tday of the new season on 23rd August 1986 which like this year was also a World cup year, the venue being Mexico.
This was an important season in the top flight, the idea was that over the following two years it would be trimmed from 22 clubs to 20, the way this would be done was that the bottom three clubs would be relegated as usual, but only the top two in the second division would come up, but the fourth from bottom club would be plunged into a play off situation along with the 3rd 4th & 5th placed 2nd division club, theis would result in a transitional 21 team top flight in 87/88 and then the whole process would be repeated.
Both Saints and QPR were looking over their backs as the previous season they had both finished perilously close to the drop zone, Saints being only five points off it with QPR one place higher but in fairness six more points than Saints.
Saints started the game with two players who had been to the World cup, Peter Shilton in goal and new signing from Bournemouth Colin Clarke who had played for Northern Ireland, it should have been three, but Mark Wright had broken his leg in the FA Cup semi and thus missed both the trip to Mexico and the start of the season.
Saints lined up Shilton, Forrest, Dennis, Case, Blake, Bond, Lawrence, Cockerill, Clarke, Holmes, D Wallace.
It didnt take long for the game to ignite as Saints kicking towards the Archers goal took the lead after only ten minutes through Nick Holmes, five minutes later and it was two as Danny Wallace fired home after a Colin Clarke cross, the new boy looking sharp.
On 35 minutes the game was all but over when Clarke made it a scoring debut popping up on the back post with a header.
In the second half Saints were in complete control and on 58 minutes it was Clarke again firing past then Rangers keeper David Seaman for the fourth and his second.
Ten minutes later and the majority of the 14,711 crowd erupted as Clarke made it a hat trick to put Saints 5-0 up, two minutes later Allen got a consolation for the visitors but it was too little too late as Saints romped home and Clarke headed off to the nearest Pizza joint with the match ball.
It would be a case of peaking too soon though for Saints as they hovered in mid table all season, never really looking like getting into trouble at the bottom, but one week in October apart when Clarke scored three again as Newcastle were beaten 4-1 at the Dell and we sat in 9th, that was about it.
The end of the season saw Saints sat in 12th with 52 points with QPR 16th with 50 showing how crowded mid table was, Villa finished bottom with Man City and Leicester joining them in the drop, Charlton finished 4th from bottom but won their play off games and stayed up.
Hit of the season though was Colin Clarke who scored 22 goals in 33 league games, although just a week after this opening game a young reserve made his debut as sub at Norwich, he would start 12 games that season plus 12 as sub in the league, he too would also net a hat trick later in the season part of his six goal tally, his name Matthew Le Tissier.