Saints welcomed the Red Devils of Manchester to the newly refurbished Dell in August 1979.
There hadnt been much movement into the Dell in the summer of 1979, the arrival of John Mortimore back as assistant manager being the only news of note, with Saints getting £35,000 from Plymouth for Forbes Phillipson Masters in the only departure of note, a reasonable return for a player who had come through the ranks, played a few games but not quite got a regular place in the team and the way that Saints financed their youth system and indeed transfers back then, it wasnt just the big transfers that kept the club solvent.
Off the pitch the Dell had had a bit of a spruce up, the pitch had been relaid, bench seats had been installed under the west stand at the archers end of it and the old concrete trainers bench had been demolished and replaced with a perspex structure.
There was one debutant though, Charlie George, signed some six months previously had only managed to play a few away games the previous term, but now he finally got to run out at his home venue.
Saints attacking the Man United supporters on the Archers Road terracde drew first blood after Charlie George was sent sprawling by Martin Buchan after 25 minutes, David Peach despatching the penalty with aplomb, but the lead would last barely a quarter of an hour before Gordon McQueen equalised and that was the score at the break.
The second half saw deadlock and both teams were probably happy with a point, for their part United were tipped as challengers for the league title and did eventually finish second only two points behind champions Liverpool and Saints saw it as a good point against a good side and something to build on for the season, the bulk of the 21,768 crowd went home happy with the home contingent feeling that with a new signing or to, perhaps chasing a European place or another cup final at Wembley was a distinct possibility.