Also our last win on the opening day of the season to date.

Hard to imagine, but as well as it being 23 years since we have won at home on the opening day, its been a dozen years since we won at all in our first league game, we have to go back to August 8th 1999 or if you want to be more dramatic the last century.

Back in the summer of 1999 Saints were a club with a cloud hanging over it, not because of anything that had happened on the field, but because of allegations of child abuse levelled at then manager Dave Jones.

Jones position was precarious anyway, his first season had been somewhat up and down although the team had eventually finished safely in mid table, but the season just gone had been the one of the great escape, there were some who said that Jones should lose his job on the basis of his management anyway, there were others that said he deserved another season, although even they conceded before the allegations that another poor start would probably be enough to see him sacked, but the view that mattered was that of Rupert Lowe, whatever his thoughts on the footballing side of things, Lowe felt that Jones was innocent until proved guilty and stood by his man unfortunately making a rod for his own back in the process, but thats another story.

Thus Saints went to Coventry for the opener, playing wise nothing significantly had changed, aparrt from the fact that Ken Monkou had departed and been replaced by a Bosman free in Dean Richards who was untried at Premier level.

In the 90's Saints and Coventry's fortunes were often intertwined with both usually there or thereabouts in the bottom third, some already declaring the game as the first relegation six pointer of the season, thus a healthy crowd of 19,915 assembled including around 1,500 Saints supporters.

What was a feature of our teams in the 90's though, no matter who the manager was, was a squad that pulled out all the stops when the chips were down, in that side were players like Dodd, Benali, Le Tissier, & Lundekvam, players to whom Saints were more than just their employers unlike todays modern footballer and so from the first whistle there was a resolve about the team and you knew that they were not going to lose.

But it would be late on before the winning goal, it came on 84 minutes, Le Tissier got the ball on the left and threaded through just the type of ball that Egil Ostenstad thrived on, he made his run on the blind side of the defender and beat the keeper with a clinical finish on the run.

From then on Saints battoned down the hatches and made sure th hosts would not get back into it, Dean Richards showing just why he was about to become a rock in the Saints side.

Three points were in the bag and the supporters hoped that this win might be capitalised on four days later in the opening home game against Leeds, sadly it was a case of the Lord Mayors show and Leeds went home 3-0 winners, we knew it might be a long season.          

Photo: Action Images

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