SILENCE IS GOLDEN

A few posts ago, I mentioned the press interest in the choice of pies on offer at St. Mary`s Stadium. See "GAME PIE" below. Now I see that the Daily Mail, whilst again devoting ten whole pages to last weekend`s Premiership matches, nevertheless found space to include - buried away in a corner of page 74 of Mondays edition - the following snippet:-

Gate of the Day
"Nine points adrift at the foot of League One, two points from four games, yet still the Southampton faithful turn up in droves - 19,169 saw the 1-1 draw with Brentford, more than at five Championship grounds this weekend."

It is truly refreshing to see not one jot of interest in how the team are doing, which is just as well, for in our now five competitive games so far this season, we have drawn two and lost the other three, the last being a Carling Cup encounter on Tuesday evening, when we narrowly lost 2-1 to Premiership side Birmingham City. The press might have mentioned that our attendance for that game was close on 12,000 - second only to the attendance at the West Ham-Millwall skirmish. Never mind, we can now concentrate on the Johnstone`s Paint Trophy, which we might well exit quietly too.

For all of that, there is a feeling among the faithful that the departure of Rupert Lowe and his regime, the emergence of Markus Liebherr as our new owner, the consequent absence of debt and the establishment of financial stability, the appointment of a new management team, the signing of a few decent players and - most tellingly - the absence of any expectation except that we might just avoid relegation again, have all conspired to make the tribal gatherings at St. Mary`s a more satisfying `matchday experience` than has been the case for the past five years.

And all conducted in a blaze of indifference as far as the press are concerned, with the unlikely exception of commenting on our pies and our attendances. The sound of silence is more than welcome, especially as we have a club to support again, rather than a business to patronise. The language and the landscape have most decidedly changed for the better.