My third visit of the season to St. Mary`s Stadium yesterday saw Saints overcome a 1-0 half time deficit to storm to a 3-1 victory over high flying MK Dons. In fact, it was the third straight 3-1 win, having beaten Southend and Oldham in the previous two away matches. But despite a rich vein of form and just one defeat in the last 11 games, Saints still remain in the relegation zone at the bottom of League One (really Division three.)

No matter, for there is a new `match day experience` to be had at St. Mary`s these days. Gone are the stifling boardroom reshuffles, gone is Rupert Lowe hopefully never to darken the door of professional football ever again and gone are the failed management experiments which brought nothing more than failure, confusion and disenchantment amongst players and supporters alike. Instead, there is a new atmosphere; one which acknowledges that the fans have their club back, that it is in good hands with our new Swiss owner, Markus Liebherr, and those charged with the day to day management of the club`s affairs.

You can feel it in the air with the substantial crowd (over 21,000 yesterday) genuinely supporting the club once more. You can see it on the pitch, with a committed team playing well for each other and their new manager, Alan Pardew. And I guess you can detect that, for this season at least, to get away from the relegation zone, survive another season at this level and reach mid-table obscurity are perhaps the only realistic expectations, however much we might harbour thoughts of end of season play-offs. So we just sit back and enjoy the proper and compelling football being served up, safe in the knowledge that a huge corner has been turned after years of all round mediocrity, but most of all we just enjoy being there again. And it has been a long time since we did that.