50 Fun Facts About Southampton

Southampton were founded in November 1885 by members of what organisation?

A church young men's association at St Mary's founded the club in November 1885 as St Mary's Y.M.A., which is why Southampton are still nicknamed the Saints.

Where did the newly formed Saints play most of their matches in the late 1880s?

The Common, the city's open parkland, hosted most early matches, with play often halted by walkers insisting on their right to cross; cup ties moved to the County Cricket Ground or the Antelope Ground.

Southampton won six titles in which league before joining the Football League in 1920?

Southern League titles came in 1897, 1898, 1899, 1901, 1903 and 1904; its leading clubs, Saints among them, were then taken in together as the Football League's new Third Division.

Which club beat Southampton 4-0 in the 1900 FA Cup final, the Saints' first?

Bury won 4-0; Southampton, then outside the Football League, reached the final again two years later and lost to Sheffield United after a replay.

Which two Spanish clubs are said to owe their red-and-white colours to 50 Southampton shirts bought in 1909?

Athletic Bilbao and Atlético Madrid, then Bilbao's offshoot in the capital, wore blue and white until, in the usual telling, Juan Elorduy came home with 50 Southampton shirts; a 2023 study argues they came from another English club.

George Thomas, who built The Dell in 1898, sold what for a living?

Fish was his trade: Thomas, a fishmonger and Southampton director, secured the land himself and took charge of the building work; Saints then played there for 103 years.

What made Southampton's 1922-23 Second Division campaign a perfectly 'even' season?

14 wins, 14 draws and 14 defeats, with 40 goals scored and 40 conceded, left Southampton 11th of 22 clubs on exactly 42 points from 42 games.

Why did Southampton play the rest of the 1940-41 season away from The Dell?

A bomb cratered the pitch on 30 November 1940, leaving an 18-foot hole in a penalty area; while it was repaired Saints played away, even staging one 'home' cup tie at Portsmouth's Fratton Park.

In October 1950 The Dell staged a friendly against Bournemouth to show off which new feature?

Permanent floodlighting lit The Dell for that friendly on 31 October 1950; the first official match under the lights, a reserve game against Tottenham, did not come until a year later.

Which striker set a Southampton record with 39 league goals in the 1959-60 Third Division title season?

Derek Reeves scored 39 of the champions' 106 league goals, a record for the division as well as the club, and four more in a 5-1 FA Cup win at top-flight Manchester City.

Which striker scored 30 of Southampton's 85 goals as they first reached the First Division in 1966?

Martin Chivers scored all 30 in his first 29 league games, four of them in a 9-3 win over Wolves, as Ted Bates's side finished runners-up to Manchester City.

Southampton's first European campaign, the 1969-70 Fairs Cup, ended in the third round against which English club, the holders?

Newcastle United, the holders, went through on away goals after a 0-0 draw at St James' Park and a 1-1 draw at The Dell; Southampton had beaten Rosenborg and Vitória de Guimarães to get there.

Who scored Southampton's winner against Manchester United in the 1976 FA Cup final?

Bobby Stokes ran on to Jim McCalliog's pass late in the game to beat Manchester United 1-0 at Wembley, a shock win for a Second Division side relegated two years earlier.

Southampton's 1979 League Cup final ended in a 3-2 defeat to which club?

Nottingham Forest, the holders, came from behind at Wembley after David Peach had put Saints ahead; Southampton had only returned to the top flight the previous summer.

Which England captain did Lawrie McMenemy sign for Southampton in 1980?

Kevin Keegan, twice European Footballer of the Year, was unveiled as a Southampton player in February 1980, five months before he could leave Hamburg and formally sign.

Southampton finished runners-up in 1983-84, three points behind which champions?

Liverpool finished on 80 points to Southampton's 77; Lawrie McMenemy's side, in the Second Division only six years earlier, also reached that season's FA Cup semi-finals.

Which Southampton player was voted PFA Young Player of the Year in 1990?

Matthew Le Tissier, born in Guernsey, spent his whole professional career at Southampton, from 1986 to 2002, and says he has no regrets about missing out on major honours to stay.

Alan Shearer announced himself in April 1988 by scoring a hat-trick against which club at the age of 17?

Arsenal were beaten 4-2 at The Dell as the 17-year-old Shearer, making his full league debut after two substitute appearances, took Jimmy Greaves's record as the top flight's youngest hat-trick scorer.

Which two Souness signings each scored twice when Southampton beat Manchester United 6-3 in 1996?

Egil Østenstad and Eyal Berkovic each scored twice against the champions; Østenstad thought he had a hat-trick until a panel ruled his third an own goal, though he kept the match ball.

Which striker, signed weeks earlier, scored both goals against Everton on the final day of Southampton's 1998-99 'Great Escape'?

Marian Pahars, a Latvian signed from Skonto Riga that March, scored twice in the 2-0 win that kept Saints up; he later said he spoke no English and had no idea how much the game mattered.

Which former England manager took over Southampton in 2000, then quit for Tottenham a year later?

Glenn Hoddle, England manager from 1996 to 1999, kept Saints in the Premier League, then left in March 2001 for Tottenham, saying it was the only club he would have left Southampton for.

How was the last league goal at The Dell scored, in a 3-2 win in May 2001?

A Le Tissier volley in the last minute won the farewell league match 3-2, a fitting goodbye to the ground Southampton had called home since 1898.

Southampton reached the 2003 FA Cup final, losing 1-0 in Cardiff, in a season of 23 league goals from which striker?

James Beattie's 23 Premier League goals made him the division's top English scorer and won him an England debut that February; the final was in Cardiff while Wembley was being rebuilt.

Which manager did Rupert Lowe appoint in December 2004?

Harry Redknapp had resigned at Portsmouth only two weeks earlier; he took Saints down in May 2005, ending 27 years in the top flight, then walked out that December and went back to Portsmouth.

Which rugby union coach did Rupert Lowe bring onto Southampton's staff in 2005?

Clive Woodward, who had coached England to the 2003 Rugby World Cup, was a friend of Lowe and came to professional football with no experience of it.

Which 17-year-old left-back broke into Southampton's side in 2006-07?

Gareth Bale scored five goals for Saints, free-kicks his speciality, before Tottenham paid an initial £5 million in 2007; six years later Real Madrid bought him for a fee widely reported as a world record.

Which businessman bought Southampton out of administration in 2009, a year before his death?

Markus Liebherr, the German-born son of a crane-making family, rescued the club in July 2009 and died in August 2010, leaving it to his daughter Katharina.

Southampton's 4-1 Wembley win over Carlisle in March 2010, their first silverware since 1976, came in which competition?

The Football League Trophy, then sponsored as the Johnstone's Paint Trophy, capped a League One season Saints had begun on minus 10 points after their parent company went into administration.

Rickie Lambert joined Southampton for about £1 million in August 2009 from which club?

Bristol Rovers sold Lambert to League One Saints; four years later the striker, who had once worked in a beetroot factory, scored with his first touch for England.

Nigel Adkins had twice won promotion with which club before joining Southampton in 2010?

Scunthorpe United, where Adkins had been the club physiotherapist before taking charge, won the League One title under him in 2007 and went up again through the 2009 play-offs.

Which Argentine coach replaced Nigel Adkins in January 2013?

Mauricio Pochettino, out of work since leaving Espanyol two months earlier, led Saints to eighth in 2013-14 and then left for Tottenham; Ronald Koeman took the club on to seventh and sixth.

Which Southampton player set a Premier League record with a 176-second hat-trick against Aston Villa?

Sadio Mané needed two minutes 56 seconds in a 6-1 win, beating the four minutes 33 seconds Robbie Fowler took in 1994; the result lifted Saints towards seventh place and a Europa League spot.

Which Southampton striker was denied a 2017 EFL Cup final hat-trick by a disputed offside call?

Manolo Gabbiadini, signed from Napoli weeks earlier, had an early goal ruled out for a disputed offside before scoring twice; Zlatan Ibrahimović's late winner then took the cup to Manchester United, 3-2.

Before his £75 million sale in 2018, then a record for a defender, Virgil van Dijk had joined Southampton from which club?

Celtic sold van Dijk to Southampton for about £13 million in 2015; less than three years later his £75 million move was a world record for a defender, and a sell-on clause gave Celtic a share.

What did Southampton's players do with their match-day wages after the 9-0 defeat by Leicester in 2019?

Donated them to the Saints Foundation: players and coaching staff gave a day's pay to the club's charity after the home humiliation of 25 October 2019; in February 2021 Saints lost 9-0 again, at Old Trafford.

In April 2020 Southampton became the first Premier League club to do what during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Defer players' salaries: the squad, manager Ralph Hasenhüttl and the board put off part of their pay until June so that every other employee could stay on full pay without the furlough scheme.

Gao Jisheng sold his 80% stake in 2022 to Sport Republic, financed by which Serbian businessman?

Dragan Šolak, founder of the United Group telecoms business, bankrolled Sport Republic's £100 million purchase in January 2022 from Gao, who had paid around £210 million for the stake in 2017.

Which manager was sacked in February 2023 after Southampton lost seven of eight league games under him?

Nathan Jones lasted under 100 days after leaving Luton in November 2022, winning one of eight league games; Rubén Sellés stepped up but could not prevent relegation after 11 seasons in the top flight.

Under which manager did Southampton go a club-record 25 matches unbeaten in 2023-24?

Russell Martin's side had lost four games in a row before the run began in late September 2023; it ended at Bristol City in February 2024, and Saints went up through the play-offs.

Southampton finished 2024-25 on 12 points, one more than which club's Premier League record low from 2007-08?

Derby County's 11 points survived as the record low: Southampton, relegated with a record seven games to spare, finished with two wins and six draws from 38 matches.

Which club did Southampton beat in the 2024 Championship play-off semi-final?

West Bromwich Albion were beaten 3-1 on aggregate in May 2024, a goalless draw at The Hawthorns followed by a 3-1 win at St Mary's, before Adam Armstrong's goal beat Leeds in the Wembley final.

The tree on the Saints' crest, designed by a fan in 1974, represents what?

The New Forest and the city's Common are what the tree stands for; fan Rolland Parris won a 1974 competition with the design, and its football was later redrawn, reportedly so the badge could be copyrighted.

Which club conceded eight without reply at St Mary's in October 2014?

Sunderland lost 8-0 on 18 October 2014, Graziano Pellè scoring twice and Santiago Vergini opening the rout with a spectacular own goal; Ronald Koeman's side finished seventh that season.

Which player holds Southampton's appearance record, with more than 800 games before leaving in 1974?

Terry Paine, a member of England's 1966 World Cup squad, left for Hereford in 1974 and won the Third Division title there in 1976, sixteen years after doing the same with Southampton.

Albert Brown set which Southampton record in an 11-0 win over Northampton Town?

Most goals in one match: Brown, nicknamed the Tamworth Sprinter, scored seven of the eleven in December 1901, three of them inside the first five minutes.

Which goalkeeper became Southampton's oldest ever player in the FA Cup aged 41?

Willy Caballero was 41 years and 122 days old when he faced Blackpool in January 2023; he had arrived in December 2021 on a one-month deal as cover for two injured goalkeepers.

A record St Mary's crowd of 32,363 saw Southampton clinch promotion in April 2012 by beating which club?

Coventry City were beaten on the final day as Saints, in administration three years earlier, sealed a second straight promotion, a point behind champions Reading.

Unlike most clubs that sing 'When the Saints Go Marching In', what do Southampton fans do with it?

Keep the original words: Southampton's nickname is already in the song, so nothing needs changing, while clubs such as Tottenham swap in their own name.

Which forward is Southampton's all-time leading scorer with 228 goals across two spells?

Mick Channon scored his 228 goals either side of two years at Manchester City, celebrating each with a windmilling arm, and later became one of Britain's leading racehorse trainers.

Where is Southampton's Staplewood training campus?

Marchwood has been the club's training base since Saints bought the ground of the non-League side Road-Sea Southampton, who folded in 1987; the rebuilt campus opened in November 2014.