By Saints columnist Nick Mabey. The new season is suddenly upon us – how did that happen? One minute I’m lapping up the Ashes in between so-called summer showers, next moment I’m switching my attention from weather maps to the Saints website, the Echo and various supporter Facebook groups....
View from the Kingsland
View from the Kingsland: Renewal Time
by Nick Mabey. I can usually tell how excited I am about the forthcoming season by how early I renew my season ticket. This year my deadline was 30th June, if I wanted to get the early bird discount, and I actually renewed on 20th. I reckon that’s about...
View from the Kingsland: The end (at last)
by Nick Mabey. They say all good things must come to an end. Thankfully the same is true of all bad things and, for Southampton FC, this season has been the worst for quite a while. It’s finally over and, now the dust has settled after a crazy 4-4...
View from the Kingsland: avoidance, resignation and confusion
by Nick Mabey. It has been longer than usual since my last contribution to In Common. Like many fans of Southampton Football Club I have been through a range of emotions over the past few weeks; mostly anger, sadness and fear, but occasionally glimmers of hope. In trying to...
View from the Kingsland: The Strange Season Continues
by Nick Mabey. It’s the beginning of April and we still have a quarter of the league season to go. Thanks to the World Cup every team has at least ten games to play and some as many as 13, when normally it would be five or six. Normally...
View from the Kingsland: Viva Women’s Football
by Nick Mabey. Earlier this week it was International Women’s Day and so I thought I’d take a break from the protracted misery, stress and occasional hope of the men’s team’s relegation battle to focus on celebrating the progress of women’s football, locally and nationally. This year’s theme is ...
View from the Kingsland: Life at the Bottom Part 3
by Nick Mabey. When I wrote my first ‘life at the bottom” article, on 4th January, I didn’t know it would be a series. Saints had just sunk to the bottom of the league and I’d hoped it would be temporary. Six weeks on we’re still there, and there’s...
View from the Kingsland: Life at the bottom part 2
by Nick Mabey. Three weeks after I last wrote we remain rooted to the bottom of the league. In that article (click here to read it) I said that if we didn’t beat Forest we could give up hope. Well, we didn’t beat Forest and yet hope is not...
View from the Kingsland – Life at the bottom
by Nick Mabey. How does the joke go? We must be the strongest team in the league, we’re propping everyone else up. That’s how it’s been for Southampton since the season resumed on Boxing Day. Rock bottom. It’s been a while since we were stuck at the foot of...
View from the Kingsland: being on the pitch not in the stands
by Nick Mabey. Almost exactly 12 hours after England’s sad exit from the World Cup I found myself inside St. Mary’s stadium with 800 other hardy (or is that foolhardy?) souls. We were lined up for the start of the inaugural Southampton FC 10k race, an event that started...