Saints supporters who have been nothing but well behaved and loyal during the club's worst ever season, now have the added kick in the teeth of the club itself warning them about their behaviour at the final game of the season.

When the player of the season voted have been counted, the recipient of the trophy should be the 12th man, the Southampton supporters themselves, who since the opening day of the season have packed St Mary's and the away sections of the Premier League and impressed with their support as well as their good behaviour.

So it is an insult for Southampton FC to send those on it's data base not one but two e mails warning them about staying off the pitch on the final day of the season.

The email reads.

"A reminder ahead of our final home game of the 2024/25 season against Arsenal on Sunday, May 25, of the importance of remaining in the stands at all times.

"Entering the field of play without permission is a criminal offence and a breach of ground regulations.

"It is not a harmless act, it has serious consequences for individuals and the club, as we saw last season with the large fine we received in relation to supporter behaviour at the West Brom game.

"The Premier League, The FA, and all clubs are united in taking a zero-tolerance approach to pitch incursions as they place players, staff, and fellow supporters at risk.

"Supporters who do enter the pitch will face significant sanctions, including immediate ejection from St Mary's Stadium, multi-season bans for all home and away fixtures and criminal prosecution leading to a criminal record and potential stadium bans from all Premier League and EFL grounds."

Whilst the club are probably slightly worried that last season's pitch invasion after the win against West Brom in the 2nd leg of the play off semi final will be repeated, I would suggest that the club would do well to concentrate on making sure that the fans enter St Mary's stadium next season, that enter the pitch after the Arsenal game.

Last seasons encroachment was down to the unbridled euphoria of winning through to the play off final against Leeds at Wembley, this season I suspect that no one will go on to celebrate anything after the Arsenal game.

In past years the end of season pitch invasion was something of a tradition and the team would salute the fans from the directors box at both the Dell and St Mary's.

I first remember it in 1976 at the last league game of the season to wave the team off to Wembley the following week.

Since then up recent times it was a regular feature, but in the last 10 years or so, possibly with a changing fan base demography, it died a natural death aside from moments of pure joy such as last season.

The only moment of pure joy on show on Sunday at St Mary's will be the fact that this awful season is now finally over.

You would think that the club would be thinking at this stage that they need to be getting the fans back onside, that after some awful mistakes in the past year they would be looking to show the supporters that their loyalty is appreciated and for that matter rewarded.

But the opposite, firstly we get a pitiful 5% discount off season tickets and only for those that pay it all front in advance, that still do not make many tickets cheaper than we paid two years ago after relegation in May 2023.

Back then I paid £579 for my season ticket, now with the 5% discount it is £614, an increase of £35, perhaps not much, but still an increase after the most pathetic season ever.

Whoever is pricing up the tickets and then marketing them, seem to have absolutely no idea how much animosity that there is towards Southampton FC & indeed Sport Republic who many blame for the mess we are in.

The number of those who are not planning on renewing next season if you gauge social media is probably running at around 60% renewing and the other 40% split between waiting to see who the manager is going to be and those that have genuinely had enough.

Indeed the empty seats at recent games should have sent a major message to the board, for the sold out Manchester City game, at least 1,500 season ticket holders were no shows, perhaps as many as 2,000.

If just 20% of season ticket holders don't renew, that would be around 4,500 not renewing.

I don't completely blame Sport Republic here, they employ people to run the non footballing side of things on a day to day basis, but those that work for them do not seem to have any sort of understanding about Saints supporters & their feelings at the moment.

The fans are being taken for granted again, we are being treated like customers at a shop, it is not a community at the moment and that has to change.

When a shop sees it's trade drop, it can lower prices and bring people back through the doors, with football clubs you can't do that as your most loyal fans, your season ticket holders have paid up front, they have to have at least some financial reward for coming week in week out whatever.

In life everything is about perception, whatever the reality actually is, if your customers perceive it to be otherwise then it is hard to get them back on side.

As I said unlike many I don't think Sport Republic are as bad as made out by some, they have made mistakes but are trying to rectify them on the playing side, but the empty seats at one of the many mass walk outs as the goals went in our net this season, could be the reality at kick off time, unless the club has a major rethink, or do they just think that if we win a few games we will flock back like lambs to the slaughter.

All Photos Via Reuters

arfurdent added 16:41 - May 22 SR are a commercial enterprise and supporters are just a source of revenue, nothing else. You buy an ST to get access to the "entertainment" for league home games. That is as far as any relationship from the supplier goes. Like with any other service provider. The crap about customer loyalty is just PR spin designed to maximise revenue
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Southamptonfan added 16:46 - May 22 Sport Republic are a bunch of idiots, only interested in making themselves money. They don't care about the supporters or the entertainment on the pitch. And don't be fooled by the fan zones and pubs. The reason they put them there is because they make them money. The irony is that they will destroy this club with bad decision after bad decision, leaving us penniless.

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sledger added 17:09 - May 22 i dont think theres much chance of a pitch invasion at the final whistle most will have gone or will be going.
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StRipper added 17:36 - May 22 Spot on with your sentiments here, Nick. I despise the people running our club. It would seem that, outside of opening venues to take our money, they similarly despise us. About the only thing I have enjoyed on match days recently on getting to the ground and going to away games is mixing with fellow fans. And yearning for the old days when it was just about the football. Everything else at Saints has been a floating turd - Starting with the football and the managerial appointments. Then we have the marketing - with two shockingly bad neon away kits that hardly anyone wanted to buy. To getting a marketing agency to humiliate us in the Northam for the first half of the season with those massive hubristic banners pulled over our heads when the players came out, ignoring the fact that we had lost every game. And the cherry on the cake is commercial/fan control ventures, like the email that riled you here, and the App, to blocking our phone signals if we don't use their awful wifi, to setting up bar outlet "queues" at half time and thereby ensuring that no one gets served during half time. And finally we have the insult of the ticket prices for next year and the valueless, vague ST "perks", supposedly battled for by the nebulous useful idiots, the "Fan Advisory Board" - FAB the Thunderbirds (Are they actual fans? Do they exist? Do the really represent us in any way? I've really had enough of Southampton Football Club and their lack of humility or gratitude to the fans for putting up with the club's repeated abject failure. Like everything else, they are only flattering themselves about there being any likelihood of a pitch invasion after the match. If its like most other matches this season after we've played 5 at the back and still leaked goals like a seive, the ground will be effectively empty long before the match is over. Good riddance to the worst season probably any of us can remember

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WestSussexSaint added 20:14 - May 22 So, St Ripper, are you renewing your season ticket or not?
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mattthelegend added 08:07 - May 23 Won’t be renewing my ticket, years of being taken for granted by the club, fixtures messed around with by Sky and watching overpaid pampered children has finally pushed me away. Will get a membership and pick the games that will be on Saturday at 3.00pm and go to watch my son play or Wessex League.
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underweststand added 09:05 - May 23 I may sound like a Devil's Advocate, BUT there are differences between these two issues. PITCH INVASION - even one drunk, or an overenthusiastic idiot could cause massive problems and even create a stampede onto the pitch. I'm sure 99% of the fanbase is law-abiding but Security cannot be everywhere and by the time "the offender(s)" have made it onto the pitch the damage is done. Clubs can be heavily fined, and even face dire restrictions on parts of the arena. I would imagine that clubs have been informed by the Prem./ FA on previous occasions and it would be foolish to ignore such obvious warnings. You may not have liked the wording of the message, but surely everyone should be made aware of the consequences on the club of such behaviour. TICKET PRICES : No-one likes price increases, but prices rarely go down, and the club will have a significant loss of income next season, in terms of reduced TV / media coverage and the obvious " drop off " in gate receipts. Whilst even in a bad season like this one, Saints quoted close to 30,000 in every match, the average attendance may drop by 20% or more for the Championship fixtures and that loss may be significant. We cannot afford to have more losses as there are still outstanding payments due on previous (bad) transfers, and I doubt if the " COVID bank loan " has been fully paid off yet either.(?) The only + plus factor for the die-hard fans who do buy their ST, is that there will 23 home fixtures to watch as against the Premier League's measly 19 games. NICK ..The other part of me - agrees with the logic in most of your argument anyway.

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Block8 added 09:52 - May 23 It is somewhat strange to me that the club can do something like the Saints Foundation which is incredible in what in can & does do for the disadvantaged in our community. And yet in the seemingly simple thing like fan engagement it falls so far short. We are not owned by countries or mega rich oil barons so have to look at other ways to bring in money, to offset FFL regulations but as a club have been very poor in getting this across to the fans, in fact our PR team has fallen as far short in performance as the first team! The simple fact is that if the club can get the community part so right in one direction then it really should be able to do similar if not all for the other and take us back to the real family club feeling that seems to have gone!

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StRipper added 11:33 - May 23 WestSussexSaint I don't want to, for stated reasons, but my son, who I go with, wants us to because of the time we get together. Makes it difficult. Ive suggested we go game by game and keep our options open on doing something next season. Not sure how well that has landed.
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Jesus_02 added 16:16 - May 23 @block8 you are dead right. I would actualy go as far as saying it has effected us on the pitch. The exposure of the PL is such that every man and his dog has an opinion about the club with very little context. It would be interesting to see when Derbys points total was first metioned. As a fan I felt the club was under attack from week 1 andthe club did very little to manage that. I think its pretty safe to say now that a differnt manager and a different style of play would have done little to make a silk purse out ofthe pigs ear but the club did very little to inspire unity and it felt like the fans and RM were left to defed the (frankly) indefensible. I have sympathy for Ramsdale and some of the younger players that were almost good enough becuase i dont think they were defended either.

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halftimeorange added 20:06 - May 23 The only stampede likely on Sunday will be to get out of St Marys.
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MytchettSaint added 10:10 - May 24 My son is renewing his, I’m taking a season off and am going to get along to Farnborough FC, as it’s local and usually at 3pm on a Saturday. Being an old fossil, this is when I like to go. 12:30 kickoffs I’ve no interest in doing after getting up at the crack of dawn all week and increased midweek kick offs mean I’ll miss a lot of games there due to work. With regards to Sports Republic, it’s been one car crash after another where they don’t seem to ever learn. They’ve taken an established premier league club, albeit one that had lacked investment for a few seasons and thrown money at it but actually made it worse. I can’t justify continuing to get behind a failing leadership who think they can reinvent the wheel somehow. They could have offered £100 quid off my renewal and I’d have still said thanks but no thanks. I’ll get down to games that are on a Saturday at 3 and the trains are running. I’ve never felt such a disconnect with the club than I do at the moment.

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