There is only one big topic of conversation this week in Southampton & I would imagine it is the same in Portsmouth as their two football teams prepare to take on each other at St Mary's on Sunday, but does it mean as much to the players of either team.

In the old days there was usually a local player or two in each respective side, but as football becomes more mercenary and youth recruitment for team like Southampton focus's more on bringing in players from teams such as Manchester City & Chelsea at age 18-21 than bringing them through the youth ranks themselves, the chances of a local player being involved in their first team for clubs in the Championship id diminishing by the year.

In the first local derby that I attended when Saints beat Pompey 2-1 at the Dell on 14th September 1974, ironically exactly 51 years to the day that our local arrivals again arrive in the City, although this time the game is at St Mary's and not the Dell, a hard fought game marred by crows trouble both before, during and after the game, Saints triumphed 2-1, Peter Osgood scored just before half time to give us the lead, on the hour mark his predecessor as Saints number 9 Ron Davies scored his last ever goal at the Dell, this time for Pompey from the penalty spot, before with 10 minutes remaining Osgood scoored his second to win us the game, even after Jim Steele was sent off shortly afterwards.

This was a hard fought niggly game, perhaps because both teams knew what it meant, if they weren't born in the area, they had lived in it long enough.

In the Saints side, you had Steve Mills & substitute, both Saints youth team products although ironically both born in Portsmouth and you also had Paul Bennett & Mike Channon, the former born in Southampton and the latter although born on Salisbury Plain a boyhood Southampton supporter.

So only 4 of the players to turn out for Saints were born locally.

Fast forward to 1984 and for Saints fans of a certain age at least, the iconic meeting between the two sides was on 28th January of that year when we travelled to Fratton Park & a Steve Moran goal in the last minute gave us a victory that is still remembered vividly by those that were there and is passed down from father to so and to grandson.

Moran himself was born in Croydon, but he had grown up in Sarisbury, just on the Southampton side of the divide between the two sets of fans, so he was well aware of the rivalry, if he needed reminding 3 years later after he had broken into the Saints side, he was assaulted in a Portsmouth nightclub and during that altercation he was kicked in the back whilst on the floor so hard that it cracked vertebrae which then, resulted in a spinal fusion operation.

The only other locally born player in that side was Nick Holmes, however the side was full of those that although not born locally, had been attached to the club from an early age and come through the youth system, Steve Williams, Ruben Agboola & Danny Wallace.

So it could be said that 5 of those of the 11 that played in that game were well aware of how much this game meant to the fans.

When the two sides met in the League in August 1987 and at the Dell in January 1988, football was already starting to change, Danny Wallace was still there from 1984 but missed the trip to Fratton through injury so the only locally born player was Graham Baker from Merry Oak.

The return had Baker & Wallace in the side and they were joined by Steve Baker, born in Newcastle but a Southampton youth product, but that was it.

The FA cup game in January 1995 did not have a single locally born player in the Saints side, however in Matthew Le Tissier, Jason Dodd & Neil Maddison they had 3 players who had been at the club for almost a decade signed as youngsters.

When hostilities resumed with Pompey now in the Premier League in 2003/04 it sparked a burst of meeting them, that was unprecedented, in two seasons 4 League games plus a meeting in both the League & FA Cups.

Jason Dodd was still at the club from 8 years earlier in those clashes, but even he was no longer in the first team by the final of those 6 clashes in 2005. Matt Oakley also featured at the tail end of his career with the club, again an academy product not born locally.

There were a few academy products featured such as Dexter Blackstock, Stephen Crainey, Chris Baird and a tenuous link in Kevin Phillips who had been an apprentice at the Dell but released aged 18, but none were truly at the club that long.

So by the early part of this century you can see football developing in a direction that for the traditionalist is not seen as good.

In the FA Cup in 2010 we were a work in progress, we had a few players such as Rickie Lambert who knew the importance of a local derby or two having been born in Liverpool and played for Bristol Rovers, Adam Lallana was now a regular, another youth product, but he was the only who played that day who could be seen as truly knowing what it meant.

In the two meetings in the Championship in 2011/10, Lallana & Lambert were still mainstays in the side, but they weren't locally born, but there was Aaron Martin, born on the Isle Of Wight and he had been signed from Eastleigh, however he was an unused sub in both games.

For younger Southampton supporters ie anyone under 40 the 4-0 win at Fratton in September 2019 is the iconic game in their lifetimes and for the first time since 1988, there was a locally born player in the Saints side, Danny Ings who was born in Winchester but lived in Netley Abbey before joining Bournemouth, Burnley, Liverpool and then Saints in 2018, this was the day he wrote his name in history with a two goal salvo.

Funnily enough Saints seem to have had as many players born in Portsmouth play for them against their home town, than players actually born in Southampton and this game saw James Ward Prowse a boyhood Pompey fan play a big part in destroying his hometown club.

This year sees a Southampton first team squad with not one locally born player in it, something that I don't think I have ever seen in my lifetime, Jay Robinson has been at St Mary's for a few years coming through the youth ranks, but he was 12 the last time we played Pompey.

But we do have Jack Stephens, he was at the club in 2011/12 although nowhere near the first team at that stage having only joined the club from Plymouth in the summer of 2011, so he would probably have witnessed the St Mary's game that season from the stands.

When we played at Fratton park in 2019, he was out of favour in the first team and was an unused sub, Maya Yoshida & Jan Bednarek being the preferred partnership in the centre of defence, but he again would have seen the passion.

So as we can see, the impression that in the past local derbies were contested by teams packed with locally born players who understood the importance of the occasion is perhaps a myth, or at least one that for Southampton ended in the 1960's when Ted Bates truly implemented the Southampton way, where we looked to get the best players from elsewhere as well as home grown talent.

It actually surprised me that so few Southampton area born players have played in this fixture over the last 50 years, this fixture is rarely played, we have only been in the same division 6 times in 60 years, that's just 12 League clashes since 1965/66 season, add another 6 cup clashes and that's just 18 meetings in 60 years.

Indeed add the 10 meetings in the early 60's and that makes it just 28 competitive meetings in almost a century since Pompey were promoted to the old First Division in 1927.

Contrast that with the Merseyside Derby, Liverpool have met Everton 184 times in that same period from 1927. Nowadays even that Derby has very few Merseyside players who will contest this years two premier League fixtures, perhaps just Curtis Jones for Liverpool & James Garner for Everton judging by their teams from the opening games of this season.

So in conclusion gone are the days when the players really have any connection with a local derby, of course they will say the right things, talk about how they know how much it means to the fans, but the truth is to most it is just another game.

But for the fans of Southampton & Portsmouth, no matter how much some supporters will claim they don't care about the other club, that it is insignificant, the opposition and their players are insignificant in their lives, the truth is far different, week in week out whether you are a Scummer or a Skate, the first result you look out for is that of the other end of the M27, if your team has lost and the other side won, it truly ruins your weekend completely.

But if the other side has lost then it can cheer you up no end, even if your own side has also been beaten.

This game means something to the fans if not the players, it is more than a game of football, unlike Liverpool, Manchester or London the two sets of fans do not live in the same city, they don't mingle with the opposition, they don't have relatives that support the other side, this is a Derby that is not just about football it is about a clash of culture, about two communities who may only live 20 miles apart have different ideologies and the way they see things.

From this perspective perhaps only Newcastle & Sunderland fans, Ipswich & Norwich or Cardiff & Swansea supporters can truly understand the depth of feeling and match the enormity of the situation.

But would we have it any other way ? I feel sorry for a club like Bournemouth who have no local rival and try to push in on ours, for Brighton & Crystal Palace who have had to manufacture a rivalry with a town 50 miles away as they don't have one locally or other teams like that

So on Sunday I watch Portsmouth play in Southampton exactly 50 years to the day I first saw them defile our fair City with their mere presence, most Southampton supporters and indeed Pompey fans will publicly say they hope it's the last one they got to, as their club is on the rise and the other will sink to the depths were our paths will not cross again.

But deep down this rivalry is what defines us, football fans need to have a club they love and just as much one they can hate and for us it is Portsmouth, this is a rivalry that will never change for both sets of fans.

With Thanks to Southampton FC official historian Duncan Holley and his excellent website saintsplayers.co.uk and the excellent books available through Hagiology Publishing without which I would never be able to write articles such as this.

All Photos Via Reuters

Bowlercow added 11:53 - Sep 9 Social media being what it is all players will be very aware of what this means to the fans Our passion for it will be infectious and combined with the stadium atmosphere will gee them up to be the best version of themselves that they can be
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underweststand added 11:53 - Sep 9 Nick ..Your long diatribe (Ok go and look it up) covers most points of the history of these encounters, including that they were very few and far between covered almost a century. The fact that the geography dictates that this is a "derby".. seems only to fuel the bad feeling that seems to exists now, but it was not always so. My late father was of a generation that recalled Billy "Farmer "Haines (a CF who played for both clubs in the 1920') and his adoration of the young Ted Drake in the early 30's before Ted went on to play for Arsenal and England. Dad also commented that often Saints fans would travel down to watch Portsmouth (twice title-winners in the late 1940's) in the post WW2 days when Saints were playing away and long travels were both difficult and costly. The aforementioned Docks dispute between the two towns soured feelings in the 1950's and only worsened by those "on-field battling games" in the early 1960's. In retrospect I suspect that it was that generation of fans that has fueled the aggression that still seems apparent to both fanbases more than 50 years later. Back then very few players were "local" and to my knowledge the only So'ton-born player to ever captain a Saints team for any period was Nick Holmes in the 1970's, (although we recall that over a longer period Winchester-born Terry Paine had that task in the 1960's). Looking at the starting games so far, it was hard to find even half-a-dozen Saints players who were even born in England, let alone in Hampshire. With the latest signings we will likely see half the team more experienced playing on the Continent, and who couldn't find their way down the M27 armed with a compass and an OS map without the aid of a GPS. Local derbies seem only important to " we locals", and (despite what they may have been told) for most of the current Saints players, it will be "just another match". I sincerely hope that any form of violence (both on-and-off the pitch) will be avoided.

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SaintNick added 12:19 - Sep 9 A very good post that enhances the article and what you say is true, but the Docks Strike that seems to fuel the modern day hatred of all things Southampton is claimed to be in the 1890's which is a myth in that it was Southampton dockers on strike and the Pompey dockworkers who arrived by train to work the port and were prevented from leaving the Docks Station by pickets

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Block47M added 18:11 - Sep 9 Having worked in 3 shipyards at Woolston, Portchester and in the Naval Dockyard there was a lot of good natured banter but no aggression. It’s understood that after Pompey won the FA Cup around 1939 they came to the Dell and were applauded by us Saints fans. My own family and relatives has members in both camps and it’s a good laugh. Just hope we play really well and thrash them :)

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mascott514 added 07:56 - Sep 10 Thanks for the article- really great going through the past clashes. My son's first derby this week. He can't concentrate at school! Personally, I think you're right, it is just another game for the players, and that's not a bad thing.They need to keep their heads, and we would be the most likely winners if you looked at our squads and being at home. Really, the day is for us- to show them what it means to us! We HAVE to win - that's all that matters I can't wait - the atmosphere will hopefully kick start our season. I'm not contemplating any other outcome! COYR

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DoctorSleep added 09:51 - Sep 11 They may not be 'local' boys any more but I think you'll be surprised at how aware they are of the rivalry. I'm sure some of the backroom staff will have informed them and used it as motivation, I certainly would. Play for the team play for the badge Bring on Sunday - its going to be massive.
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