The Dell held a special place in my heart as I was growing up in southampton in the 1980s and 90s. I went to my first game there less than a month after moving to Netley (Feb 1987, 2-0 v Coventry, who went on to win the cup that season), and was soon a regular.

After that first game, in the Upper East, my dad would take me to the Lower West benches, ideally between the dugout and the players tunnel (with the West Terrace behind us), although after a year or so we made the move to the Milton, down towards the East stand (second barrier up, around the 18 yd line), where we stayed for years. Come my 4th year at school, following a big fall out, we stopped going together, and my then girlfriend started to come along in his place. In the years to follow, we only attended another handful of games as father and son, notably Saints v Bolton and Everton (4-3 on New Years Day), and USA v Yugoslavia at France 98.

When Shira and I inevitably split up, it was into the bosom of the Netley Boys I fell, and our established home on the `left side` at the back of the Milton. For a couple of heady seasons, we narrowly avoided head on clashes with the `Milton Muppets`, and won grudging respect from `The Greasers`. At times, there were around 30 of us, made up of school friends, little brothers and their friends, and even the odd girl, and this continued into my college years.

Then disaster struck - the Milton was bulldozed, and the Dell became all seater. Our days of blagging it through the boys gate were now behind us. From 30 odd, we now became four - Rich, the Wee Man, the Wee Man's weebrother (Dean) and myself. After flitting around the ground on a match by match basis, we were spurred ino buying season tickts after we failed to get briefs for an away cuptie at Luton. We took our seats for the first time immediately after our humiliating exit to a Rosenthal inspired Spurs, and were in olace to see theamazing 3-1 win against Newcastle.

Many happy, drunken (and admittedly, sometimes abusive) years followed, and we were joined by Helen, shoehorned into a fortuitous gap in the surrounding reserved seats right next to us. We witnessed many great games, particulrly the trio of wins against Man Utd (3-1, 6-3 & 1-0) and the cup win over Pompey, and then came the end.

A full programme of events was lined up to mourn the passing of The Dell, but first was the league visit of Arsenal. Kachloul had twice given us the lead, only for Arsenal to twice pull it back. Then, with only few minutes left, Le Tissier came on, found himself with his back to goal on the edge of the box, turned and instictively crashed a left foot volley into the Milton net. I swear I have never heard a cheer like it, nor felt pure emotion like that before. The perfect end to the perfect ground - even most Arsenal fans stayed behind to applaud it.

If ihad known then what i know now, that would probably have been it. Dodd's testimonial was a case of `going throgh the motions`, and the Brighton game was a shambles - Rosler scored the only goal, and the crowd spent the whole second half dismantling the ground, until a good natured pitch invasion arond the 70th minute signalled the end of the game. After the heriocs of the Arsenal match, the Brighton game was a bit of ignoble departure for the grand old ground.

So what of St Mary's? Well, I had supported the new ground from Day 1, and even went to see the building site a couple of times, however as the end was drawing near, I started becoming apprehensive. The first game, against Espanol, was a strange experience, marred by the closure of our usual meet, Butlers (soon to become a chrome pizzeria!).

The final nails in the coffin were hammered in as early as the Aston Villa game (early Sept), when a stadium announcement asked all `customers` to ensure they had their tickets ready. For me, this summed up the attitude of top-level football as a whole, and certainly didn't justify the £450 we were expected to shell out (of course, I'd bought mine a year before as part of a 2 year package, or I may have thought twice, particularly when Stuart Gray was appointed. Come November, I missed my first home game in around 7 years in preference to watching Worthing, and went on to miss several more, as the magic had gone. The 3-1 win against Newcastle was my last game, and the feeling was markedly different from the Arsenal game a year befrore.

So what's happened now? Well, Dean stopped going to focus on his own football, and Lizzie took his seat, leaving Rich and The Wee Man making up the trio. Saints of course went on a run, lost the Cup Final to Arsenal and were narrowly edged out of the UEFA Cup in the away leg at Steaua Bucharest - ironically, the only two games I've been to since that Newcastle game. And I still can't see myself returning to St Mary's in the near future...

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