Dance on a volcano

So now that the dust has settled (or at least drifted away) from the Icelandic volcano and most people are back from where ever they were stranded, what was the travel chaos all about?

Was the ash ever seriously in danger of turning jet aircraft into gliders or was the whole thing an over-reaction? Certainly when it kicked off, various "experts" were on the media saying that it wasn't safe to fly and everything was grounded. Then for the best part of a week the skies remained empty, and herculean tasks were undertaken for people to get back from places that they had only taken 2 hours or so to fly to at the start of their holidays.

Then financial meltdown for the Airline industry started to get discussed (although to my mind if your aircraft's not flying, you're not paying for fuel or landing duties?) and compensation was muted and hey ho "it's a much less dense a cloud than we first thought". Cue planes flying and everyone's happy.

I'm left with two thoughts. Firstly we've a long way to go on climate change, if the number of flights we take for an Easter break, are anything to go by. Secondly, if the volcano's big brother goes off, will that create dense clouds of ash that will put everything back on the ground??

It’s over

So Saints will get the chance to defend the JPT next season, as today Huddersfield went to Stockport and won 6-0. As a result of this, Saints cannot now get in the playoffs and therefore we will be in league 1 again next season.

It's too easy to say that the 10 point deduction is the reason that we will not get the chance to go back up to the Championship and that may be true, but in reality having got this close, the real chance was lost when we had such a slow start to the season.

Anyway it's been a great season and we did something that few fans will get to do in going to Wembley and winning a trophy.

Next season the pressure really starts, no point's deduction and much more expectation.

Extraordinary thing

I think that the lowest point was about 9 months ago when it looked like there was a real chance that Saints wouldn't find a buyer and the Administrator was talking about "winding up orders" and similar nasty legal arrangements.

Then into the spotlight stepped Markus Liebherr and his big bag of cash and since then to paraphrase Yazz "the only way's been up".

This has involved appointing Alan Pardew as manager and funding the purchase of some better players, including Rickie Lambert, who at £1m was a bargain. We have climbed the table and now sit outside the top six but close enough that with the correct combination of results we could still end up in the end of season play offs. If we did and won the first two games then the play off Final is at Wembley in May and we've already know what going there and winning feels like, because that's what we did last week-end!

Sunday March 28^th, saw 44,400 Saints fans travel up from the south coast to see their team play Carlisle Utd in the final of the Johnstones Paint Trophy Final. As regular readers of this blog will know, my sons and I went to Wembley in August 2008 to watch an England game, so the oohh factor had already been experienced, but seeing your team play there was a whole new ball game. We travelled up with my friend Paul (cheers mate!) and his son Joe, to Ruislip, where our friends Adrian (Norm) and Dawn had prepared a fantastic brunch for us. Kick off was 1.30 pm so we had left Southampton at 8.30 for brunch at 10 am and then fully fed walked to the tube to arrive at the stadium at about midday. We had already had texts from other friends telling us that the atmosphere was spine tingling and indeed as we left the tube stadium the wave of emotion that hit me was fantastic. I have walked up Wembley way before but when it's your team badge on the side of the stadium it makes it a whole new experience. Around the stadium was a sea of red and white (and some blue and white for Carlisle, but we outnumbered them by 2:1) and while it was very busy everyone was singing and waving flags and generally making a lot of noise.

The tickets had arrived a week before and while I had asked for seats in one corner, somehow we ended up in the top tier but on the half way line. So it was an escalator ride to the top and then we stepped out to see the whole of one end (and in places a bit more) covered in red and white, again a truly remarkable sight. While the JPT final may not have the status of even the Carling Cup final, one thing it does allow is for both clubs to fill half the stadium (if they have enough fans). We do have enough and due to the fact that other finals have to give tickets to county associations and the like, I can't think of another occasion when a club side will take as many fans to Wembley as we did (44,400).

The game itself went better than can be expected with Carlisle deciding to give us a head start by one of their central defenders palming away a cross, with Lambert putting the resultant penalty into the top right hand corner of the goal. Then just before half time we got out the Stoke City play book and a long throw was headed on to the far post where Lallana rose to head home, 2-0.
After half time we went 3-0 up when a Carlisle defender hesitated before trying to clear a cross, in stepped Antonio to shoot at goal which hit the keeper and then rose up for Papa Waigo to head into an empty net. Cue mass celebration.

The final goal came when Antonio picked the ball up outside the box, moved it to the left and then put it past the keeper with his left foot. Best goal of the game.
Thereafter the game faded and we even allowed Carlisle to get one back, but the final score showed we had won 4-1 and yet more celebration followed the presentation of the cup and the obligatory fireworks on the pitch.

Seeing your team at the royal box being presented with a trophy is something all fans dream of, but only a few are so lucky, whatever the competition.

An amazing game and an amazing day finished with the reverse journey home, by now in pouring rain.

Now let's just hope we can go back again in May.

My friend Paul has produced a wonderful video of the day you can find it here