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Saints Set Face Old Adversaries In Pre Season Tournament
Saints Set Face Old Adversaries In Pre Season Tournament
Tuesday, 14th Jun 2011 16:47

Saints could face some familiar old opponents in the recently announced pre season tournament at St Mary's with Athletico Bilbao & Wigan being touted as two of the names to be announced, ironically enough Saints have played the Spanish side more times than the Lancashire side from the Premiership.

Saints were drawn against Athletico Bilbao in the 1st round of the UEFA Cup in the 1971/72 season beating them at the Dell 2-1 in the first leg before going down 2-0 to two late goals in the return in Spain.

Wigan who only joined the Football League in 1978 co incidentally the same year that Saints won promotion back to the top flight have met us only the once, that in the 4th round of the FA Cup in 1985/86then they went down 3-0 as new manager Chris Nicholl lead us to an eventual semi final defeat to Liverpool. 

This remains our only competitve meeting as ironically after we left the top flight after our 27 year sojourn back in 2005, they went past us in the other direction and have remained their ever since despite a couple of last day scares in recent years.       

 

Photo: Action Images



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UtahSaint added 21:58 - Jun 14
Athletico Bilbao paly in read and white strips, beacuase of the Saints:
Atletic Bilbao began playing in an improvised white kit, but in the 1902-03 season the clubs first official strip became half blue, half white shirts similar to those worn by Blackburn Rovers, which were donated by Juan Moser. Later a young student from Bilbao named Juan Elorduy, who was spending Christmas 1909 in London was charged by the club to buy 25 new shirts, but was unable to find enough. Waiting for the ship back to Bilbao and empty handed, Elorduy realised that the colours of the local team Southampton Football Club matched the colours of the City of Bilbao, and bought 50 shirts to take with him. Upon arriving in Bilbao, the clubs directors decided almost immediately to change the teams strip to the new colours, and since 1910 Athletic Club have played in red and white stripes. Of the 50 shirts bought by Elorduy half were then sent to Atlético Madrid which had originally begun as a youth branch of Bilbao. Before the switch from blue & white to red & white, only one other team wore red & white, Sporting de Gijón, since 1905.[3] [4]

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