Kelvin Davis will make his 600th regular season League appearance if he gets the nod from Nigel Adkins to play against Sunderland.

This total doesnt include play off games only normal league matches in a career thats been spread over 19 years since making his debut for Luton as a trainee on the final day of the 93/94 season, since then he has played for another 7 clubs, including Torquay & Hartlepool on loan, Wimbledon and Ipswich and appropriately enough if he does play on Saturday Sunderland before joining Saints in the summer of 2006 for a fee reported as a million pounds.

Its fair to say though that perhaps his stay at Sunderland was the lowlight of that career he played 33 games in the Premiership for them, his only top flight experience prior to this season and as Sunderland went down with a meagre 15 points again ironic as that the total Saints start the game on Saturday with, the Black Cats conceded 69 goals which at less than two goals per game average shows they didnt get drubbed week in week out but that their problem was scoring goals, the fans however didnt quite see it that way and blamed Kelvin for most of those conceded meaning he left the club after only one season with the abuse of the fans ringing in his ears.

In fairness in his first two seasons at St Mary's he was perhaps shell shocked and with his confidence shot he did not excel, in his third year with Saints heading for relegation he had a lot to do and therefore made a lot more saves which helped sway the Saints supporters in his direction and since then he hasnt looked back, his 255 Saints league games so far being by far the biggest total he has played for any of his clubs.

I dont think there will be many Saints fans who will begrudge Kelvin a round of aplause if he plays on Saturday although sadly I think there might be 1700 Mackems who might want to voice their opinion.      

Photo: Action Images

stmichael added 10:20 - Dec 20 Totally love the guy. Still the best keeper in the club by a long way. Well done Super Kelv and I think you know you will get more than a polite round of applause Saturday from a set of supporters (bar a handful of buffoons) who have total respect for you and what you have acheived with the club.
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Whatsforpud added 10:20 - Dec 20 255 league games is quite impressive. Where does he stand in the table for most league appearances of Saints' keepers, anyone?
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SaintNick added 10:38 - Dec 20 In league appearances ahead of shilton (188) Jones (184) Flowers (192)Martin (248) although all of those appearances (except for a handful of Martin's) came in the top flight and thats perhaps the big question to be asked if you want to compare Kelvin as one of our greatest keepers, good club servant yes, great keeper ? no Saints keeper with the most league appearances was Tommy Allen 1920-28 who made 291 league appearances for the club

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saintstowin added 13:14 - Dec 20 i won't begrudge giving him massive applause, certainly not as much as you begrudged (almost) making a compliment towards him in this article. well done Kelvin. i hope he plays on saturday. i think we'll win this one.
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SaintNick added 13:36 - Dec 20 I will applaud him too, but i dont believe in praise for praises sake, his first two seasons at saints were godawful, fair play to him for a good third season and then staying on and playing another three seasons where he played a good part, but I dont think he is anywhere near the best keeper i have seen play for saints I try to keep things in perspective. Great Saints servant YES !!!!! Great Saints Goalkeeper ? he has his place in the pecking order, thats higher than most but still not near top.

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davepid added 21:55 - Dec 20 I think the plus points to his goal keeping are his abilty to stop shots and save penalites. I have seen him make some incredible saves which any keeper would have been proud of. He is less good at commanding his area and for the life of me I dont know why that hasnt been tackled by the coaches at the club. His distribution has improved but is still only avearge . He is also pretty good at running the clock down when needed. I saw him away at Leeds last season.It was a truly superb example of keeping - brave, skilful ,determined, reactive. And judging by the reaction of the players at the end of the game as they all rushed to applaud him,I guess hes had a posiitve effect on morale and team spirit. If hes played that many times for us he must have done more things right than wrong, and I will applaud Kelvin for being a superb servant of the club.

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