At last a feel good factor story from St Mary's with the news that Saturday's opening fixture against Swansea City is now a sell out.

Despite all the trials and tribulations of not only last season but the summer it is good to see that the bulk of Saints support has remained loyal and this has seen the opening fixture against Swansea City sell out with four days still to go before the big kick off.

Opening day fixtures are always hard to call in terms of attendances, on one hand there is an excitement at seeing a game again after three months of the close season, but on the other there is the issue of holidays etc meaning that a lot of supporters who might otherwise have normally gone to the game are on holiday.

Last season's fixture on the opening day against Watford did not sell out although it was close, two seasons ago our first home fixture when Everton were the visitors was around 1,000 short of capacity.

For the first game of Ronald Koeman's reign back in 2014, only 27,598 attended although in fairness the low visiting support didn't help.

A year earlier even an opening day win at West Brom didn't boost the gate with 29,596 for the St Mary's opener against Sunderland.

Even in our first season back in the Premier League the stadium had plenty of empty seats on the second weekend of the season and the first game at St Mary's when 29,604 turned up.

So ironically in what some are saying is our darkest hour in many a year, the fans are remaining loyal and that is good to see, on Saturday we need a show of solidarity we should all come to back the club not to damn it.

For those who would still like to go but left it late, the club's ticket exchange is now open allowing season ticket holders unable to attend to re sell their tickets via the club's official website.

Photo: Action Images

Webbinho added 13:09 - Aug 8 First game of the season should sell out. Nobody has been for 3 months, a real test will be if the West Ham game sells out. Twice in 2 weeks might be too much for many.
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LoisDeem added 14:16 - Aug 9 I understood West Ham tickets were selling better than Swansea at one point, so no doubt that will be a sell out too. 'Some settling of contents' (read this on a cornflakes pack once) 'may have occurred during transit' /the close season, with potentially less season ticket holders leaving more tickets for members and database subscribers.
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