Day two of our look back at what we were doing in happier times over the past decades, so lets start with a cracker at Wimbledon back in 1990.

89/90 was a good season for Saints fans, on one hand we played a flowing attacking brand of football that almost earned us a 3rd place finish, but on the other we had a steel about us that mean't we took few prisoners, the trip to Wimbledon on the 17th March 1990 saw a game that had both elements.

Wimbledon were still at Plough Lane back then, which for away fans meant standing on a big open terrace at one end of the ground and a fair few of the 5,382 crowd were banked on that structure behind the goal.

I wasn't though, several of us had opted for a seat in one of their two wooden stands, it offered a basic but better view of proceedings and back them going to Wimbledon wasn't the challenge that going to some other clubs was and you were able to support your team quite openly amongst their supporters.

The game itself started well for Saints, Matt Le Tissier's shot taking a deflection off of Young and looping over Hans Segers in the home goal to make it 1-0 after 19 minutes.

But in those days Saints let in almost as many as they scored, come the end of the season the 63 conceded saw only 2 clubs let in more, but the 71 we scored was only bettered by the Champions Liverpool, it was an entertaining year.

But back to Plough Lane and the lead lasted only 9 minutes when Young equalised and then 9 minutes later again John Scales put the Dons ahead and that was where it stood at half time.

Wimbledon were obviously under orders to get things done as they took only 8 minutes after the break to make it 3-1 and you thought at this stage that Saints might be dead and buried, although it was certain the scoring hadn't ended.

But before anymore goals there would be drama, John Fashanu was his usual bullying self, but Saints were lacking their normal enforcer to keep him quiet with Jimmy Case suspended, one of only 5 games he missed all season.

But in his place up stepped Francis Benali, one of the nicest guys off the field but liable to a bit of red mist on it and this was one of those days, Fashanu might have seen him coming, but he could do nothing to get out of the way as Benali arriving way after the ball had gone produced a tackle that quite literally turned Fashanu over in a complete cartwheel and left him in a crumpled heap on the floor.

The game really looked over for Saints now, an hour gone 3-1 down and with only 10 men, but the game swung once again within minutes, Saints seemed to have a new resolve and in the 63rd minute Le Tiss fired past Segers to bring the game back in reach and with Wimbledon rattled and Saints flooding forward Keith Curle brought down Rod Wallace and Le Tiss did not miss from the spot.

A hard fought point against the nastiest team in the division if not the entire league, but we took them on at their own game and then imposed ours on them.

Saints would eventually end up 7th this season, but it could have been 3rd, our ast two games saw 2-1 defeats at firstly Arsenal and then Spurs who did end 3rd, however if we had won both and we could well have done, we would have leapfrogged both into that 3rd spot.

So has anyone else got any memories of this game.

Photo: Action Images

SanMarco added 10:25 - Mar 17 Wasn't at this game but I well remember the 2-1 defeat at Arsenal a few weeks later. We were 1 up with a few minutes left and well in charge of the game when they had something like a free kick that floated harmlessly for as goal kick - the referee then gave a penalty. No one ever knew why. We lived in London so were back for ITV highlights and this confirmed the mystification...

0

ThereIn76 added 20:40 - Mar 17 Felt bad for Ian Andrews - Chris NicholL told him to come out for Wimbledon’s corners and long throws into the box, but he kept missing them. It was a long time before some Saints fans would forgive him. Pity as he was a good keeper short of match practice. And a top bloke too.
0

Blogs 31 bloggers

Southampton Polls