The trip to Norwich City in 1994 was last chance saloon for Saints, anyone who was there that day will never forget the tension and the excitement, the hat trick, not to mention the feeling of pure celebration at the final whistle.

After the initial surge of 3 wins in his first 4 games in charge, Alan Ball's rejuvenation of Saints had firmly come off the wheels with only 3 draws and 4 defeats in the next 7 games as we headed up to Norwich in 21st place and 4 points off of safety.

Saints supporters were housed in the old side stand and for the first 37 minutes they saw a tense nervous game with Saints trying to find some sort of confidence and trying to play the Alan Ball passing game and a Norwich side with nothing to play for showing they were not already on the beach.

Then Mark Robins scored for the home side, his first goal of the season as will surprise no one, that sort of thing always happens to us.

But the lead would not last long and Neil Maddison hit a shot that looked to be going wide until it struck Ullathorne and went into his own net.

A minute later and Saints were on their way back to the dressing room hoping that there luck had changed, I missed the goal, I like many was in the bar getting in a half time pint and feeling heartily hacked off when suddenly there was a big cheer from the stand above.

But if we all thought that things were on the up, three minutes after the break as Jeremy Goss scored for the hosts and then on 55 minutes Chris Sutton sweeping home a loose ball after Saints keeper Dave Beasant could only parry it.

It was grim now, at this point our away record was awful only 2 wins and 4 draws in 18 games, we had scored only 14 goals and now we would have to score 2 more just to get a draw, not many Saints fans believed that this would be possible.

But two minutes later they had some hope as Le God appeared, not in a vision but on the edge of the Norwich box to fire home to make the score 3-2 and 5 minutes later we were all born again Le Tissians as he scored from the spot after Jeff Kenna was brought down.

But if we thought the momentum was with us then we were wrong, not even 60 seconds had gone when the Canaries ran straight up the other end and made it 4-3 to the home side.

On 72 mins there was yet another glimmer of hope as Le Tissier scored with his head this time to complete his hat trick.

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As the clock ticked down most Saints fans were more worried we might concede again rather than win the game, a point would be better than nothing and we were far more likely to concede than score, after all if we got a 5th then that would be more than a third of the goals we had scored so faraway all season in one match, it wasn't possible or was it !

The clock was already on 90 mins when Saints got a corner right in front of their fans, perhaps most were thinking that Le Tissier should play it short and run down the clock, but he didn't he crossed it into the box and then the next seconds seemed to happen in slow motion followed by that feeling of pure joy that is sadly so rarely experienced if you are a Saints supporter, but is the drug we go for week in week out.

The cross was met by Ken Monkou who headed the ball home, it seemed to take an age to cross the line and it was pure pandemonium on the pitch and in the away section, I seem to remember Monkou grabbing the ball and launching it into the Saints supporters, people were falling over and hugging each other and just could not believe what they had just seen.

The game restarted, their were too big questions, could Saints hold on this time and secondly how long would they have to hold on for, the answers were soon known and the roof was taken off Carrow Road at the final whistle as the Saints team celebrated with their fans.

They knew they had taken part in one of the great games in our history and we knew we had watched it, this was one of the times when you were proud to say I was there.

There was still a long way to go, on 36 points we were only a point behind Oldham, but they had two games in hand, ahead of them were Spurs on 49 and Ipswich on 41, surely it was just a 4 horse race now and that would prove to be the case.

Photo: Action Images

darthvader added 10:19 - Apr 9 Unbelievable game . The first time all season at 3-1 down i thought Fück it were are going down ... Then that happened !
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TimSaint added 11:38 - Apr 9 Superb game Le Tiss scored a Perfect Hatrick I seem to remember ? Unbelievable scenes with that Super Kenny Monkou goal. Hadn't seen celebrations like that since Ruddock's last min pen v Newcastle, or more recently Gabbi's goal at Swansea and Mane's 3-2 winner v Liverpool.
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PatfromPoole added 21:39 - Apr 10 One of the best games I have ever been to.
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