Saints against Wrexham is likely to be a new experience for a big chunk of the crowd at St Mary's tomorrow, this fixture has rarely been played over the years and the last meeting was back in 1979.

Given that Wrexham having been founded in 1864 is the oldest professional football club in Wales and apparently the 3rd oldest in the World and that Southampton FC was founded in 1885, it is surprising that out paths have rarely crossed.

Only 7 times before to be precise and this is only the 3rd season we have spent in the same division as the Robins or Red Dragons as they seem to be nicknamed these days.

Those two league seasons were back in 1958/59 and 1959/60 when both clubs found themselves in the old 3rd Division or League One as it is now known.

The first ever game was at the Dell on 27th September 1958 when 18.048 saw Derek Reeves score a 85th minute consolation goal in a 2-1 defeat.

The return at the Racecourse ground came on Valentines Day, 14th February 1959, this time it was Saints who came out on top, Charlie Livesey scoring after only 2 minutes , scored again on 14 minutes and completed his hat trick on the hour mark, a goal for the home side with 20 minutes to go ended the scoring at 3-1 to Southampton meaning that most of the 9,787 went home unhappy.

The following season would see both sides depart the division at the end of it, Southampton as Champions and Wrexham finishing 2nd from bottom were relegated.

In November 1959 Saints despatched the Welshmen 3-0 in front of 15, 974 at the Dell, George O'Brien & Derek Reeves doing the damage.

The return leg in April in Wales saw Saints in pole position in the League, but it was not to a happy day, despite being down to 10 men when their goalkeeper was sent off the home side triumphed 2-1, a Derek Reeves consolation goal in the middle of the two Wrexham strikes, 7,583 being there to witness it, no Hollywood film stars were in attendance.

On to 1973/74 and the FA Cup, the 5th round saw 3rd division Wrexham come to the Dell in the 5th round on 16th February , under new manager Lawrie McMenemy Saints had been doing well and looked set for a top 10 finish in the old First Division and hopes were high of despatching Wrexham and reaching the quarter finals.

Perhaps we were two confident, before the game Terry Paine was presented with a silver salver to mark his 700th League appearance and 800th in all competitions and a light hearted atmosphere was prevailing.

The game was played on a mud heap with torrential rain starting 90 minutes before the kick off and soaking the 24,797 present including a fair number of supporters down from Wales.

It was 0-0 at half time, but 10 minutes into the second half David Smallman who had been the hero of their cup run so far headed the visitors into the lead.

Now it was backs to the wall for Wrexham, 11 men behind the wall and somehow prevented Saints from equalising, those who were watching Saints at the time would say that this was the beginning of the slump that eventually saw us relegated come April.

There is some truth in that, we would win just one more league game and draw only 4 in the 13 games leading up to the final game at Goodison Park against Everton, but that was too little too late and we were relegated on that day, the first victims of 3 up 3 down in the relegation places.

Moving on just 5 years and a lot had changed at both clubs, in that time we had won the FA Cup, been promoted again and reached a League cup final.

Wrexham arrived in the League cup in August 1979 for what was the first season of 2 legged 2nd round ties.

First up was the Dell when a healthy crowd of 13, 920 saw Saints demolish Wrexham 5-0, Charlie George, Phil Boyer and Graham Baker giving us a 3-0 half time lead and both Boyer & Baker scoring again to send up into the 2nd leg with a pretty much you would think insurmountable advantage.

Only slightly less turned up at the Racecourse ground a week later 13,200 to be precise, to see Saints finish the job, Trevor Hebberd putting Wrexham's hopes of a comeback firmly to bed on 14 minutes, Austin Hayes on the 50th minute doubling the advantage on the night and then Phil Boyer making it 3-0 and 8-0 on aggregate to finish the scoring.

So that is the complete history of Southampton V Wrexham and in terms of League results it is all even, lets hope that we can nudge ourselves in front on Saturday at St Mary's

All Photos Via Reuters