Southampton vs Aston Villa

36 / saints
My
Match
BY MARK FICKLING
Today’s guest writer
is Mark Fickling who
has written
extensively for the
Hagiology historians and
who celebrated 60 seasons
following the Saints in
2021/22. Hearing about this
series Mark asked to report a
match that holds special
memories for him and his
family. The date: 16th May
2015. The match:
Southampton vs Aston
Villa...
What could be arranged to
celebrate the 70th birthday of
my friend and lifelong Saints
fan, Bob Phillips? – a question
asked by his wife Alice. The
answer: hospitality in the
Our young record-breaker Sadio Mané.
President’s Lounge for the
last home game of the season
against Villa, close to Bob’s
birthday on 21st May.
With the lounge opening twoand-a-half
hours before the
12.45 kick-off, it meant picking
up Bob and Alice at eight
o’clock. But it was a glorious
sunny day, full of promise.
Alice kept the secret from
Bob for as long as possible
but neither of them knew
that Bob’s daughter Betty and
grandson Oscar – both Saints
fanatics – had travelled down
from Northumberland to join us
for the match. En route, making
an excuse about the car having
a problem, I pulled into the
Travelodge in The Avenue for us
to meet them.
The 2014/15 season was the
first for manager Ronald
Koeman and there was a chance
of qualification for Europe.
However, the Saints’ form
had dipped recently with only
one win and one draw in the
previous six games. Sensing
that the Villa match might be
an anti-climax, it turned out to
be a record-breaker.
The match exploded into life
when Graziano Pellè scored –
only for it to be ruled out by a
hotly disputed offside decision
which was later shown to be
incorrect. If VAR had existed
then and the goal had stood,
would the sequence that
followed have been the same?
A keeper’s eye view of Mané’s first goal... if he had been between the posts to see it!