Saints take on Grimsby Town for the first time in 45 years this evening, back in 1978 it took three attempts to despatch the Mariners in the 3rd round of the FA Cup, one thing is for sure it will all be decided tonight.

When Saints travelled to Blundell Park on 7th January 1978 in the FA Cup 3rd round, this was seen as an easy game against lower League opposition, after all it had been barely 18 months earlier that Saints had won the competition.

The game was in front of Grimsby's biggest crowd in years, 16,582 including a couple of thousand Saints supporters and of course Lawrie McMenemy who had been manager of Grimsby up to 1973 when he joined Saints.

Indeed Lawrie is still held in high regard at Grimsby, there is even a function suite named after him, amazing given that he only spent two years at the club, winning the Fourth Division title in the 1st of those in 1971/72.

Also in the side was Ian Turner who had been signed from Grimsby by McMenemy and Chris Nicholl who would 5 years later join the Mariners as the assistant manager.

On paper this looked like an easy win, after all Saints were in the middle of their promotion push to return to the top flight, but it would not turn out like that at all, a 0-0 draw ensued and the two clubs resumed at the Dell just 3 days later in front of 22, 462 although there were only a few hundred Grimsby fans in that number.

This game would also end goal less and the two sides would meet up in a second replay, this time on neutral territory at Leicester City's Filbert Street.

This venue was a lot nearer Grimsby than Southampton and the crowd of 11,356 didn't include many neutrals, but it did around 9,000 supporters from Grimsby and only a couple of thousand making the journey from Southampton.

That was not surprising given that this was the third meeting between the sides in just 9 days and Saints had played a League game only a couple of days earlier.

This time though Saints would make no mistake, goals from Malcolm Waldron, Ted McDougal, Phil Boyer and David Peach gave us a resounding 4-1 win and we were into the next round.

It wasn't a pleasurable night for the travelling Saints fans it was cold and wet and we were squeezed into a corner of Filbert Street, after the game the dozen or so Saints supporter coaches were parked amid the 80 or so from Grimsby and their fans were not happy bunnies back in an age when football violence was rife.

The journey home saw a blizzard for most of the 150 miles back to Southampton and driving conditions were treacherous.

But we were into the 3rd round of the FA Cup and back then the FA Cup mattered and especially in Southampton were we still had fond memories of that trip to Wembley in 1976.

Photo: Action Images

SouthSeaSaint added 10:33 - Mar 1 I was there. Pay at the gate but our car load of supporters managed to blag our way into the main stand for free.
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redwight added 12:26 - Mar 1 Phil Boyers goal was sensational. The memory of it remains vivid to this day.
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