Southampton have had many Internationals play for the club over the years but how many World Cup Finalists Have they had ?

Eljero Elia came on for Holland in the final of the 2010 World Cup as a 71st minute substitute replacing Dirk Kuyt, unfortunately finishing on the losing side with Spain beating the Dutch.

But he is not the first man to have played in the ultimate game of football to later grace a Saints shirt, Alan Ball was of course the first playing the full 90 minutes in England's victory over West Germany in 1966 and of course the manager for the Three Lions that day was Alf Ramsey who himself played for Saints at the start of his career.

Jan Poortvliet might have been ridiculed by some Saints supporters, but having played in the 1978 final for the Dutch he deserved a little more respect than he was given.

But perhaps the one name that most Saints fans won't recall but who was the first player connected with the club to appear in the final of the tournament was George Reader.

Reader played 3 games for the club in our first ever season in the football league in 1920/21, he never really made his mark as a player, however he was to find his niche in the game as a referee after taking up refereeing in a game on Southampton Common.

He was a football league linesman from 1936-39 and then in 1939 he became a league referee unfortunately just as war was starting, in 1944 he retired from league refereeing but was still in demand for one off games and was even in demand from football associations abroad to ref games.

In 1948 he returned to the league list at their request and in 1950 he was amongst the British contingent of referees who went to Brazil for the finals and was selected to referee the final in the Maracana Stadium.

He was 53 years old when he blew the whistle to start the final between hosts Bail and Uruguay, say officially there were 174,000 in the ground, still the biggest ever crowd for a game of football although unofficially it s though up to 250,000 may have crammed into the ground.

Uruguay won the game after coming back from a goal down and such was the fervour of the home fans that suicides were reported in the stadium itself as the game ended.

Reader though returned to his home in Hanley Road Southampton and his job as headmaster of Western School in Shirley retiring from refereeing.

He did however become Chairman of Southampton FC in 1963 and was still in that role in 1976 when he sat next to the Queen at Wembley on May 1st to see Saints win the trophy, he would sadly die two years later aged 81.

So Eljero Elias isn't the first man connected with Saints to appear in a World Cup final and hopefully he won't be the last.

Photo: Action Images

chilcosaint added 18:46 - Jan 18 I think you'll find Bally (like all the other players) played 120 minutes in the 1966 final!
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trotsky added 13:04 - Jan 20 Not sure if I missed a previous discussion on the subject, but who was the last person to play for Saints having previously played in a Champions League / European Cup final? i.e. before Ryan Bertrand. Do we have to go back to the likes of Case and Shilton?
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