In the third part of our series running up to the 40th anniversary of our greatest day as a football club on Sunday, we look at the 5th round tie against West Bromwich Albion.
When Saints were drawn against West Bromwich Albion in the 5th round there were mixed emotions amongst Saints supporters, on one hand we had avoided a top flight club, but on the other we had just about the hardest tie we could have had after that.
West Brom like Saints were vying for promotion to the First Division, something that they would achieve at the end of the season, although I suspect there isn't one Saints fan alive who would have swapped our position for theirs come May 2nd.
But any mixed feelings were overpowered by a new emotion and that was called Cup Fever, within days it was apparent that a large proportion of our support would make the trip up to the West Midlands, two special trains were laid on, over 100 coaches were chartered by pub's etc and numerous cars and mini buses completed the cavalcade.
Estimates are that of a crowd of 36,634, (well over double the 17k who had seen Saints win 2-0 in the League 2 months earlier) over 12,000 of them were Saints supporters.
The Hawthorns has been completely rebuilt since 1976, so it bears little resemblance to the stadium we went to on 14th May 1976, indeed one quirky fact is that in that Cup run, only one part of any of the grounds we played on in that run still remains, Villa Park, The Hawthorns & Valley Parade have all been completely rebuilt as has Wembley, with The Dell of course having been knocked down after our move to St Mary's. The East Stand at Stamford Bridge completed a year or two before our semi final visit is the only stand that still exists.
Saints fans in the main were massed on the Smethwick End terrace a large expanse at ne end of the ground mainly covered by a roof, which meant that much noise could be made.
An hour before kick off Saints fans were in good voice and so were the Albion fans at the other end resulting in a home fan running on to the pitch and putting a West Brom Scarf on the centre spot prompting a mini pitch invasion from the away contingent and a rather violent intervention from West Midlands Police.
Saints had virtually the side who would run out at Wembley a few months later, Hugh Fisher in for the suspended Peter Osgood being the only difference, the referee was Clive Thomas who would be in the middle on May 1st in the final.
The game kicked off at a brisk pace, what had been kept quiet though is that the Saints squad had a virus in the ranks with Channon, Stokes & Gilchrist all feeling unwell, with small squads in those days the only choice was for them to dig in and not let the opposition know.
Although the game was end to end stuff, at half time it was goalless, the Saints fans were satisfied and so was i suspect Lawrie McMenemy given the health of his squad.
Saints started the second half kicking towards the mass banks of visiting support who were making all the noise but they were silenced in the 58th minute when Tony Brown prodded the ball home from 12 yards out to rouse the home supporters.
This gave Saints renewed fight though and on 75 minutes up popped Bobby Stokes for his second goal of the cup run from just outside of the box to draw Saints level.
It was Albion who understandably had the better of the final 15 minutes as they tried to finish off the game on their own turf, Saints were wilting given the illness in the camp, but they dug in and with the help of Ian Turner who made a couple of smart saves and the post they held on to take the Throstles (it was never the Baggies back then) back to the Dell.
Saints in their yellow away strip barely had enough strength left to acknowledge the celebrating hordes who now thought that it could be their year and they were now firm favourites at the Dell a ground were so far in the League that season they had won 12, drawn 1 and lost only once.