When we signed Chris Nicholl in 1977 we knew we were going up because he had won promotion in his first season with all his previous clubs. Met him a couple of times and he was a lovely man, he even sent me a Christmas card after I wrote to him congratulating him on becoming our manager. Anyone who delivered what he did now, season after season of stability, would be hailed as a genius. Yet sadly he was shouted out of his job by a vocal minority who didn't understand the profound change in football that was happening in his era and thought we should be winning trophies. Our performance in the 86 semi-final was arguably better than in 84 but he suffered bad luck with Mark Wright's broken leg. In fact his time with Saints was dogged by bad luck and malicious referees in cup ties - the prancing ninny Roger Milford playing until Oldham equalised, George Courtney sending off Jimmy Case at Old Trafford, a perfectly good goal against Luton disallowed for inexplicable reasons. To this day, Chris remains the last Saints manager to have won a league game at Arsenal. But his legacy will be the golden autumn and winter of 89/90: 4-1 away at QPR followed the next Saturday by 4-1 at the Dell against Liverpool, 6-3 against Luton, beating Arsenal on Boxing Day and then thumping Charlton 4-2 away on New Years day and climaxing with a 3-1 victory in the FA Cup 3rd round at White Hart Lane.