Yet venture down the main road through the village, take a right at the crossroads and just before a farm is the entrance to one of the most vibrant and ambitious football training centres in the world.
Behind two huge red gates is a sign that boldly reads, “The Southampton Way”.
The definition of this Southampton Way is also supplied: “The best in class both on and off the field of play.”
The design and future development of Southampton’s training ground has been influenced by studying centres of excellence across all walks of life including dance and music as well as Barcelona’s legendary La Masia academy.
The immediate focus might be Friday night’s match against Reading, involving the top two teams in the Championship, and the knowledge that victory could come close to sealing promotion back to the Premier League.
Yet the wider message is constantly long term.
After a sequence of 27 years of consecutive top-flight football was ended in 2005, the aim is to re-establish Southampton’s among English football’s elite for a generation.
Greeting me at the gates is Nicola Cortese, the club’s executive chairman.
Since assuming total day-to-day charge of the club following the late Markus Liebherr’s takeover in 2009, Cortese has frequently described Southampton as “his baby”.
His style is direct and forthright but there can be no doubting his impact.
Upon arriving at Southampton less than three years ago, eyebrows were instantly raised when Cortese publicly outlined a five-year plan that would take Southampton from the abyss of administration and a 10-point deduction at the bottom of League One to the Premier League.
It all seemed unrealistically ambitious but the club now stand on the brink of back-to-back promotions and achieving his target two years early.
There is not even the slightest sense that Cortese is surprised by the club’s progress.
“I’m used to delivering a bit more than I promise,” he says. “Yes, promotion would put as ahead of the plan but being ahead of a plan is never an issue, being behind a plan is an issue.
“We planned ahead. Everything we have been doing is Premier League standard.
"The whole operation behind is Premier League already.
"There will be lots of side-affects that will be different and we are prepared for that, whether that is this year, next year or the year after.”
Yet having led the Championship for so much of the season, great care is taken to ensure that everyone remains grounded as this final moment of truth arrives.
“No one wants to get ahead of themselves so why should I get ahead of myself?” says Cortese.
“The season so far has been a great season but that’s it. We haven’t achieved anything else. At the end, we will be where we are.”
Over the next hour spent speaking to key figures at the training ground, there is the clear sense of a club working productively at two levels.
There is the here and now, and an obvious expectation to succeed but also a very clearly defined vision for the future.
That is being underpinned by an investment of £15 million in new training facilities and, significantly, the Liebherr family have just transferred a debt of £33 million into share equity.
The ‘here and now’ department is obviously the first team, led superbly by Nigel Adkins who, over the past two seasons, is rated behind only Sir Alex Ferguson and Roberto Mancini in the League Managers Association index which weights performance across all four divisions.
Southampton have risen 45 places up the Football League pyramid since his appointment 19 months ago.
Adkins’ on-field spearhead is clearly Rickie Lambert, who is the Championship’s leading scorer with 26 goals.
Yet speak to fans who watch Southampton regularly and they will tell you that Adam Lallana is the player who really makes the team tick.
Lallana has been with Southampton since the age of 11, graduating in the same academy year as Gareth Bale and Theo Walcott, and uniquely well placed to assess the recent roller coaster.
“With where we were, starting the season minus 10 points in League One, to have a chance of getting promoted to the Premier League is just phenomenal,” he says.
“We are on the brink of something very special.
"The minus 10 points was the low point but the club was still a big club – I knew that, I knew I didn’t want to move on.”
And the key to their improvement?
“Momentum, we got used to winning last year,” he says.
“Secretly everyone knew we could do well in this year. We were really happy coming into the league as underdogs because we knew teams would underestimate us.
“We started the season on fire and we were just shocking teams.
"There’s no weakness in the side, technically, mentally or physically.
"We’ve not got many players with Premier League experience but we have got players who are desperate for the experience. It will be remarkable.”
Constructing the core of the team around home-grown players such as Lallana is Southampton’s ultimate aim.
Les Reed, the former FA technical director who is overseeing the development of the academy, explains that the ‘Southampton Way’ is being implemented not from top to bottom but from “bottom to top”, starting with the under-eights.
“We want to win matches by keeping the ball on the ground and therefore we have to develop players who can do that,” says Reed.
“The parents understand it, they enjoy it, they want their kids to be playing a good style of football.”
But can it work in the Premier League?
“The moment you are in the Premiership you have got to be sustainable,” says Cortese.
“The academy is very important to become a sustainable business. We would want to see a starting XI in the Premier League that is fed from our youth development.
“We have got examples. The Champions League title of Barcelona in 2009.
"At the beginning of the game they had seven players from their academy.
"At the end of the game they had eight. It’s hard to quantify, but we definitely believe we can achieve that as well.”
However admirable, there is a temptation to think it all sounds rather fanciful.
But then you consider the examples of Norwich or Swansea and, above all, what Southampton have been achieving over the past three years.
It has also been delivered in style, by playing expansive and entertaining football.
In short, it is being done The Southampton Way.
:poundit: and maybe another with a side portion of and
Mornings tomorrow so it means no beer tonight and not much sleep, although luckily I've got a late start .... I hate listening sober. My nerves will need us to be at least 4 up after 20 mins and not concede any goals at all!!