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Looking after our own.........


Muckers
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I just wanted to say a huge thanks to all and any Saints fans who helped out a freind at Millwall on Saturday. Andrew who has a learning disability got directed away from the coaches coming out of the ground and ended up missing his coach home.

 

The information I have is that Andrew approached some Saints fans in a pub, whereabouts I do not know!! and asked them to contact his family back in Southampton, which they did. They then made sure he was ok and paid his train fare home, even taking him home to Freemantle. This was a huge relief to everyone and could of ended up so differently.

 

Andrew supports Saints with a passion and has travelled very successfully around the country to Leeds, Birmingham, Southend to name a few. His confidence could of been shattered but he assures us he will keep going and he has learnt from the experience.

 

Cheers to you all and as a Saints fan of over 40 years its great to hear we can rely on each other.

 

COYR

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Nice story - makes a real change from the normal 'fans in fight' headlines that we are used to seeing. Well done to those that 'made it so', just a shame that the press don't get to hear and report on the good side for a change.

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Almost brought a tear to my eye. Wouldn't expect anything less than for saints to help a fellow saint.

 

Bings a new meaning to tha name 'family club'...were all in it together eh!

Agreed, a lovely thing to help out like that but to suggest all Saints would do the same for other Saints fans is well wide of the mark, we've got some right budgie fans.
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Agreed, a lovely thing to help out like that but to suggest all Saints would do the same for other Saints fans is well wide of the mark, we've got some right budgie fans.

 

I would like to belive that most of our fans would help one another in such circumstances and fair play to them for getting him home safely , but I can understand why he may have missed the coaches for any free movement was denied by over the top policing by the Met who pushed most of the supporters who came on the train from piller to post.

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I was going to say it was good thinking by the lad. Avoid the bingo bus, and then have a few beers in the evening with Saints lads in london. i bet he had a great time.

 

Being serious, well done indeed. Great to hear Saints looking out for our own

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Top stuff!

 

Congrats to those concerned even though I haven't a clue as to either 'Andrew' is or all those that helped were. Nice to know we are (mostly I'm sure) one big happy Saints family & I'm sure that the vast majority of us would do the same next time round. Nice ending.

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I just wanted to say a huge thanks to all and any Saints fans who helped out a freind at Millwall on Saturday. Andrew who has a learning disability got directed away from the coaches coming out of the ground and ended up missing his coach home.

 

The information I have is that Andrew approached some Saints fans in a pub, whereabouts I do not know!! and asked them to contact his family back in Southampton, which they did. They then made sure he was ok and paid his train fare home, even taking him home to Freemantle. This was a huge relief to everyone and could of ended up so differently.

 

Andrew supports Saints with a passion and has travelled very successfully around the country to Leeds, Birmingham, Southend to name a few. His confidence could of been shattered but he assures us he will keep going and he has learnt from the experience.

 

Cheers to you all and as a Saints fan of over 40 years its great to hear we can rely on each other.

 

COYR

 

Muckers,

 

I know you're new, but you haven't 'got' this posting lark. You need to start threads which appear positive, but can easily be twisted into a doom-laden rant about the club, the fans and the state of Britain today.

 

How is anybody going to be able to moan about your heart warming story? Don't you know that we're going to miss out on the playoffs and implode as a result?!?!?! ;)

 

 

Nice story by the way.:)

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I know that they have a reputation, but in my own personal experience Millwall rank and fike would have helped him too. we are all part of one big football family with justa minority of idiots.

 

That was in my opinion one of the safest grounds that I have been to.

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Wouldn't expect anything less than for saints to help a fellow saint.

 

Like every club the fanbase is a cross section of society. There are plenty of fans at every club that would have done the same as the good people in this story. There are also plenty of fans across the country that wouldn't have lifted a finger(Saints fans included). To say you wouldn't expect anything else from a person just because he by stroke of luck/coincidence has chosen to support the same team as you is a little naive! ;) :D

 

Nice story and well done to those that did help though! :)

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Andrew was great company on the journey back! He was alone in London Bridge and latched onto us because we were in colours. It was no more than any other fan would've done in the same situation, because we are a family club and we do look after our own.

 

The BTP and South Eastern trains were all very helpful, whereas South West Trains were the most obstructive people I have ever experienced when faced with a genuine case of need.

 

Both Saints and Millwall have been very responsive to e-mail correspondence since and Millwall are going to look at ways in which they can improve the method of filtering people left and right for the coaches and trains.

 

All in all, it made for an interesting trip home and shows that Millwall and Saints are good embassadors for the game we all love.

 

Andrew will be at MK Dons on Weds and we'll be trying to spot him, as we promised we would! :)

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Agreed, a lovely thing to help out like that but to suggest all Saints would do the same for other Saints fans is well wide of the mark, we've got some right budgie fans.

 

I would suggest most saints fans would of done the same, unfortunately we only tend to hear about the minority trouble makers in the media/press. Well done to those that were involved, a credit to the colours.

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You're right, there are some who follow saints, especially away from home, who would more likely have ridiculed the lad for his predicament and even offered their own form of abuse, given his condition.

 

All clubs have their 'budgies' for fans, buy saints generally have less than most - thankfully!

 

 

Careful ... with comments like that my prediction that every thread on TSW will turn into a doom-laden rant about the state of our club and Britain today gets a little closer to the mark!!!

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Careful ... with comments like that my prediction that every thread on TSW will turn into a doom-laden rant about the state of our club and Britain today gets a little closer to the mark!!!

 

Indeed. Post no.31 and no-one's blamed Lowe yet for Andrew's travel mishap! ;)

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Indeed. Post no.31 and no-one's blamed Lowe yet for Andrew's travel mishap! ;)

 

 

I'm waiting for somebody to mention the most recent fans forum when travel to away games for disabled supporters was raised as an issue with NC ....

 

That would give us an opportunity to discuss whether NC is a hotheaded character or not.;)

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My final contribution of the day!! As part of the correspondence I had with Saints, I mentioned the fans forum and the question about wheelchair away travel.

 

It seems that saints now do work with a disabled centre locally to offer specialised wheelchair travel, very recently introduced and to be continued!

 

Well done to NC and DL for taking this up and making it happen!

 

:-D

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Great Story.

Can also understand how easy it would be to miss the coach with that policing, especially with so many innocent looking fans being penned in by the police in a corner. What was that all that about?

 

They do it every home home game and have done it everytime I've been. I think the police wait till the last Millwall supporter has got home in Glasgow before considering to let the away fans out. The carpark was almost totally empty of home fans when we got out.

 

Two Hampshire police "officers" had absolutely no man management skills when they confronted an upset Saints fan because of the delay. They should have either walked away or spoken calmly to him not try and have a macho power struggle.

 

Mancsaint

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Thanks for all the positive responses to the post. I did laugh at the reply seeking negativity. Its some achievement to get almost 100% of people agreeing. I might be new at posting but have been reading the forum long enough to know how unusual it is!! Nice to hear from some of you who helped thanks again for helping Andrew out, he is always good value!

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I'm waiting for somebody to mention the most recent fans forum when travel to away games for disabled supporters was raised as an issue with NC ....

 

That would give us an opportunity to discuss whether NC is a hotheaded character or not.;)

 

I believe the first trip for the club organised disabled coach was the Millwall game.

 

If Lowe didn't get us relegated twice we wouldn't be playing Millwall.;)

 

Heart warming story.

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Brilliant to hear - looking out for each other is what it's all about.

 

I might not be here today if it hadn't been for 2 Saints fans who stopped me from being suffocated against the wall outside the Milton Road End turnstiles in the crush to get into the Dell, when we achieved our record crowd of 31044 against Man Ure in 1969. I was 13 and only 5 foot tall then. One of them lifted me up out of the crush and held me against the wall until a space was formed to let me down into. I can still remember the relief of being able to breathe again and the weird feeling of looking down on the heads of everyone in the queue. They looked after me during the match and made sure I got on the train home ok afterwards.

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I know that they have a reputation, but in my own personal experience Millwall rank and fike would have helped him too. we are all part of one big football family with justa minority of idiots.

 

That was in my opinion one of the safest grounds that I have been to.

 

I'd beg to differ, I'm sorry to say. Safety in sheer police presence or the fact the club (the only one in the football league) had to construct a covered walkway to protect visiting fans?!

 

Whilst the hooligans are a minority & certainly don't represent all the fans (like a lot of this annoying element of trouble making pikey youth idiots that frequent the Northam & spend the entire match goading the away fans), there's a pretty bloody big element of violent morons at Millwall.

 

An interesting article below quotes "Millwall have been involved in more hooligan incidents than any other club in Britain. There reputation for disorder at matches is unparalleled".

 

http://www.football-hooligans.org/millwall-bushwackers-hooligans.html

 

I'm pleased policing has improved & the violence from the 80s has decreased but there's still an unhealthy element around too many of our football clubs.

 

Anyway, I apologise for digressing slightly & I hate to take away the feel good factor from a pleasant thread & genuinely kind, caring gesture from Saints fans who make the club proud. I wish we saw more of that behaviour rather than the moronic element.

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