Invoking a Saintly Spirit.

The big game is just hours away now and, predictably, the nerves are beginning to set up camp ready for an all out assault on my senses.  Why does it mean so damned much to us?  It’s crazy, but we all feel it.  This game is just huge. The difference between winning and losing is enormous: back in the Championship for the first time in years, back where we belong, or yet another season in the third tier scratching around in places like Hartlepool and Oldham, struggling to keep hold of our better players.

I guess the nerves are a combination of excitement and what might be, fear of failure and a  gnawing feeling of helplessness, that all of this nonsense is out of our hands.  It’s all on the team, and how they perform.

Performances this season, especially since Christmas, have been generally superb.  We need another excellent performance at the weekend.  We cannot rely on Millwall to have an off day, we need to have a better good day than they do.  What we need is to recreate the spirit of Southampton.

The headline performances during the regular season were undoubtedly the two three-nil wins over Leeds, first at the County Ground and then, and I can still barely believe it, at Elland Road.  I wasn’t at either of those games (GROWL!) but I did see the games against Southampton, and it’s clear to me that if the team is up for it on Saturday like they were at St Mary’s then we have a very good chance.  That day we faced a Southampton side who had been knocking in goals for fun in their previous games, and who had a play-off place very much on their minds.  They were about to have a Wembley visit of their own in the JPT, so there was an inferno of optimism about the place.  Yet we turned up and put in a performance that was more than a match for them and in the second half we were outstanding.  In the words of one of my Saints supporting friends:

 Swindon made us look shit in both games this season, especially at St Mary’s

This is what we need on Saturday.  We need to find ourselves back there on that Tuesday night, the fans need to sing like we sang that night, the players need to give their absolute all, just like they did that night.  May the Saintly Spirit be with us at Wembley this weekend.  In short, we need a moment or two like this:

Of course, One thing we won’t be lacking this weekend, perhaps ironically given that Millwall fans are likely to outnumber Swindon fans in the stadium, is popular support.  Millwall supporters will be supporting Millwall, obviously.  They can add to their ranks fans of Oxford United, Bristol City, Bristol Rovers and probably Reading.  But just about everyone else will be on our side.  The neutral vote will most definitely be in our favour.  I have already had well-wishes from fans of other London clubs, including a particularly emphatic pledge of support from a West Ham fan.

But it seems that dislike of Millwall goes well beyond local rivalry.  No-one likes them and they don’t care, as they seem intent on reminding us at every opportunity.  The lady doth protest too much, methinks.  Anyway, nowhere was the extent of our support so eloquently expressed than on my own Facebook page where I received the following comment from an Ipswich fan:  

Whole of the country bar 37,000 people are rooting for you. The remaining 37,000 will be knifing you.