Hello HedgeEnders.  I’m Daniel Clay and I’ve been asked to write a weekly column for Hedge End People, something I’ve never tried before, so don’t be surprised if I only ever write two and then disappear forever. 

With the recent FA Cup tie between Saints and Pompey I thought I’d start by mulling over the position the two clubs are in at the moment:  Although most of the shirts I see out and about on a Saturday in Hedge End are red and white, I’m guessing there must be Pompey fans in the area, skulking around like they do, so it seems as good a topic as any to kick-off with. 

I’m a Spurs fan myself – I grew up in Milton Keynes so White Hart Lane was pretty accessible, and my brother and the kid next door supported Spurs, so that’s the way I went:  With Milton Keynes being a new city (we’re talking mid-seventies, long before Franchise FC were stolen from Wimbledon) there wasn’t the option to support a local club the way there is down here, and most of the kids I was at school with chose on the basis of trophies won (Liverpool), glamour  (Man U), some sort of mental deficiency (Arsenal) or hooligan element (Chelsea, West Ham, Leeds). 

Not many chose Spurs as we’d just been relegated – I was seven or eight when we returned to the old First Division off the back of a goalless draw down The Dell where, I think, Spurs needed a point to secure promotion and Saints needed a point to go up as champions:  From what I’ve  been told by Saints fans since there wasn’t a shot on goal by either side in the match, and it seems strange to think the last time there wasn’t top flight football being played on the South Coast was the last time it was absent from White Hart Lane too. 

Being a Spurs fan down here hasn’t been easy for a few years now.  First we took Hoddle from Saints, and although Strachan came in and took the club on to another level, the fact he then walked out and kicked off the managerial merry-go-round that helped get Saints where they are now does make you wonder what would have happened if Hoddle had displayed more loyalty and Spurs had displayed more class (the fact things didn’t work out for Hoddle at Spurs – especially with his tenure ending after a home stuffing to Saints the season after that horrible four-nil thumping in the FA Cup down St Mary’s – could be put down to Karma, I guess, something Glenn obviously knows plenty about). 

Now we’ve got the situation at Pompey, with Spurs coming in and taking Redknapp, then Redknapp returning time and again to asset strip the squad, not to mention the part he played in Southampton’s implosion during his brief stint in charge.  As much as I’ve always liked Redknapp as a manager – and he’s doing a better than average job for us at the moment – he’s obviously got a lot to answer for where Saints and Pompey are concerned.  With his Pompey ties he should never have touched Saints with a barge-pole and no matter what he might say about them being doomed to relegation before he took over, a one-nil home win over Spurs in the March of that campaign had them out of the bottom three, so, yes, he had their fate in his hands.  Also, despite the fact he can say he’s Pompey’s most successful manager ever,  unless there’s a footballing miracle over the next few months, they’re going straight back where they were when he joined them, and, even more ominously, unless there’s some sort of financial miracle, it looks as if they might not even survive long enough to do that. 

As glib as it is for Pompey fans to lay the blame solely on Redknapp for the financial melt-down taking place there, it’s equally glib for him to shrug his shoulders and say it’s nothing to do with him:  He’s recently said he didn’t see the way things were going while he was there, but there were plenty of rumours flying around about the mess they were in even before they lifted the FA Cup, so if he, as manager, didn’t suspect something was wrong you have to wonder exactly what his role was at the club, and what he was being so well paid for.  

Either way, thanks in part to Tottenham’s current manager, it looks odds on there’s not going to be top-flight football on the South Coast for the first time in over thirty years, and that, to me, seems a really sad thing. 

For my part, with Saints and Pompey, I’d like to see both in the Premiership, neither dominant over the other, each derby likely to go either way.   It’s not just the fact they’re local to where I live that makes me want this – it’s the fact both are well supported clubs; watching the much anticipated local derby between Blackburn and Burnley this season, I couldn’t help but stare at the masses of empty seats rather than what was taking place on the pitch, and there’s nothing worse than forking  out a small fortune to go and see Spurs at a packed White Hart Lane only to realise the away end’s half empty because the northerners haven’t bothered to come down:  Our own FA Cup tie at Bolton on Sunday looked more like a pre-season friendly, with a crowd of just fourteen thousand even though Spurs took five thousand away fans themselves.    

As far as I’m concerned, the Premiership’s about passion and glamour, and empty seats kill those stone dead.  Say what you like about Saints and Pompey, when all’s going well for them, they each put bums on seats (even if one of them is constantly ringing that God-awful bell):  Given Saints had a thirty-thousand plus crowd on Boxing Day I was shocked Saturday’s showdown wasn’t a sell-out, but the turn-out was still much better than many clubs in the Premiership would have attracted for a derby, especially one in the FA Cup where season-ticket holders have to fork out extra cash to attend.  

Whatever happens for Saints in their upcoming trip to Wembley, and whatever happens with the rest of Pompey’s FA Cup run, let’s hope, in as short a time as possible, both are still in existence and back in a position where they can donate a combined total of twelve points a season to Spurs; in the Premiership, where they belong.