If it’s the ‘romance’ of the FA Cup that you’re after, then this season’s Third Round ties don’t come much more romantic than the meeting of Southampton and Blackpool.

Why? Well, each side has won the Cup only once in its history and, in doing so, eliminated the other side on its way to Wembley.

There have been five previous meetings in all – in 1924 and 1976 when both sides were in the old Second Division; in 1953 and 1959, when the Saints were the underdogs to top-flight Blackpool; and in 1974, the only time in which first-tier Southampton looked down upon inferior opponents.

While the three ‘unequal’ matches have always gone to the top dog, the two all-second tier games went to the Saints – to give them a 3-2 lead, overall, in ties contested.

If the Saints’ Fourth Round win – 3-1 at The Dell, with goals from Channon (2) and Stokes – en route to the Final in 1976 was a major milestone in the club’s FA Cup history, it somehow pales into insignificance in comparison with Blackpool’s 2-1 win at The Dell in a 1953 replay, en route to the ‘Matthews Final’, arguably THE great romantic Final in the competition’s post-war history.

The club’s Official Historians have recorded the memories of no fewer than 10 of the ex-Saints who featured in that disappointing replay – which the Blackpool captain described, in his autobiography, as their trickiest assignment on their ‘Rocky Road to Wembley’.

You can expect to hear more from that 1953 team in the match-day programme for the January clash, which will also be available online, but if, in the meantime, you fancy firming up on this romantic history – perhaps as a Christmas treat – you can catch up with the 1953 side both in DELL DIAMOND, the biography of Ted Bates, and in MATCH of the MILLENNIUM, the compendium of the Saints’ 100 Most Memorable Matches, while the story of the 1976 tie is told in TIE A YELLOW RIBBON.

All of these books are available at our Megastore, West Quay store and online as well as via www.hagiologists.com