THERE is much good being done for disabled Saints fans.

It was a pleasure to again be invited to Saints Disabled Supporters’ Association’s annual open day by Paul Lucas, its secretary and fundraiser.

Paul and the committee like to get as many people involved as possible and this year I was joined at St Mary’s by five ex-players; Reuben Agboola, FA Cup-winning captain Peter Rodrigues, 1976 FA Cup final man-of-the-match Jim Steele, Hughie Fisher, another member of the 1976 squad, and Franny Benali.

The supporters are always pleased to see them.

Fittingly enough, the 1976 FA Cup replica was also there for supporters to have their pictures with as well as the bus that took us on our celebratory tour of the city.

The event took place in the concourse area underneath the Kingsland Stand.

There were various charity stalls and even one from everyone’s favourite sweet shop in Romsey.

It sells all those sweets from way back but there were no black bullets this year…I told them how frustrated I was by that!

As an additional surprise for the many supporters was the appearance of five first-team players along with four from the ladies team.

So well done to Paul and the rest of the committee.

It was also good to see in the Daily Echo recently that the club is introducing an improved audio description service at St Mary’s for blind and partially-sighted fans (I’ll avoid the obvious joke about the lack of goals at present).

This news also took me back to our 1976 FA Cup-winning celebrations.

After our aforementioned open-top bus tour, I noticed the trophy was stuck away in one of the rooms at The Dell. So I decided to take it out and about.

I took it to many schools and also to a place on the Avenue which looked after the blind.

As the cup was passed around and cuddled I was prompted to arrange for blind supporters to visit the Dell.

There were two plastic dug outs over the heads of the management and staff, which meant no-one immediately behind could see the pitch.

So I arranged for benches to be put in there and the blind school sent guests to come to the games. This had been happening for a while when, in one game, we were 1-0 down with only minutes to go.

The ball went over us and into the section for the blind.

As I looked around a gentleman with dark glasses and a white stick bent down, picked up the ball and threw it back to the nearest player. He then put his thumbs up and said ‘cheers Lawrie’!

I realised he had found a cheaper way in than usual!

We got the equaliser and he paid to come via a different entrance after that.

Well done to Saints for their latest provision for blind and partially-sighted fans, who can now sit anywhere in the ground.

New receivers enable home and away supporters to listen to commentators trained to describe all aspects of the game.

I think it’s a wonderful initiative. It means so much to disabled people, as we noticed at last week’s get together, to be part of the club they support.

FOOTBALL and every other sport was put in sharp perspective by the Leicester City helicopter tragedy.

A few hours earlier I had put a call in to one of our ex-players, Peter Shilton, who was on his way to the ground before witnessing the crash after the match.

You could see the effect it had on the current players and how much their owner, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, was loved and respected by them and the whole community.

I often wondered where former Southampton manager Nigel Pearson ended up after leaving Leicester. All was revealed when he gave his own tribute from Belgium, where apparently he is managing OH-Leuven, a club also owned by the Srivaddhanaprabhas.

LIKE hundreds of people, I sent my well wishes to Glenn Hoddle and his family after the former Saints manager’s recent heart attack.

I hope it’s true that he’s making progress. Jokingly I could say working with someone like Robbie Savage can’t have helped but obviously it proves that heart attacks can come along to anyone at anytime.

Here’s hoping he makes a speedy recovery.

Hoddle was a fantastic player who I hope to see doing his television punditry again as soon as possible.