Last weekend was a great one for Saints.

Newcastle weren’t exactly up to it on the day and, after going behind in the first ten minutes, it really was one-way traffic.

If you examined both teams, you would have thought Southampton had been together for quite a long time, whereas Newcastle looked as though they had never met each other.

In fact, the opposite was true, so full marks to manager Ronald Koeman and his staff, who have quietly got on with the job of welding together a strong side in a short space of time.

The football was attractive and the crowd, of course, always love goals.

It was a fun day all round, with the club also putting on extra entertainment outside for children attending the game.

The highlight of half-time was, naturally, the return of the legend, Francis Vincent Benali.

After what he achieved, he deserves his full name to be used.

While he was undertaking the last stage of his long run to each of the 20 Premier League grounds, I was asked by the national dementia charity, the Alzheimer’s Society, of which I am an ambassador, to turn up at St Mary’s to help with a documentary that is being made to let people know how this sad disease is spreading and how the government need to look into better funding for the families involved.

While down at pitchside, I had the pleasure of being joined by Saints chairman Ralph Krueger, and we did a joint interview, talking about the unbelievable achievement of Francis.

Mr Krueger spoke as a coach himself, and indeed a very successful one, as we know from the world of ice hockey, whose participants have to train just as hard as footballers.

But, apart from that, the one thing that really struck me was that the chairman’s attitude to the history and tradition of the club was completely different to his predecessor.

This culminated in the welcome for Francis, when I was asked to join a group of about 20 ex-players in a corner of the ground to form a guard of honour for the hero’s return.

There were senior players from Ted Bates’ days there, such as Denis Hollywood and Bryn Elliot, two of the FA Cup final heroes, Jim Steele and Nick Holmes, as well as the likes of Glenn Cockerill, Keith Granger, Dave Puckett and another of my left-back signings, Mark Dennis, among others.

While congregating for the 10-15 minutes before Francis appeared, everyone was happy to sign autographs and have their pictures taken with the crowd.

Afterwards, they all got together in one of the rooms at the stadium and it is things like this that supporters love to see.

What is happening now is that the chairman, while understanding that football is a massive business, has an appreciation because of his own experience in sport that it is very different to other businesses.

The foundations of football clubs are built on history and tradition, and while they have their ups and downs, successes and failures, the supporters – the people who the business relies on – never leave.

They can moan and complain, and we heard plenty of that from the Newcastle end last Saturday, but those same supporters, as ours would too, will still be there shouting their team on this weekend and hoping they get the same sort of performance and result that Saints produced against them.

I well remember a previous chairman we had, who showed his ignorance of what we are talking about by calling the Northam Stand section the “lunatic fringe” because he objected to them shouting at him.

He obviously didn’t have a clue, and I stated at the time, and would continue to say now, that they are not the lunatic fringe, they are the loyal fringe.

They represent the supporter who works hard and saves their money not only to go to the home games, but to travel all around the country following the team they love.

While they are ready to criticise when needed, they are desperate to be cheering and honouring those in charge when things go right.

So, well done Francis, not only for your run, but for being welcomed back into the fold at Saints, and long may this continue.