Saints could be about to re-establish a female team for the first time since the club were relegated from the Premier League ten years ago.

As Southampton dropped out of the top-flight in 2004/05, the club sunk further into financial peril.

As a result, links to many projects, including the girls and ladies teams, were broken to ease the financial burden at St Mary’s.

Since then Southampton Saints Girls & Ladies have operated independently.

But the parachute payment given to them to help the club function has long since been spent and the Fleming Park-based outfit, which is run by volunteers, has fallen on financial hard times.

After writing to Saints, in the hope of resurrecting ties with the now thriving Premier League side, they’d heard nothing.

But now executive director Les Reed has admitted that Saints are looking into re-introducing links with the female players.

“The best answer to that is that we’re strongly considering our contribution to girls and ladies football,” he said.

“We’ve come a long, long way in five years; the ladies team separated from the club during the years of administration.

“As did a lot of things the club did in those times.

“We’ve rapid progress in terms of rebuilding the club and the academy, developing the team to get to this level in the Premier League.

“A lot of things that stopped happening previously we need to reconsider.

“Of course we’ll reconsider the competitive ladies team side of the Saints.

“It will be one of those things prioritised along with other things we’re trying to develop.

“We have to move slowly, we can’t do everything at once.

“But we do recognise that, as a Premier League team, we should be embracing and looking into the development of the ladies game, and I’m sure we will do that.”

Reed’s comments have come as a huge boost for Saints Girls & Ladies, which had considerable success in the 1970s, and has seven age group teams and a senior side playing at Premiership South & West level.

“It is really a hand-to-mouth existence for us now,” said Peter Manson, vice-chairman of the club and under 12 coach. “We really need a male club to link up with.

“We had written to Saints about them getting back involved, but we’d not heard anything.

“We’ve heard rumours about re-establishing an involvement, but there has been nothing official.

“But after hearing what Les had to say, it’s a positive sign that they will be willing to embrace it.

“My ultimate dream is to have a ladies academy connected to club with their financial backing.

“We’d hope they’d be able to use their influence to help us get proper access to training facilities.

“There’s a fantastic scope in this area for a ladies team, such is the pool of talent.”