I’m writing a series of short blogs describing my experience of attending Premier League games. Today, the final episode, suffering for Southampton. If you missed episode one, episode two, or episode 3, I recommend reading those posts. Each includes details about those adventures.
The Premier League season is in full swing
If you are like me, an American fan of Premier League soccer, it is an exciting time of year. There are a ton of games this time of year. The question for you is, do you want to attend a game? If that’s you, you are in the perfect place. Hopefully, this blog will be helpful as you plan to go to a game.
Getting to a Premier League match may seem daunting
Getting to a Premier League match as a US-based fan can seem daunting. It is a challenge since you need to cross the pond and get back to the States.
Reality check — going to a game is not cheap
Before I get into the details, let me provide a quick reality check. Going to a Premier League game is not cheap for US-based fans. The highest costs you’re likely to incur include the flight going over, the hotel once you get there, and tickets to the game itself. Bottom line, Premier League games are not cheap.
You can attend a PL game as part of a long weekend in London
In this episode, I will share another way to see a Premier League game. That is to fly into London, stay there, and then take the train from London to the city where you will watch the match. In this case, we went to Southampton. For those not familiar with Southampton, it is a small port city located along the southern coast. You see it pictured below in relation to London. As for the train, it’s about an hour and 15 minutes each way.
My son and I attended a match in Southampton
In March of this year, my younger son, Riley, and I spent a long weekend in London to attend a Premier League game featuring Southampton at St. Mary’s Stadium. Why Southampton, you may be asking? For any Premier League fan, you know, they were the worst team in the entire league last year. Each season, I pick a different team to support randomly using ChatGPT. Apparently, artificial intelligence has a sense of humor as it picked Southampton as my team last season. Below you see a picture of Riley and me in front of St. Mary’s Stadium.
We attended the match during a week-long weekend in March
We were there only three days and two nights, Riley. The goal was to have fun and experience a Premier League match supporting Southampton. The main sites were in London itself and then Southampton, particularly the stadium. You can see those are the two places we visited.
Our schedule in London and Southampton worked well
Our schedule for this trip was straightforward. We flew over on a Thursday night. Day one was Friday, 14 March. We checked into the hotel and then walked around London. Riley had never been to London. He didn’t really want to do any tours. We were able to catch the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace and the horse guards as well. Day two was all about going to the Southampton match. We got on the train, went to the game, had a great time, and came home. We executed a pub crawl throughout the day. For someone my age, that means going to more than one pub.
Here are some best practices from our trip to Southampton
As I’ve mentioned in every video in this series, going to Premier League matches is awesome. Southampton is not a good team. They lost the game. We still had an enjoyable time. In London, we stayed in Leicester Square, which is in the tourist part of the city. I thought being right in the middle of the action was a good choice, and it worked out well for us. Good news if you’re going to see a minor team. The ticket prices are much lower than those of the big teams like Arsenal, Man City, and Tottenham. Getting to Southampton from London was easy using the train. No issues there. As a reminder, my strategy when it comes to pub crawls is just one pint a pub and then move on..
There were some lessons learned in Southampton
Timing-wise, we were in London right before St. Patrick’s Day, and it was packed with people getting ready to celebrate the Irish holiday. We only stayed two nights. I have to admit I was tired when we got back. Cheerings for Southampton. Yeah, it was tough. The fans were great. It’s just tough to watch a team that’s not very good. The other thing I’ll say about Southampton is that it’s mainly a historic port town. There’s not a ton to see there. I’m happy that we stayed in London and took the train rather than spending the weekend in Southampton itself. And to end on a positive note, when you get outside of London, the pubs are larger, and the beers are cheaper. I would say the pubs are at least twice as large and in most cases, the beers cost about half what you would pay in London, which is a double bonus.
We had a blast watching Southampton and exploring London
Rally and I had a lot of fun on this trip, staying in London and visiting Southampton. We’ll definitely be back. Southampton probably not so much. I don’t see myself ever going back again. Each season, I rotate teams. This season, my team is Everton, and I’m looking forward to visiting Liverpool and seeing them play in their brand-new stadium. I hope you’ve enjoyed this series in which I’ve shared four episodes of my experience attending Premier League matches as a US-based fan.
I am Doug Keating, and this is my letter to sons.