Saints fans have a fine tradition of joining in tributes to players and managers of opposition club's and the trip to the Hawthorns will be no different when Cyrille Regis is houred by the West Bromwich Albion fans.

Saints fans who get into the ground early tomorrow can join in with an hour long tribute to ex West Brom player Cyrille Regis who died recently.

The Albion legend, who passed away last month, will be remembered during the hour prior to kick-off through a special series of tributes and dedications, as well as a minute’s applause.

Former Saints forward Rod Wallace is among the ex-players due to be present to celebrate the impact of Regis.

Supporters are being asked to bring scarves to raise during the special video tribute that will be played inside the stadium a few minutes before kick-off, with Albion welcoming Saints fans to get involved should they wish to be a part of it.

Older Saints supporters will remember Regis who came into the West Brom side in 1977 and played against Saints on numerous occasions before joining Coventry City in 1984 and then ending his top flight career with Aston Villa where he again faced Saints.

Ironically although Regis is best known for his West Brom connections, he played more times in the top flight for Coventry where he was also part of their FA Cup winning side in 1987.

Regis came into the West Brom side at a time when there were few black players in football and even fewer in the then first division, indeed sides like Liverpool and Everton who were part of the domination of Merseyside football in the late 70's early 80's had few black players appear in their shirts till John Barnes went to Anfield in 1987.

Regis alongside Brendan Batson and Lawrie Cunningham were dubbed the Three Degrees at the time after a pop trio of that name consisting of three black women and it has to be said came in for some unbelievable racial abuse at the time, if you consider that when the aforementioned Barnes joined Liverpool he had bananas thrown at him on the pitch almost ten years after Regis debuted for West Brom, that shows you the scale of racial abuse prevalent in British football at the time and how long it took before it was truly seen as totally unnacceptable behaviour.

I'm sure Saints supporters will join in with the tributes to Regis and as always be totally respectful to a man whose influence on British football extended far beyond just his playing record.

Photo: Action Images

SanMarco added 16:17 - Feb 2 Well said. A great player. Interesting fact about Coventry. Let's hope WBA have great tribute to Cyrille and then get hammered...
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Chesham_Saint added 17:12 - Feb 2 If I was going I’d happily pay tribute to an excellent player. I remember a cracker of a volley he scored against us in the Archers Road goal - he hit it so sweetly I almost felt like applauding! Interesting commemt about the scousers, in fact didn’t Everton infamously used to sing a song about “we are Everton, we are white”? Shocking. How times have changed.

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Woodycorner added 23:09 - Feb 2 He actually made more appearances for West Brom, 297 as opposed to 274 for Coventry.
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Boris1977 added 00:39 - Feb 3 Remember him mainly at Coventry when they won the cup despite my football 81 sticker album. Either way remember him as a decent human being and we need as many of them as we can get.
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