SAINTS travel to the Stadium of Light this weekend to take on Sunderland.

Southampton will be hoping to build upon their best start to the football season in more than half a century.

In preparation for the match, the Echo looks back at pictures from when Saints beat Sunderland 3-1 at the Dell on August 31, 1966.

In seven at-home meetings throughout the decade, Sunderland only bettered Saints once. Listed are all of those occasions:

October 15, 1960 - Saints 3 Sunderland 2: Goals from Derek Reeves, George O’Brien and Tommy Mulgrew give Saints victory in the first ever league clash between the two clubs, a second division encounter.

November 18, 1961 -  Saints 2 Sunderland 0: George O’Brien and Derek Reeves were on target again against a Sunderland side that finished the season in third place.

September 22, 1962 Saints 2 Sunderland 4: Brian Clough bags a hat-trick for the visitors, with George Kirby twice replying for Saints.

Clough scored 24 goals in the first 24 league games of the season before suffering a knee injury on Boxing Day 1962 which eventually forced him to retire from playing.

April 11 1964 - Saints 0 Sunderland 0: Saints, who scored exactly 100 second division goals that season, fire a rare blank against a Sunderland side who win promotion as runners-up to Leeds.

August 31 1966 - Saints 3 Sunderland 1: Ted Bates’ men collected their first-ever home win as a top-flight club.

In only the fourth game of the season, Saints had already played Sunderland twice after losing their first away game of 1966/67 at Roker Park a week earlier!

George Mulhall put the visitors ahead early in the second half, but Saints hit back through Terry Paine (penalty), John Sydenham and Ron Davies.

November 25 1967 - Saints 3 Sunderland 2: Saints hit back from two goals down to win thanks to Ron Davies’s 83rd minute goal.

Terry Paine had earlier brought Saints back in contention four minutes before half-time, with Mick Channon levelling just after the hour.

March 8, 1969 - Saints 1 Sunderland 0: Ron Davies scores the only goal just before half-time.