It is a must for all Saints fans. Match of the Millennium, penned by the Echo's Bob Brunskell, and a group of Southampton Football Club historians is the perfect Christmas gift

THERE are few things nicer than a happy memory to warm up a cold winter's night. And there are 100 happy memories (well, most of them happy) in a softback currently lighting up the Southampton bookstalls.

Match of the Millennium, penned by The Echo's own Bob Brunskell and a group of illustrious Southampton Football Club historians led by David Bull, charts Saints' 100 most memorable games of the 20th century.

Based on Bob's popular Match of the Century series which ran in The Pink last football season, it seemed the perfect way to ring out the old century and bring in the new.

Now, with the clock running down on The Dell before it closes its doors for the last time in May, nostalgia is very much in the air among Southampton fans, particularly those with memories long enough to remember the really good times at The Dell.

For ten years or so, Saints have trodden the thin line in their seasonal battle to survive in the Premiership. But even during those lean times there were some stirring battles and they all stack up alongside Saints' golden era which embraced three decades through the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Many of club's great and historic matches were played then, but Match of the Millennium goes back to the very beginning and, with help of old Echo newspaper clippings, re-creates match reports which enable the reader to follow the 50-year transition of Southampton FC from Southern League to Premiership club.

For Saints fans, it all peaked in 1976 when the club conquered the great Manchester United at Wembley to win the FA Cup for the first time. That, of course, was The Match of the Millennium.

But there have been many more - a 6-3 win over the modern and even more considerable force of Manchester United in front of a delirious Dell crowd; baptism in Europe; games which sealed promotion to new and higher levels of the English game; one game which took Saints to the top of the Football League for the first time.

And even in the good times, there were nightmares, high-scoring debacles which stand up in the name of memorable games for Saints, although not for the right reasons. And there was the hottest match of all, when the East Stand burned down!

All along there have been great players who have worn the red and white stripes. Fry, Drake, Wayman, Paine, Davies, Channon, Keegan, Le Tissier. Match of the Millennium captures their finest hours with Saints.

When the book went on sale in Southampton this week, Le Tissier and Ted Bates, the manager who steered them from the depths of the league to the very top flight, were there to make it a very special launch.

The fans who queued out of the Saints Shop at the WestQuay centre early this week were proof that there is a strong, resilient following for the club, a pride in the past and a hope for the future - a future which embraces the new Friends Provident St Mary's Stadium.

It's time, perhaps, to bottle up the past and bring it out to be savoured when the heart desires. We hope Match of the Millennium, a collaboration between The Echo, Southampton FC and its historians David Bull, Duncan Holley, Gary Chalk, David Juson, Norman Gannaway and Chris Newman will prove to be just that. Something to be opened to provide a real tonic.

Those historians are the heartbeat of the Hagiology Company who have published the Match of the Millennium at £12.99. Every one of the 100 matches is illustrated either by a decisive piece of action or by often forgotten profiles and action shots of some of Southampton FC's greatest.

As well as selling at all leading outlets in Southampton and as far afield as Christchurch and Basingstoke, Match of the Millennium can be obtained from Echo shops in Hanover Buildings, Southampton, and at Eastleigh.