BETWEEN them they have clocked up more than 137 years' loyal service to the Saints. Yesterday Gwen Ellis

celebrated her 80th birthday with her club-loving family - and that means 66 consecutive years for her as a season ticket holder.

But there was a little bit of excitement she could have done without at the weekend - a fire at her

elderly sister's house next door.

A blaze gutted a bedroom at 85-year-old Phyllis Bound's bungalow in Bitterne, Southampton.

Firefighters were called out just before 8pm on Saturday and spent an hour fighting the blaze. They blamed a faulty electric blanket.

Gwen, who raised the alarm, had just stepped into her sister's hall when she smelt smoke.

Her son, Geoff, a 51-year-old fire investigator from Cardiff, said: "She opened the door to look in the room and there was a flashout which singed her hair. She and my aunt then left the house and called the fire brigade. They're both fine but a little shaken.''

Undeterred, the sisters had a brilliant day yesterday.

For Gwen, a widow, Southampton Football Club is part of the family. Not only was her brother, Arthur Simms, a steward for 40 years but her nephew, Richard Simms, is still a steward of 31 years.

Gwen, from Mon Crescent, in Harefield, said: "I just love it here, especially when we win."

The former England international netball player, who worked at BAT in the city for 37 years, started going to The Dell in 1937 at the age of 14.

From then on she was hooked, not only on Saints, but on football. While on holiday in Spain in the 1960s she took time out to watch Pel play.

Although watching England win the World Cup at Wembley in 1966 is Gwen's biggest highlight from the past 66 years she makes no bones about what

follows close behind. "I've never experienced anything like 1976 at Wembley," she said. "The journey from Southampton to the stadium was amazing. You just wondered where all the people came from.

"If I had to pick my favourite Saints team over the years it would be Kevin Keegan's team in the early 1980s. They were so exciting."

So, as someone used to packing in at the old Dell ground for 64 years, what does Gwen think of the St Mary's stadium?

"It's absolutely fabulous," she said. "At first it was strange but it's better now we have got to know everyone who we sit next to.

"It's lovely to see the team doing so well. They're very exciting to watch."

Gwen filed into her seat in the Kingsland South area of the ground on Saturday, as she does at every home game, to see Saints draw 1-1 with Millwall in the fourth round of the FA Cup.