Southampton Football Club is a professional English football team, nicknamed The Saints and based in the city of Southampton. The club currently plays in the Championship, since relegation from the Premier League in 2005. Their home ground is the St Mary's Stadium, where the club moved to in 2001 from The Dell.

The Chairman is Michael Wilde and the first team is currently being managed by Jan Poortvliet, who took over managerial duties in May 2008. The club captain is the swedish defender Michael Svensson, who was appointed following the retirement of Claus Lundekvam at the end of the 2007/08 season.

The club has won the FA Cup once, and their highest-ever league finish was second in the top flight.

The club is owned by parent company Southampton Leisure Holdings PLC, which is listed on the Alternative Investments Market. The Chairman of Southampton Leisure Holdings PLC is Rupert Lowe.

Southampton, England Updated 04 July 2009 05:00 Fog 11°C High: 22°C Low: 15°C Wind: 2 kph Humidity: 97% Sunday 21° / 15° Monday 20° / 14° Tuesday 20° / 14° Wednesday 20° / 12° MSN Weather Data provided by Foreca

In 2001 the move from The Dell to the new Friends Provident St Mary's Stadium was deemed to be a spiritual homecoming for Southampton F.C., because of the new stadium's proximity to St Mary's, the church where the club was founded in 1885 by members of the St Mary's Church of England Young Men's Association.

St Mary's Y.M.A., as they were usually referred to in the local press, played most of their early games on The Common, and games were not infrequently interrupted by pedestrian insistent on exercising their right to roam. More important matches, such as cup games, were played either at the County Cricket Ground in Northlands Road or the Antelope Cricket Ground in St Mary's Road.

The club was originally known as St. Mary's Young Men's Association F.C. (usually abbreviated to "St. Mary's Y.M.A.") and then became simply St. Mary's F.C. in 1887-88, before adopting the name Southampton St. Mary's when the club joined the Southern League in 1894. After they won the Southern League title in 1896-97, the club became a limited company and changed their name to Southampton F.C.

They won the Southern League championship for 3 years running between 1897 and 1899 and again in 1901, 1903 and 1904.

That success spanned some major changes for the Saints as they moved to a newly-built £10,000 stadium called The Dell, to the North West of the city centre in 1898. Although they would spend the next 103 years there, the future was far from certain in those early days and the club had to rent the premises first before they could stump up the cash to buy the stadium in the early part of the 20th century.

Good omens were quick to arrive though and before the 19th century was out the South Coast was given a taste of things to come as they reached the first of their four FA Cup Finals in 1900. On that day they went down 4-0 to Bury and two years later they would suffer a similar fate at the hands of Sheffield United as they were beaten 2-1 in a replay of the 1902 final, but it had given the club a thirst for the big occasion – albeit one that would not be truly satisfied for over 7 decades.