Amused by the excellent “Top Ten Facts About Leeds”, we thought we’d share a little information about Southampton for those of you unfamiliar with the area. 

1. Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire, which is a bit like being the biggest fan at a James Blunt concert. The locals like to consider themselves to be trendy, metropolitan types, which is why mass marketed faux-fashion brands and diluted (or “skimmed”) milk thrive there. Gullible people are essential for the success of such products.

2. Most of Southampton’s residents are bastard children, and are quite often born with horrific disfigurements, primarily because of the sailors that stopped off for a few days to do their “business”, spread tropical STD’s then jump back aboard their vessels and sail off into the sunset, never to be seen again – no one visits Southampton twice. The lack of father figures has resulted in a higher than average crime rate.

3. With an imbalance between permanent female and male residents in Southampton, most women are the sole bread-winners in their households. The number one occupation is prostitution, and the highest earners tend to be those with the least amount of bodily defects.

4. Real estate for working girls to patrol isn’t hard to come by, although there was fury in the late 1990’s when Southampton FC turfed out a large amount of prostitutes to build St. Mary’s stadium. A little known fact is that St. Mary’s stadium was named after Madame Mary. the head of the prostitution ring that previously served the area. This was a gesture of goodwill forced by the Conservative council who didn’t want to lose their exclusive discount cards. Since the prostitutes were replaced by a football team, attendances have dropped more than 600%.

5. Shortly before Southampton moved from their previous stadium The Dell, the club’s trophy room was robbed. To this day, Police are still searching tirelessly for the red and white striped carpet that a club source described as “our pride and joy”.

6. Southampton FC have often been considered cannon-fodder for proper teams like Leeds United. Every once in a while they’ll produce a half-decent team (I’m sure you all remember 1984?), but this is soon stripped apart by bigger clubs and Southampton sink back into their role as an easy six points for the rest of the division. Most neutrals consider Southampton to be the most charitable team in football, for all the points they’ve donated to their own team over the years.

7. Southampton has a proud history of producing incredibly crap musicians. The locals claim the drummer from Coldplay comes from Southampton, but as I’ve yet to hear any evidence of anything but computer generated noise on a Coldplay record I’m somewhat sceptical. Other “musicians” include Craig David and the winner of the nations biggest karaoke contest, Matt Cardle. Need I say more?

8.  Jane Austen lived briefly in Southampton until she’d earned enough money to escape (you can draw your own conclusions as to what her career was at this time). The title of her first published work Sense & Sensibility describes her decision to leave. By the time that was published in 1811, she’d already spent two years trying to forget the place existed.

9. Despite the crime-ridden, vice-heavy culture in which they live, Southampton is made up of wannabe middle-class types, who like to think they’re well-educated, high-earning members of society. However, their true nature soon comes to the surface when their whole fanbase grumbles about £36 for a ticket to Elland Road. Unfortunately, with more working girls and boys (we’re all for sexual equality!) than ever and less sailors to “service” them, the price per [ahem]-job has dropped and many locals are on the brink of poverty. Craig David is believed to be in talks about an ‘Aid For Southampton’ concert, but has yet to convince anyone that people will pay to attend.

10. The name Southampton has the word ‘South’ in it, which comes from the French and translates into ‘soft’ or in some cases ‘pansy’.