IT was all just a bit of fun, but were national betting company Paddy Power being a bit too clever when using recent and somewhat raw events at Southampton Football Club to poke fun at fans who travelled to watch their team at Liverpool yesterday?

The company is well known for using humour to grab headlines and make news in an attempt to raise its profile. And this paper likes a good joke as much the next person.

Yet football has a history of raw emotion bubbling over and to some fans, perhaps many, welcoming their arrival in Liverpool with a jibe that the Saints were Liverpool FC’s ‘feeder club’, a reference to the fact the northwest club controversially bought three star players from Southampton in the summer, this would have been an act of rubbing salt into still fresh wounds.

At the very least Paddy Power can now kiss goodbye to custom from many Saints fans.

Perhaps that is a price they think worth paying, perhaps not.

Football is a game, but several fans have taken to social media to point out that there is a risk this kind of humour could lead to a violent response.

This paper believes Saints fans are above such a reaction. But whether they will see the joke and react to the company with a boycott remains to be seen.