SAINTS fans have abandoned plans to wear fancy dress to Selhurst Park on Saturday - due to the critical nature of the club's final away Premiership game of 2004/05.

It has been tradition in recent years for fans travelling to the final away game of a season to adopt a player in terms of fancy dress.

In 2000 fans wore bald 'wigs' to Derby County in honour of Chris Marsden's diminishing hair; in 2002 ginger wigs were at Villa Park for Gordon Strachan; and last year Antti Niemi's blonde locks were the theme at Charlton Athletic.

The most famous 'last away game' theme was, of course, in the Great Escape campaign of 1998/99 when thousands of Saints fans at Selhurst Park wore fezzes in celebration of Moroccan international Hassan Kachloul.

Kachloul even appeared in the Daily Echo in the build-up to the game wearing a fez along with some supporters in a bid to drum up the best party spirit imaginable.

But even though the game at Wimbledon almost six years ago to the day was as vital as Saints' return to South London to face Palace this weekend, times have changed.

Steve Grant, a member of the SaintsAway Supporters group who have helped improve the travelling numbers in the last two seasons, said: "There won't be a theme on Saturday.

"No doubt fans will be wearing yellow but that's about it. If we had lost to Norwich we might as well have gone as funeral directors.

"But it's fair to say that there are more important matters of concern than dressing up."

True Saints Association press officer Nick Illingsworth added: "People are feeling the pressure more now than six years ago.

"There's so much riding on this game - I don't think people want to go dressed as a pantomime cow and we end up losing."

Saints received over 4,000 applications for their allocation of 2,900 tickets - the maximum away allocation Palace give to visiting teams.

It is easily the most over-subscribed match of the season - Saints received 2,100 applications for their 2,000 Fratton Park tickets.

Back in 1999 around 14,000 Saints fans turned Wimbledon's lodgings into 'Dellhurst Park' - in addition to the official allocation of 10,000 tickets for the stand opposite the main stand, other fans obtained tickets elsewhere.

On Saturday the Saints fans will be housed in a section of a stand behind a goal and Grant said: "The stand goes back a long way and has a high roof - but we'll do our best to create the best atmosphere we can.

"The fact that tickets went to those who have attended the most away games this season tells you we should be taking the most vocal fans, and hopefully the players will respond.

"But that should have been the case at Fratton Park, and we were rewarded with a diabolical performance there ..."