THIS is the sight that will be beamed around the world on Saturday tea-time - the Kingsland Stand at St Mary's colourfully getting behind Saints like never before.

Winchester-based Barracuda design and marketing, who count Saints among their clients, have met the cost for printing over 8,000 coloured pieces of card which will be held up by fans in the Kingsland prior to the 5.15pm Sky-televised Premiership clash with table-toppers Chelsea.

A total of 8,128 cards have been printed - consisting of 3,787 red, 3,365 white and 976 black.

Fans are being asked to hold the cards up when the Saints players go into their regular pre-match 'huddle' prior to a game.

The success of the mosaic will show organisers if the venture is worth repeating. Only once, at the England v Macedonia European Championship qualifier in October 2002, has there been a mosaic at St Mary's. Such an idea was never tried at The Dell.

The idea of a mosiac was first raised on the website SaintsForever by Spanish fan Javier Igeno Cano, and taken up by Bishop's Waltham-based supporter Paul Lemon, aka GhekoSaint on the internet message boards. The 25-year-old spent several evenings designing the mosaic after obtaining a copy of the Kingsland seating plan from Saints ticket officer David Luker.

Lemon designed numerous possible messages for fans to hold up, including 'Harry and Jim', 'One Team in Hampshire', 'Pride Of The South', 'Great Escape', 'Staying Up' and Harry's Red Army' but settled on 'C'mon You Reds' as that seemed the most popular choice - though no poll was ever held to decide which words to use.

Though Lemon produced the eventual design, he is quick to share any praise the mosiac could receive.

"Javier and Steve Godwin, the chairman of the TSA, are part of the team that came up with this.

"Also, Chris Egelstaff from Saints who is letting us do this. I want to thank him for all his help.

"And I'd like to thank Brian Stock from Barracuda for producing and funding all the cards."

Lemon is arriving at St Mary's at 9am on Saturday with a small team of helpers to start putting the cards on their respective seats, with more helpers turning up two hours later.

"Hopefully we'll be finished by 1pm or 2pm," he calculated.

"We certainly need to be finished by 3pm because that's when the turnstiles open."

Cano added: "In La Liga the fans organise mosiacs quite often - certainly for all the big games.

"But in Spain you can start off with 90,000 fans yet if the team are losing you'll end up with only 60,000.

"In England the fans are much more loyal - they always stay to the end trying to get behind the team.

"Our mosiac should be good. I'm told Sky will beam it around the world - I know the game is being shown live in Spain for a start."