SAINTS fans are confident the 2,000-strong travelling army of supporters will again do the city proud in Bucharest.

Though foreign trips are inevitably fraught with potential crowd problems given the reputation of some English fans, Jim Barnard is confident the massed ranks of Saints fans will prove to be excellent ambassadors for the city - as, indeed, they were in front of a worldwide audience in Cardiff just a few months ago. Barnard, who is involved with the relatively new SaintsAway Supporters group, said: "Saints fans are excellent, I'm sure there will be no problems. I certainly don't expect any trouble.

"At Newcastle there was hardly any segregation between the Saints fans and the home fans. At half-time their fans were walking right behind us to get to the bar - they could use our bar and we could go and use theirs. And there was no trouble at all."

Barnard was one of the hundreds of fans who travelled to Belgium in 1976/77 to see Saints face Anderlecht in the quarter-finals of the European Cup Winners Cup.

"I was only 19 and it was brilliant," he recalled. "We went on the ferry from Felixstowe to Zeebrugge, there were around eight coachloads of Saints fans on it.

"When we got to Zeebrugge there were loads of police waiting for the coaches; in all we must have had 30 or 40 coachloads of fans at the game.

"We all met on the outskirts of the town and had a police escort in.

"To be honest, I don't remember a great deal about the game.

"You could buy duty free beer on the ferry and we bought some crates! That's what you do when you're 19.

"What I do remember from the game is Jim Steele standing on the ball and costing us a goal."

Twenty seven years on and 2,000 fans have travelled - one of the biggest away club supports seen in Romanian football history.

"To take 2,000 fans to Bucharest is amazing support," said Barnard.

"I thought we would get rid of 1,000 tickets, but to take the full allocation is remarkable.

And will it be a happy journey back to the south coast tomorrow morning?

"I'm still pretty confident we can progress. We have been missing that bit of spark, but we will be up for this game," Barnard remarked.