SAINTS raked in around £1m in just over three weeks from selling yellow and blue FA Cup Final merchandise.

That is the phenomenal figure spent by Cup crazy fans clamouring for souvenirs of the club's first Final appearance for 27 years.

And it helped give Saints an estimated £4m plus jackpot from the entire FA Cup run - meaning they have banked over £25m from the Premiership, Barclaycard, Sky and FA Cup Final-related sources in 2002/03.

Around £1.5m of that was the result of Michael Svensson's winner at Maine Road in the last game of the league season.

That win enabled Saints to jump three places in the table, and each place is worth £503,000.

Meanwhile, the club shops sold over 70,000 FA Cup Final items in just three and a half weeks.

A third of Saints' merchandising sales for the entire 2002/03 season were sold in just six weeks leading up to the May 17 date with Arsenal

In the run up to the final fans bought 30,000 balloons, 8,000 flags and 6,000 shirts - 1,000 more than the club expected when news broke they would play in yellow.

Saints also banked £1m from finishing as competition runners-up, almost £800,000 from television money and £700,000 from FA prize money for winning through the first four rounds.

They would also have taken their share of gate receipts from the seven matches they played, which were attended by crowds of over 240,000 in total.

Saints have claimed on their website that our story last Tuesday saying they had received around £24m from their 2002/03 exploits was wide of the mark.

But today, on the back page, we list the amounts they have received from Premiership, Sky, FA Cup and FA Cup final merchandise only.

Our figures do not include gate receipts from regular 30,000 crowds at St Mary's or non-FA Cup final merchandise sales.

The Daily Echo has never specified how much money could be made available to Gordon Strachan, and have never said the club have £24m to spend. It goes without saying we acknowledge the club have large outgoings. That is why we would never suggest the club spend all their monies on new players.

We are just happy to list Saints' rewards from a great season.

Chairman Rupert Lowe said: "There is cash available to the manager to bring in a couple of new faces but we do not believe the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

"We will not bring in players for the sake of it or to satisfy the media. We will only sign them if they will improve us. Clubs who adopt a gung-ho attitude to transfers often end up in a pile of smoking rubble."

Head of sales at Saints, James McLaughlin, said: "When you look at the difference between our fans and Arsenal's at the cup final it made us feel very proud. We put out a range so fans could get themselves decked out from head to toe and give them everything they needed, like the balloons - we sold 30,000 and they all descended when the team came out and it looked incredible.

"We didn't price people out of the market and the aim was not to rip them off but to let them get good value stuff.

"There have been letters pouring into the club from people saying they initially feared we hadn't done enough but saying when they saw the people at the ground they realised how much yellow and blue stuff we sold.

"The guys in the stores have been phenomenal and are a credit to Southampton FC. We can buy in all the stock in the world but without them dealing with requests and answering questions and dealing with the customers it would mean nothing.

"We all watched the game together and looked at the Saints end and said 'that's where all the carrier bags have gone!'"

Sales are expected to be good again next season with the launch of the new home kit in July, the UEFA Cup campaign and the feelgood factor surrounding the club following last season.

McLaughlin added: "The Megastore and the West Quay store took well in excess of record days on the Thursday and Friday before the final with West Quay doubling their best-ever day.

"We've taken far more than we budgeted for this season with the FA Cup run which is something you don't repeat every year."

Saints have denied reports they are set to make a £3m double swoop for Ipswich pair Darren Bent and Matt Richards. As predicted in yesterday's Daily Echo, Saints have their sights set elsewhere, with 19-year-old striker Bent wanting regular first team football - something he was unlikely to have got at St Mary's.