Saints fans consider themselves among the unluckiest fans in the UK, according to new research revealed by The National Lottery.

The study is the largest piece of research into luck and football in Britain, capturing over 2,000 football fans' attitudes to luck and the beautiful game.

Of those surveyed, only 13% of Saints fans consider the club to have been lucky last season, positioning them as Britain's fourth unluckiest team.

In particular, fans feel luck failed them when it came to referees - with over half (60%) thinking decisions went against them last season, while a further 27% felt the same way about penalty decisions.

Other key findings for Saints fans include: Just 14% of fans consider themselves superstitious A massive 93% of fans believe that luck plays an important role in the outcome of the game Certain omens' and signs' are seen to affect team luck - 40% believe that certain referees can spell doom, while 13% will avoid betting on their team to help them take home the points.

Psychologist and author, Dr Linda Papadopoulos, who worked together with The National Lottery on the research, said: "In order to deal with chance and fate, many people develop a philosophy based on their previous experience - in the case of football fans, they adopt certain rituals and external signs such as the weather or a certain referee become good or bad omens'.

"If they are unable to follow this ritual or change their routine and they experience bad luck, this cements their philosophy even further and convinces them that their actions directly impact the result".

One Saints fan elaborated on his pre-match ritual by saying that he always has to take the same route to the ground, park his car in the same space and buy his programme from the same seller to bring his team luck.

The research also found that fans can feel the impact of their team's luck away from the football ground. An overwhelming 87% of respondents say they feel personally luckier when their club performs well.

Dr Linda Papadopoulos comments: "The link between team performance and personal luck is often down to the importance of football to an individual and how much they've invested emotionally in their team.

"Feeling lucky is strongly linked to your frame of mind.

"If something we invest in, e.g. a football team and it does well, then we feel positive as a result.

"So if your team is performing well, this puts you in a positive frame of mind, which in turn makes you feel luckier in your own life".

The attitudes of Saints fans towards other British clubs was also explored. Like most fans across the UK, Saints respondents feel that Manchester United is the luckiest club in the UK (40%), followed by Chelsea and West Ham in joint second place (13%).

At the other end of the scale, relegated Sheffield United is the team they think is the unluckiest (20%).

Saints fans also believe some managers blame negative match results on bad luck too often. Alex Ferguson and José Mourinho were seen as the worst offenders, with 30% of the votes each.

The research was conducted online by Football Fans Census among 2013 fans of English and Scottish League Football Clubs between 3 August and 8 August 2007.

Fans of the following clubs were surveyed: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Birmingham City, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Bristol City, Bristol Rovers, Cardiff City, Celtic, Chelsea, Derby County, Everton, Fulham, Ipswich Town, Leeds United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Middlesborough, Newcastle United, Norwich City, Portsmouth, Rangers, Reading, Saints, Sunderland, Swansea City, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United and Wigan Athletic.