I have a soft spot for Southampton Football Club that goes back 50 years. In May 1976 Southampton, then a second tier club, beat red hot favourites Manchester United in the FA Cup final in the days when winning that competition meant something. Manager Lawrie McMenemy exuded Geordie charm, winning fans across the country as he guided his team into the old first division in 1978.

Sadly, Southampton are now famous for cheating: the Saints have become Sinners. The club’s intern, William Salt, was caught spying on their Championship play-off rivals Middlesborough, and the pathetic image of the 23 year old barely hidden behind a tree filming a training session was splashed across the world’s media. The club has now admitted spying on two other clubs.

As a result, Southampton have been thrown out of playing in the richest game in football this weekend. Winning the play-off final is worth at least £200 million in television money and other payments. Now, they are pondering their shattered reputation, and the deduction of four points in next season’s Championship. Coach Tonda Eckert seems certain to lose his job, although we don’t yet know who at Southampton told the hapless intern to go on his spying missions.

The club issued a less than heartfelt apology, qualified by an insistence that ‘the original sporting sanction was disproportionate, a view that has been widely shared by many in the football community over the last 24 hours’.

The independent arbitration panel’s decision has thrown up a host of questions. Wrexham, which just missed out on the play-off competition, are arguing that the play-offs should be re-run. Middlesborough, beaten by Southampton in the semi-final, are complaining they’ve had virtually no time to prepare. And Hull, who were expecting to play Southampton, now have little more than a day to prepare to compete against a different team. All because a once respected football club lost its head and its moral compass.

The lawyers will be delighted, even as Southampton’s innocent fans like my former colleague Charlie Brett mourn what they have lost. I feel very sorry for them.

PS: I bought a copy of the 1976 FA Cup final programme in WH Smith in Cardiff. I gave it to Saints fan Charlie Brett in 2003 to mark the club’s appearance in that year’s FA Cup final.

PPS: the week after Southampton’s 1976 cup final triumph, I went to my first international game: Wales v England. Kevin Keegan scored the goal that beat us. I bumped into a beaming Lawrie McMenemy on the stairs in the Ninian Park grandstand, and he signed my programme.

On the field that day were Welsh greats John Toshack and Terry Yorath, while England fielded Ray Clemence, and Stuart Pearson and Brian Greenhoff making their debuts. Wales should have won.

PPS: fifty years after Watergate, the media couldn’t resist calling this ‘spygate’. It’s so predictable.