The club improved on their performance in the previous successful season, retaining the Southern League title and reaching the Semi-final of the FA Cup for the first time, where they went out in controversial circumstances.

[1] In their report to the shareholders for the Annual General Meeting held on 30 June 1898, the directors commented: "The team's performance in the English Cup and their retention of the Southern League Championship entitled the club to rank among the best in the country".

[4] Despite the success on the pitch, there was considerable disharmony in the dressing room, especially regarding the behaviour of Jack Farrell; he had been ordered out of a board meeting and suspended for two matches early in the season having used "abusive language" during a discussion of his grievances.

Other players in trouble included new signings Tom Nicol, who was obliged to apologise to the board for his behaviour, and Bob Petrie, who was reprimanded over his drinking.

Southampton entered the 1897–98 FA Cup tournament at the Third Qualifying Round, where they met their Southern League rivals, Bristol City.

The next match, at Swindon, was won by half-time while Eastville Rovers were comprehensively defeated 8–1 in the final qualifying round, with Yates, Buchanan, Keay and Turner each scoring twice.

[3] In the First Round proper, Southampton entertained Leicester Fosse, then lying seventh in the Football League Second Division.

[6] By this time, the local press were speculating that Southampton could reach at least the semi-final stage of the competition, with one commentator expressing the opinion: "if the present rate of progress is maintained we shall yet see our champions in the final at the Palace."

The national press predicted an easy home victory, with Bolton expected to put paid to "the parrot cries concerning the great improvement in the game south of the Thames."

In preparation for the match, the board sent the players together with Dawson to Matlock Bath to stay at the Chesterfield House Hydro for a week of special training.

While lamenting methods by which this condition of things has been brought about – that is to say, the hiring of aliens[7] – one cannot escape a feeling of gratification that the South is at last holding its own once more.

[8]This victory set up a semi-final tie with another First Division club, Nottingham Forest, which would turn out to be one of the most controversial in the history of the FA Cup to date.

[9] When the draw for the semi-finals was made, The Football Association decided that the Derby County vs. Everton tie should be at Wolverhampton while Southampton and Forest would go to Sheffield United's Bramall Lane.

This prompted the Southampton board to formally request that the FA switch the venues, to reduce the travelling for supporters of all four clubs.

When the match restarted, according to one report: "hardly had the players taken up their positions again when the snow recommenced with redoubled fury, and the Forest, assisted by the blizzard, put on a couple of goals in the last minutes".

The Southampton board immediately lodged a protest with the Football Association, and there were numerous letters of complaint to both the national and local press.

[9] Some spectators objected to Southampton's protests, including one who wrote to the Morning Leader : The demoralising effect of an imported team of mercenaries was evident in the behaviour of the southern partisans at the Crystal Place on Thursday.

in the dell that is not far from the County Ground, and nearer West Station and the town, and at the present time it is a narrow valley with a stone culvert running along the bottom.

George Thomas, a fish merchant who had been appointed as a director of the limited company when it was formed in the summer of 1896, who lived in Shirley, saw the potential of the cleared site and purchased the land from the D.N.S.R.

By the beginning of the 1898–99 season, Thomas had incurred expenditure of between £7,500 and £9,000 on acquiring and clearing the site, and erecting the new stands and had agreed an initial three-year lease to the football club at a rental of £250 p.a.