HAGIOLOGY PUBLISHING is a collective comprising three Saints fans - David Bull, Gary Chalk and Duncan Holley – each of whom has been appointed an Official Historian of Southampton FC. The collective is committed
to the collection and dissemination of accurate information
on the history of the club.
To date, that dissemination of accurate information has
taken the form of answering enquiries, many of them from callers
referred by the club, about the Saints’ history but a major purpose of this site is to advise
you of the information on that history that has been gathered
together and published in eight books.
About the members of the collective:
DAVID BULL saw his first game at The Dell in 1948, soon after which he left his native Salisbury to become in turn a Camberley teenager, an Exeter student and a university teacher in Exeter, Manchester and Bristol. Having taken early retirement from that full-time work in 1996 and statutory retirement from his part-time post as a Tribunal Judge in 2009, he is able to focus full-time on writing about the Saints. Although he serves Hagiology Publishing principally as its editor, he has sole-authored two biographies:DELL DIAMOND and CONSTANT PAINE. A longstanding contributor to the Saints Matchday Programme, he has also written for three Southampton fanzines and has edited two collections of fans’ memories, as fund-raisers for the Child Poverty Action Group.
GARY CHALK was born in Eastleigh and educated
at the Alderman Quilley School. Has been employed at the local
Railway Works for more than 30 years. A dual interest in history
and collecting led him to record and publish material on Southampton
FC (with Duncan Holley, as below). Having travelled the length
and breadth of the country collating facts and figures to
that end, he has now amassed a huge amount of ephemera including
an almost complete collection, from 1946, of the Football
Echo and Saints programmes. Shares responsibility with Dave Juson for historical contributions to the Matchday Programme.
DUNCAN HOLLEY is a fourth-generation supporter,
whose great
grandfather was an original shareholder, whose grandfather
went to the 1927 semi-final and whose dad bought a house in
Archers Road to be near The Dell, where he was a stileman
in the 1960s. Developed a passion for stats and photos and
was determined that, if he could not play for Saints, he would
write about them. The initial outcome in 1987 – SAINTS:
A COMPLETE RECORD – and its successor, IN
THAT NUMBER, each set a new standard for football club
histories (see the latter’s
reviews). While hoping for another idol to thrill him
in the manner of a Davies, Channon or Le Tissier, he somehow
feels the glory days lie in the past – which is why
he continues to appreciate and document it.
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