St. Mary's £11.5m crowd favourite cherishes Southampton days after homecoming | OneFootball

Southampton fans welcomed a familiar face, David Brooks at St. Mary's. Though playing for Bournemouth, Brooks was filled with nostalgia after visiting Southampton.

In the Premier League, there are a number of thrilling derbies every year. Be it one or multiple local rivals, every team wants to come out on top against their noisy neighbours.

Still, do you know what is a common theme in all of them? It's a select bunch of players who wore both club's colours at some point in their playing careers.

Further, if there are any participating players among them, the spotlight naturally shifts towards them ahead of their derby reunion. That being said, the South Coast derby also witnessed many opponents competing against their former clubs.

As a matter of fact, there were three in the Southampton camp itself.

Among them, Adam Lallana and Ryan Fraser were ruled out due to injuries. Talking about the third one, it was Aaron Ramsdale who arguably gave his best Southampton performance on the weekend.

St. Mary's £11.5m crowd favourite cherishes Southampton days after homecoming

Now, if you didn't tune in to the evening's game, you might have missed another name in this regard. Contrasting to the Southampton ones, even Bournemouth had a former Saint in their lineup.

The aforementioned name is David Brooks who only spent six months at St. Mary's. Yet, the wide attacker won the hearts of many fans during that duration with his vital contributions on the path to gaining promotion.

Carried away by those fond memories, Brooks recalled his short Southampton career pre-match. Talking to the BBC Radio Solent, the Daily Echo quoted Brooks: "I'm grateful to Southampton for taking me in and it led to one of the better days I've had in football."

Honestly, mutual respect between former colleagues and fans is one of the best aspects of Football. Let's hope, Brooks crosses paths with the Saints again in the future.