Soton Tab’s Top 5 Stories of 2011

2011 has been monumental for us here at The Tab, our first year has flown by with us bringing you tales of sex, scandal and Southampton student life. We’ve had over 270,000 views this year, and we thought we’d share the five most popular in case you missed any.

5. Beware of the Portswood PERVERT 

Sharing tales of the glitz-and-glamour that is Portswood, this one was the biggest hit with our readers. Ellen Brown brought us the story of the infamous P-Town flasher/masturbation enthusiast who has been terrorising the population of Southampton.

4. Practical Biology – Southampton Style

One of my pieces, the age old story of forbidden love…in a public place. This one got picked up by a national news agency and ended up on the BBC website, in the Metro and Daily Telegraph. It turns out that the professor who spawned this story was just being sarcastic in his email. I’m sure the University have had words with him about his email etiquette after the less than positive press coverage.

3. Feminist misleads students spreading Nestle LIES with help of Wessex Scene. 

This is the article that made The Tab’s name for controversy, way back in January, and kick-started a massive debate in the comment section, Wessex Scene and Union council. Unfortunately Michelle Dando has since, ahem,  “left” Southampton and is no longer writing for us but in her time here she really produced some cracking articles, check them out on her writer’s page.

2. Alleged Al-Qaeda given platform at Southampton Uni.

This one REALLY caused a stir. Moazzam Begg was invited to speak as part of Islamic Awareness week, organised by the Islamic Society. John King disapproved, as Mr Begg had spent a considerable amount of time as a guest of the Americans in Guantanamo Bay. 146 comments and one apology later, a true controversy was created. We love it and so do you, loyal readers!

1. REVEALED: Semester 2 Exam Timetable Leaked.

With this article, we really found out what Southampton students were looking for. It’s quite sad though that well over FIVE THOUSAND people went to the Soton Tab to find out the dates of their exams, rather than to the Uni. True to form, every semester since we have made the timetable more available than the University. They should pay us commission really.

That concludes our top 5, but I thought I’d include a couple of bonus honourable mentions. These are the pages that got an unexpectedly large amount of hits, such as our article pictures of Jessie J and Liz Locke that are a little more…interesting. Our coverage of SUSU elections 2011 made an appearance in the top ten, as did a grisly tale of academic injury.

If you fancy seeing your name in this list, why not join our ever expanding team of writers. is the first port of call, then request to join . No experience required, only a sense of humour! 2012 is set to be an even bigger year for The Tab, be a part of it!