Skates Preview

Normally I don’t do match previews but this next game kind of demands it.  It’s ok that players and manager peddle the line that it’s “just another game” or whatever but for you and me, the average fan, it really isn’t – we have history you see.  My history is this...

I was born in Southampton in 1968 and lived in Netley until the day that Elvis died in 1977.  Before that, Dad started taking me to watch the mighty SFC... at Fratton Park... on the North Terrace... which was one of the home sections.  Yep, my first ever game of football was at Fratton Park in 1976, just after the FA Cup Semi Final when Ossie, Steele and McCalliog were still drunk.  All I can remember about the game is my Dad holding me up on a barrier for the whole match and asking Dad what ‘Channon is a wanker’ meant and ‘why are they saying that Dad?’.  His reply was “because they haven’t got a player as good as him son”. We won 1-0 and Channon scored in the 89^th minute and Pompey were relegated as a result which was of course, completely lost on 7 year old me.     My first game was our last win in the League at Fratton Park. 

Not long afterwards, Dad got a job in Hilsea and so, as the M27 wasn’t finished, we moved to Waterlooville so I spent a lot of my early years in Pompey country.  The hatred hadn’t really kicked off at that point and I could openly wear my colours at school in PE lessons etc but that changed a bit in 1984 when I was 15.  We got them in the FA Cup 4^th Round, when once again it was the 89^th minute, Armstrong… MORAN, 1-0.  We really should have lost that game but Alan Biley smashed one over the bar from about 5 yards a minute before we scored.  Dad and I couldn’t get a ticket for the Saints cage at the Milton Road end, so I was in with the Pompey fans on the North Terrace once again and it was murder keeping quiet, especially in the 89^th minute.  We were parked somewhere up the Eastern Road and we walked all the way to the car in silence, trying to look as miserable as all the Pompey fans.  There was one nightmare moment when I saw someone from my school (who I didn’t get on with) but luckily, he didn’t see me.   Getting ‘outed’ at that particular time would not have had a happy ending.  The celebrations started when we got home and school on Monday was interesting, especially the football practice when I got kicked to bits. 

Pompey v Saints, 1984, Part 1

Pompey v Saints, 1984, Part 2

In 1987 I was 19 and Pompey made it to Division 1 (for a season).  It was an odd year because as well as being a season ticket holder at The Dell, I also saw about 10 Pompey home games that year with my mates.  I used to snigger to myself when they lost (which they usually did) and it was amusing to see the false hope on their faces when they got something out of a game.  I don’t think I actually saw them win so I considered myself a lucky charm.  We played them at Fratton Park and drew 2-2 with two goals from Colin Clarke.  We really should have won this one but bad defending allowed Pompey to score with virtually their only two shots.  This was my last trip to Fratton Park to watch Saints as the carnage I saw before and at the end of that game made me realise that sometimes, it just isn’t worth it.  The Police tactics of keeping us in at end and then buggering off when the Pompey fans got round the back of the away end, didn’t really do us any favours.  A Saints fan next to me being felled by a half brick which had been thrown over didn’t really whet my appetite for more either.  I was on my own for this one and thought that safety in numbers was the way to go so I ended up getting a train to Southampton, having a pint and then getting another train back to Cosham before a bus back to Waterlooville.   I went to The Dell later on that season for my first Derby at home.  We lost 2-0 and were crap, missing a succession of sitters and getting what we deserved.  The defeat stuck in the throat a bit but the pain was eased a bit by Pompey getting relegated soon after.

Part 1 of the Fratton game, includes unforgiveable prediction from Channon

Our door was darkened again 9 years later.  It was 1996 and the FA Cup again.   I’m now 27 and living in an SO postcode.   The Dell was by now down to 15,000 people and the Pompey fans seemed very quiet that day.  Mind you, we dicked them 3-0 with two goals from Jim Magilton and one from Neil Shipperley so they didn’t have much to shout about.  If memory serves they were managed by managerial genius Terry Fenwick with Dave Merrington being in our dug out.  It wasn’t  entirely straight forward and without alarm though as Pompey were denied what looked a clear penalty when Doddsy clipped Paul Walsh.  I met Paul Walsh in a pub a few years back and accused him of diving 12 years previously.  ‘Bollocks was it’ was his reply.  As for the rivalry…. well, there was no need for me to ‘hate’ Pompey at that point as they were in a lower division to us and but for the luck of the FA Cup draw, not on our radar.

Fast forward 7 years and Pompey have made it once more into the Premier League and bizarrely, we get drawn against them in the League Cup at St Mary’s.  This one matters as we’re now in the same league and their fans are giving it the large one after their runaway promotion.   It was a bit of a fiery atmosphere with some interesting stuff at Woolston train station on the way to the game.  It was quite an easy win by 2-0 with Marsden setting up Beattie for the first (cue the famous ‘ear cupping’ photo) and then Beattie slowing down just enough to make de Zeeuw run into him for a pen and a sending off.  2-0 and lovely. 

Next up was the league game in December and I personally escorted two of my Skate mates to the ground.  They weren’t expecting a result as we were flying at the time and so it proved as we really pissed this one by 3-0 with Doddsy scoring straight from a corner to open the scoring.  Marian Pahars made his last decent contribution in a Saints shirt by scoring a brilliant second and then Beatts, every Pompey fans’ favourite Scummer, rounded it off in the last minute with a diving header.  This win moved us into 4^th place and a Champions League qualifying spot which was as good as it ever got as soon after, Gordon Strachan left and our plummet began.  Our plan of all going in the same car wasn’t very well thought out as the Skates obviously, weren’t allowed to go towards the Itchen Bridge where I’d parked, so I had to drive all the way round to Bitterne the long way, eventually meeting two very disgruntled mates outside the Station Pub by Bitterne station.  “If you’d beaten us I would have made you fucking walk”, I said. Their replies are not printable.  After the game, it transpired that The Cunt with the Bell (to give him his full title) had been pissing on the seats at St Mary’s.  Quite how this didn’t result in a life ban for the twat is beyond me... can hardly be mistaken identity can it.

I was parked in front of a TV to watch us at Fratton when Pompey desperately needed a win to give them a chance of staying up and we’d achieved mid-table mediocrity under new manager Paul Sturrock.  We were clearly intimidated by the hostile atmosphere and were rubbish, deservedly losing 1-0 to a Yakubu strike but the moment I remember is a late Kevin Phillips shot pinging off the inside of a post and back out – they may well have been relegated had that gone in.  As it was, that win proved a springboard for them to stay up quite comfortably.  If they’d gone down, it would have spared us the following season.

It wasn’t all bad though....we had another new manager for the next meeting in November 2004 – I use the term manager loosely.  It turned out to be Steve Wigley’s one win in the 18 matches that set our relegation more or less in stone.  Goals from a nice strike from Dexter Blackstock and a Kevin Phillips header and gave us a 2-1 win following Pompey taking the lead when Claus (I think) nodded one over Kasey Keller, just before Keller clattered into him.  My Skate mates once again came to the game, only this time they didn’t fancy meeting a gloating Scummer afterwards and so they got the park and ride back from Bursledon.  They got the gloating Scummer on the phone that evening.

We are led to believe that the FA Cup draw is an open draw and anyone can get anyone.  There are no seedings and it’s all fair.  The only time I have thought this not to be true was in 2005 when Harry Redknapp had just left Pompey to join Saints as manager and to say that he was a hate figure with the Skates is an understatement.  Southampton v Portsmouth – what a surprise!!!  To add more aggro to the situation, Ted Bates, the single most important figure in Southampton Football Club history, had just died and in the days before a minutes applause was the norm, the minutes silence was never going to be observed by that lot.  If it was tense before some Pompey fans started chanting ‘Scummer, scummer’ then it was a positively evil atmosphere afterwards.  Yes it was always going to happen but even so.... filth.  So, against a backdrop of Judas chants and incredibly irate Saints fans, Matt Oakley gave us the lead with a 25 yard thunderbolt and 29,000 Saints fans yelled ‘fucking have that you bastards’.  Pompey equalised soon after with a Yakubu penalty, awarded when the ref bought a horrible dive by Diomansy Kamara.  Pompey had a complete clown in goal in Costas Chalkias and we had a Higginbotham goal ruled out for offside even though Pompey had a player on the line.  Of course, the offside rule says there needs to be 2 players but one is usually the keeper.  Costas was about 25 yards out at the time having come for a superman punch and totally missed it.  We sneaked it in the last minute when Matt Taylor got harshly penalised for handball and Peter Crouch sent Chalkias the wrong way.

This is one of the best videos ever.... (Warning...explicit but very funny language)

In front of the TV again for the next League match in April when we were in real danger of going down and Pompey were doing ok.  In possibly the biggest non-performance that I can remember from Saints, we got annihilated 4-1 which flattered us and the score could have been anything.  We were 2-0 down in no time and Henri Camara got one back to make it 2-1.  Far from it sparking us into life, we let in 2 more as Antii Niemi had his one and only mare for Saints to make it 4-1 with only half an hour gone.  Pompey missed so many chances in the second half it was untrue.  I have never been so angry about a performance in my life, a mood not helped by Harry Redknapp ‘accidentally’ heading towards the wrong dugout at the start to him giving the thumbs up to the Pompey directors at the end.  Of course there was the famous rendition of ‘Amarillo’ which went on for the whole of the second half.  We hated that and it added to the anger but you have to give credit where it’s due… we were supposed to hate it.  It’s a shame our team of wankers obviously didn’t give a shit.   About 8 months later of course, we’d been relegated and Harry wanted permission to talk to Pompey about their newly vacant manager’s position and a war of words erupted between Rupert Lowe and Milan Mandaric.  It’s odd hearing an argument between two sides and you hate both of them.  The scumbag went back to his ‘spiritual home’ and certain people in football, who may or not have been connected with Harry’s family, made a load of money betting on it (allegedly).

If you want to watch a video of this... go find it yourself.

Our double relegation put the boot totally on the other foot and we were not on their radar until 2010 and it was FA Cup time once more and I covered this match here....

http://leagueoneminus10.blogspot.com/2010/02/fa-cup-5th-round-southampton-1.html

The record books show that we lost 4-1 (again) and but like the game in 2003 when we went 4^th in the League, it was the winning teams high water mark and from then on, things went a bit wrong for the victors.  In this case, Pompey’s financial cheating (yes, I think we can use that word) came home to roost and they were relegated and in administration at the end of the season, owing over £100 million in total including debts to charities, schools and local businesses.  It still really rankles with me that we got our 10 points penalty for going into Administration at the start of the following season when it really had an effect and they got theirs when they were virtually relegated already and it had no effect whatsoever.

So, 2011 and here we go again in the Championship.  So far this season, we’ve been outstanding in the main and are top of the league and have been since September.  They have been a shambles and a disgrace to football and society whilst still not paying back the charities, schools and local businesses.  It just so happens that as we approach this game, on the pitch, we’ve had a little wobble and they’ve won a couple under their new manager Michael Appleton.  This game has attracted more attention from the national media than usual because of the ‘bubble’ which involves the Police insisting you travel on official coaches and only get given your match ticket on the coach.  If I was 23 then I’d think this was a horrible idea but as I’m 43, I agree with it.

I’m still mentally scarred by the last two visits to Fratton Park and the non-performances we put in, especially in the 4-1 defeat….so first and foremost, I want us to play to our potential.  Do that and we will win the game as we are the better side, which is why we’re 17 points clear of them.  They may have won a couple of games but they haven’t played particularly well so we have nothing to be afraid of.  Fans of football and fans of fairness and even playing fields, should want us to win this game.  From our point of view though, we just want to put one over them because we own them one.  As I’ve said, I have lots of friends who are Pompey fans and they’re all sound as you like (hi guys!!!)  Their club though is, in my humble opinion, an utter disgrace and a bigger disgrace is that they’ve been allowed to get away with it.

We’re Coming For You.  I hope that Kelvin, Frazer, Danny, Jose, Jos, Morgan, Deano, Corky, Adam, Guly, Sir Rickie, Bart, Dan, Lee, Aaron and Steeeeeeve are.  Time for men to stand up and be counted and time for heroes.

I predict, Pompey 1 Saints 2.

COYR.