Play Up Pompey

Did I tell you in my profile or in previous blogs that I am a Pompey fan?

I have always been a Bradford City fan because that was where I grew up and in those days you supported your local team rather than a fashionable team seen on television. In fact I should have been a Bradford Park Avenue supporter because I came from a Catholic background and they were the Catholic team. However they went out of existence before I was into going to football matches. I didn't go to football matches until I was a teenager, having left school and earning a wage at the Provincial Building Society. My gran and mother, who were responsible for my upbringing (my parents having divorced when I was five), weren't into football and even though my Uncle Walter was a mandarin of the local football league, he was more interested in grass roots football than the stuff being played at Valley Parade.

My father was Irish Catholic and my mother was Yorkshire Methodist - which is a pretty lethal combination and, no pun intended but obviously one loitering with intent, led to a lot of soul-searching when I became of an age to wonder about religion. With reference to football, and I haven't researched this, I wonder how many of the teams can be divided on sectarian lines at least in their beginnings and origins. Liverpool, the Irish capital on the English mainland, has a red team (Catholic) and a blue team (Protestant). Manchester is another city with a large influx of Irish in times gone by and has a red and a blue team. North London, another Irish hotbed, has Arsenal and Spurs. I know the theory suffers here in that Arsenal is red and white and Spurs are not strictly blue. I feel the need for some research coming on me.

Anyway this blog was prompted by seeing Pompey in action yesterday. My son in law Nathan organised a couple of tickets in B row of the Milton End. These are seats where your nose is level with the surface of the pitch and you are between the goalposts and corner flag. Perhaps not the ideal position to be in if the action is at the other end (where Benjani scored yesterday) but enables you to vociferously (and I am nothing if not vociferous) encourage Pompey and abuse the other team. We paid £29 per seat for this privilege and the first half was dire. In the second half Benjani scored early on. I don't know what 'Arry Redknap said to them at half time but a different team emerged for the second half. We , that is, the crowd and especially those in the Milton End, helped preserve a clean sheet once again despite some close run moments. At one stage David James was haranguing his defence, loudly echoed by the MIlton End supporters, who could see everything from his point of view. He also won us over by his greeting as he he took up his position just after the interval. The Milton End is usually opposition territory but seats become available to Pompey fans if the other team don't take up their full allocation.

I loved the afternoon and Pompey are doing us proud at the moment. Glen Johnson is a rolls royce of a right back, Sol Campbell and Linvoy Primus (with David James behind them) are solid rocks in the centre of the defence, Davis is growing in strength from match to match, Benjani is tireless and rapidly becoming a class act, Kanu and LuaLua are players to torment any defence. We welcomed back Pedro Mendes and we still have Fernandes, Krajnac and Douala waiting in the wings, plus Andrew Cole recovering his fitness after injury and preparing some of that old goal touch magic. Play up Pompey!