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Saturday 16th December. I have only ever been to Fratton Park once before, about 6 or 7 years or so ago when we drew 1-1 and I seem to remember Portsmouth scored with a penalty, Town had a player sent off, Peter had a spot of road rage after the game and it was bloody cold because it the away end was uncovered. Even though Pompey had a £5 special offer like Notts Forest on Wednesday, I didn’t fancy freezing my rocks off on the south coast in a terrace, which I gather, is still uncovered. I thought I would listen once again to the Home 107.9 commentary, but what did they do? They used commentary from Ocean FM because Andrew Crawshaw had gone Christmas shopping! Christmas shopping? Come on Crawshaw get your priorities right, if someone was to pay me to watch Town home and away you wouldn’t see me in Meadowhall. Mind you, you wouldn’t see me dead in Meadowhall - any time of the year! Anyway, I digress. The team was very much as expected showing only the anticipated changes in defence resulting from Jenkins departure to St. Andrews as Jamie Vincent returned to fill the left back slot. Town’s newly rediscovered confidence and self-belief was evident from the off and even commentary provided by a station whose bias was clearly towards the home side couldn’t mask our superiority. With the hard working pair of Holland and Armstrong, Town quickly took a grip of the midfield and we began to dominate proceedings, Baldry and Thornley causing the hosts problems with the space they were creating out wide. Portsmouth’s best player in the first half was goalkeeper Aaron Flahaven who was playing his first game of the season and made a number of top class saves in the first half to keep Portsmouth in the game. He had to be alert on the quarter hour to turn Kevin Gallen’s powerful shot around the post for a corner, as Town’s were totally dominating proceedings at this stage of the game. After 20 minutes Town carved through the hosts defence again but Peter Ndlovu wasted his effort chipping over the bar after some good link up play with Gallen. Flahaven continued to be the star of the show in the 35th minute when he brilliantly tipped Simon Baldry’s vicious volley over the bar when it was destined for the back of the net. It started to look as though it was going to be one of those days when the opposition field their second choice keeper and he plays a blinder and just as it seemed as though we might be frustrated, ‘that man’ popped up with yet another timely goal. On 39 minutes Town were awarded a corner on the left side which was taken by Ben Thornley and Jon Dyson advanced late into the penalty area to plant a firm header into the back of the net. It must be his deceiving boyish looks, because he is often overlooked when corners are being taken and has scored a number of goals like this in recent years. With Town dominant and 1-0 up I was delirious and hoped it would just be a matter of time before the other two goals were added to extend the sequence of three points and three goals we were starting to get used to. As soon as the half-time whistle blew, player-manager Steve Claridge who was clearly not a happy man at his sides performance began to give his players some verbal grief even as they walked off the pitch to a crescendo of boos from the home supporters. Following their half-time dressing down, Portsmouth were clearly more fired up and Town had to be more resolute in defence to keep them at bay. Gradually though Town began to regain some of their first half dominance but suddenly in the 52nd minute the action switched to the side of the pitch when Lou Macari was involved in an altercation with the 4th official resulting in his dismissal from the dug out. There seemed to be some argy-bargy and the commentary suggested that Macari had actually hit the official although I find this a little hard to believe because Lou Macari is only about 5 feet tall. It is to be hoped that this little incident is not taken any further by the FA, but then again Town used to play better when Neil Warnock was sent to the stands (regularly!) and had chances to increase their lead. Our best chance fell to Ben Thornley shortly after Macari’s altercation and he had a smart left foot shot well saved after taking a little too long in front of goal when advancing towards the Pompey keeper. Portsmouth began to create more chances for themselves again as they surged forward in search of an equaliser and Lee Bradbury came close to scoring for the home side with a 74th minute header that Nico Vaesen did well to save. The relief was to be short lived however, and just 2 minutes later the scores were level when Steve Claridge (who else?) converted a header from a Lee Bradbury cross giving Vaesen no chance. Sensing that they could now go on to win this game it seemed to be one-way traffic from Portsmouth after the equaliser and Town were desperately hanging on for a single point. With only a few minutes left Lee Bradbury grazed the outside of the post with a deflected shot, and then right at the very end of the game Nico Vaesen seemed to lose control of another Bradbury shot but then managed to recover, smothering the ball right on the goal line as it looked as though it would roll in. After our dominance for the first half of the game I ended up being relieved to hear the final whistle blow, and for Town to continue their unbeaten sequence of 4 games. A point from Fratton Park seems like quite a creditable result, but unfortunately QPR won today putting us back on the foot of the table and there is still a long way to go before we can harbour realistic thoughts of the ‘Great Escape II’. There is a little clutch of clubs on 22 points in the safety zone who must be our immediate target and at least we don’t seem to be losing any further ground at the moment.
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All words and thoughts by Chris except where stated.
A big thank you to Machala for putting up with me doing this and Ian for his support and my Mum for her proof reading.
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