Wish I Knew more Spurs Fans

Well, well, well, you would not believe it would you.  Football, its a funny old game isn’t it.  Pompey, struggling with debts, dodgy owners, transfer embargo’s, administration and points deductions were relegated on Saturday.  West Ham had won one-nil to make it mathematically impossible for us to stay up.  It was a sad day, but one that had been coming for a long time. 

 

At least we had one last hurrah at Wembley on Sunday in the FA Cup semi-final against Tottenham.  Nobody thought that we would do well, I just hoped that it wasn’t an embarrassing scoreline.  Spurs had benefited most from our downfall, with Jowly Insurance hound and former manager Harry Redknapp picking over the carcass for our best players. To make it even easier for he

Ex-Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp

wouldn’t let Jamie O’Hara play in the semi.

 

To have our makeshift team facing up to Spurs was a massive task.  But to a man, our team played like heroes.  Over the 90 minutes it was an even game, with real end to end stuff.  Chances were squandered at either end, with David James making some world class saves (C’mon Capello, pick him for the world cup) and Mullins, Moekoena, Finnan and Rocha (didn’t get sent off, which is a first) making last ditch tackles all over the place.  Kevin Prince-Boateng and Hassan Yebda both recently back from injury played like men possessed, Michael Brown was solid in midfield and Marc Wilson played the game of his life.  Dindane and Piquionne ran their socks off and all will deserve a day off today.   

 

After 90 minutes for it to be nil-nil was a massive achievement.  For the next 30, Pompey fans would go through a whole range of emotions.  9 minutes into extra time a dubious free kick was awarded, Dawson slipped and Piquionne scored a deserved goal.  the roar from the TV was deafening, the roar from my livingroom was pretty loud too, as me and the house-mate jumped off the sofa.

 

2 minutes later we screamed in despair as Crouch knocked one in for Spurs, and then cheered as for some reason be-known only to the referee it was disallowed. 

 

The second half of extra tike was played at the same pace, lightning quick end to end stuff.  Palacios brought down Dindane in the area and we had a penalty.  Kevin Prince-Boateng slotted home the penalty and al of the Pompey fans went mental.  The spurs fans went home.

 

The stats might show that Tottenham dominated the game, which according to Harry Redknapp they did, but it doesn’t change the fact that they lost 2-0.  

I really wish that I knew some Spurs fans.

Oh Calamity

I am having a good few weeks.  Last week I had the flight, Last night I was given a Free Ticket to Pompey V Chelsea at Fratton Park.  It wasn’t the best night to go really as an understrength (when I say understrength I mean pretty good but missing a few key players) Chelsea team absolutely slaughtered us. 

It didn’t help that David ‘Calamity’James lived up to his nickname and missed a clearance giving Didier Drogba the easiest chance he will ever have, which he then scored.  Controversy ended the first half as Florent Malouda elbowed Ricardo Rocha in the face and the defender was then stretchered off.  2 minutes later the same happened to Michael Brown who was elbowed by Daniel Sturridge and left with a bloody nose.

In the second half things got progressively worse.  Malouda scored 2, Drogba got another one and Lampard got the 5th.

The moment of the match came when Chelsea substitute Patrick Van Aanholt came on for Jiri Zhirkov and the whole crowd went “Whoooo!”.

With our 9 point deduction through administration there is no way we can avoid relegation now.  On the form we showed last night I don’t think we would have stood a chance of escaping anyway.

Chock’s Away

Yesterday afternoon I was taken up in a 2 seater aeroplane (an Ikarus C45 for those of you who care) by one of my colleagues.  After a brief overview of the plane and our pre-flight checks we left from Popham and headed on a bearing towards Four Marks before heading to Petersfield.  At this turn we radioed Air Traffic Control to see if we could transit the Southampton airport Airspace.

Brief note here, something that I learnt yesterday, a small plane can fly pretty much anywhere it likes as long as it is under 2000ft.  Over this you get into the Airspace of Airports and you have to ask for permission to cross them.

Unfortunately as it was heavy traffice we had to stay low over Portsmouth, but as a result I got some Photo’s of my parents house, my flat and some great ones of Fratton Park.  As we headed out to sea we turned again and headed west along the Isle of Wight, turning at the Needles and coming back Eastwards past Shanklin and Sandown.  I was allowed to take the controls and do a figure of 8 over H’s mum’s place.  After messing about for a bit we headed for a landing at Bembridge where Mike had to adjust quite a lot because he had come in a bit too high.  Touch down was pretty soft and we had to do a few checks  before we had a cup of tea and a sandwich and then headed back up again.

After a straight run back to Popham we landed after watching the 1950′s Antonov do a loop of the airfield.  All in all this is a brilliant way to spend an afternoon.  Massive thanks to Mike for taking me up.

There are more photo’s on Flickr, so click on the link over there.

The Saga Is Nearly Over

4 days ago I wrote this about Pompey and the takeover deal from hell.  Now we have been taken over again by Ali Al-Faraj, another Saudi Billionaire (can we see some money this time please) who has bought a 90% stake in the club with Suliman Al-Fahim keeping 10% (my guess is that they will use his building and development firm to build the new stadium) .

So the players will have their wages, which is nice, and administration has been put to the back of peoples minds.    Apparantly Mr Al Faraj is keen to invest heavily and wants to redevelop the training ground and stadium.  Good luck to him, we have been trying to do that for about 10 years and everytime planning permission goes in one of the councils involved gets in the way.

But for now the average Pompey fan can dream about signing Kaka, Ribery and Messi in the January transfer window.  Thats one better than yesterday when we were having nightmares about 15 point deductions.

The Saga Continues

I am not going to go on about the in’s and outs of the Pompey takeover saga, but there are a few things that you should know:

• We have sold all of our best players
• We are bottom of the league without a win in 7 games
• We have been sold to Abu Dhabi businessman Suliman Al Fahim
• He has so far not put any money into the club
• We are being kept afloat by the kindness of banks (that is something that I never thought I would say)
• Our chairman had a consortium, with money willing to take over

OK, so that is quite a lot of things that you should know.  It puts us in trouble, really deep, not getting out of it at the last minute trouble.  So far this week, the players have not been paid, the chairman has said that we are broke and facing administration.  Now to top it all off, the new owner is in hospital.  My guess is that its a mental hospital, as he has delusions of being a oil billionaire.

Peter Storrie is a good man, and a good chairman, if only we could have sold to him we would have been ok.  But we didn’t, and now we are screwed.  All of this, a year on from playing AC Milan in the UEFA cup.  How the semi-mighty have fallen.

More Soon…I Promise

OK, been a bit lame this month, not really had a lot to say. I got injured on my holiday, twisted knee, so wasn’t able to get out and do much. If you want to know what I did this weekend, I went out on my bike on Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday I watched The Pompey vs Everton Game. Great win for us, then the Rugby, Great win for England against Scotland, had a chinese at my parents then watched Andy Murray beat Roger Federer.

On the Sunday, I watched I Am Legend (alright film, probably won’t watch it again), Wigan v Hull, Liverpool stuff the Villa and England loose humiliatingly to the West Indies in the cricket.

On the plus side, congratulations go to the England Womens Cricket Team, whose near total dominance of the sport is someting to be proud about, and Mark Cavendish, who won the Milan-San Remo.

Nostradamus

OK, this is my 100th post.  It was going to be a grandoise list of things that I like and reasons, but I got to 34 and ran out of ideas, so instaed, I will write about the European Draw. 

This morning Pompey were drawn with Dutch side Heerenveen, FC Braga from Portugal, Wolfsburg from the Bundesleague and AC Milan.  Its a bit of an odd set up, where the top 3 go through from the group and we play 2 teams at home, and 2 away. 

So first up for us is a trip to Portugal to play Braga, a few miles down the road from our rivals in the last round Vitoria Guimerias.  Should be an interesting night as they are now higher in the league than Vitoria.  Nostradamus Spex says Draw

Next up for us, on a hopefully wet and rainy night at Fratton Park is AC Milan, I can’t imagine Kaka being up for that kind of evening.  Nostradamus Spex says Draw

Wolfsburg away, thats a tricky one, the Bundesleague has been a bit mixed this season with most of the big teams struggling,  I reckon we might stand a good chance here. Nostradamus Spex says Away Win.

Heerenveen have just beaten Ajax 5-1, which could be a good indicator for Aston Villa who have them in the groupstage, but not for us.  They are supposed to be a good team, but I believe we can take them at home.  Nostradamus Spex says Home win.

OK, I am usually terrible at predictions, but I think we will get through the group and into the knockout stages, I think that we will be there with AC Milan and Wolfsburg, but I could be wrong, and probably will be.

By the way, I may finish the list at some point, but I probably won’t.

Snotty

I ahve been bunged up with cold this weekend, even though the weather was fantastic.  I had been looking forward to another long ride this weekend, but made it to my parents and had to stop for a while before riding back again. 

The problem is that the cold has gone to my lungs and I am worried that it will turn into another chest infection.  I have had to start taking the steroid inhalers again (that I really don’t want to) and a visit to the Asthma clinic is in order.

Anyway in the afternoon I watched the football, the Liverpool derby is always worth watching and then was quite annoyed that Arsenal lost to Hull (I wanted them to keep up the pressure to make the title race a little interesting). 

On Sunday I went for a stroll along the beach while the indian summer lasts, and then watched Pompey beat Tottenham.  Spurs looked like a team that were already beaten from the start, they didn’t seem to have the desire, and had Ekhoto at Left back been playing against anyone better than Glen Little (terrible player, luckily we got him for free) then we could have got more.  Diarra was stupid to get sent off though, but the Housemate made the prediction that he would after 5 minutes as he seemed to be a bit fired up (bad news for my Fantasy league team).

Anyway, there you go, my nose is still running and I want to get rid of this sodding cold.

Bring on the Second Leg

OK, Pompey did it, a great 2-0 win at home last night.  Now we just have the task of not losing 3-0 during the away leg. 

The performance was probably one of the best that I have seen from us, and Diarras goal was a classic.  OK, we were lucky with their penalty hitting the bar, and Defoes penalty was a bit rubbish (Obviously he was never told as a schoolboy to follow up on your run just incase) but he looked lively and dangerous all night.

Other good points from the night included Belhadj down the left who is looking a little useful (I hope that we sign him properly at the end of his loan spell) and Armand Traore putting in another good performance, I suspect that he will be back on his way to Arsenal at the end of the season.

Player of the night though was Lassiana Diarra who was busy in midfield, making tackles when he needed to and taking play forward at every available opportunity.

Can’t wait for the 2nd leg in Portugal now, I wish I was going.

UEFA Cup

As I sit at my desk eating my Greggs Chicken Mango sandwiches drinking my Dr Pepper, wondering why mylunchbreak has been reduced to this, I am happy in the Knowledge that I am being allowed out of work an hour early so that I can make sure that I get in in time to watch the football.  Got to love Flexi Time.

Yes, Portsmouth are in Europe for the first time, playing Vitoria Guimaraes who came 4th in the Portugese league ahead of Benfica.  I have an impending sense of doom that our foray into the UEFA cup could be a short one, but you never know, Harry has a decent team and they might surprise me. 

But I have my keg of beer and some friends coming over so it will be a good night, its a shame its on channel 5 though because the commentary will be crap.  Also the fact that it has to start at 6 is a bit of a bummer, luckily I will miss the traffic though.

Right lunch has finished now, i’ll see you later.