The close season

The end of the 2012/13 campaign didn’t come quick enough for me once it became obvious we weren’t going to make the play-offs. I skipped the last two away games and largely switched off to give myself a break from the weariness that watching a mediocre football team brings.

I waited with bated breath for “the announcement”. I was expecting to hear that we had a new leader. When it transpired that Chris Wilder had in effect been given a year I wasn’t overjoyed but surprised myself by not being too disappointed. I don’t know the intricate details of his contract but it seems that the rolling year has now gone and if Mr Lenagan decides to dispense with Chris’s services in the months to come there will be less of the contract to pay up.

Decision made then, get behind the manager and his latest squad for the challenge ahead. I do however think it’s a pity we couldn’t have stuck with CW as our “away manager” – under him we do have a rather impressive record on our travels – but have someone else as our “home manager”. It’s at the Kassam that our problems really lie. Mind you, it must be a very difficult task for anyone, having to produce a winning side in such a soulless football ground.

And what of the new signings? At the time the return of Danny Rose didn’t have me jumping about. The two new full backs have a solid defensive CV but they came at the expense of Damien Batt and Liam Davis, two attacking defenders. Then there was Dave Kitson. With his age and experience we are on to something provided he is willing to put it in and there is no evidence to suggest he won’t. And with the acquisition of Johnny Mullins I started to get a little bit excited about the season. Two footballing centre halves, both of whom can defend properly. Luxury.

I tend to ignore pre-season games but went to Ardley as it’s only a few miles away from home. All I’ll say on this game is that I was expecting more of our players to make it clear that they were classier and had better control than an Helenic League outfit, albeit a rather good one.

But on to what really matters.

Portsmouth

The recent history of Portsmouth F.C. can be read elsewhere but in summary it is all about unscrupulous owners absolutely shafting the club and bringing it, whilst not quite to its knees, from the top flight down to the fourth tier.

Pompey are now owned by Portsmouth Community Football Club, the shareholders of whom are 11 fans, known as presidents, who have invested between £50k and £250k and the Pompey Supporters Trust which has contributed approx £2m so far.

The message from the Fratton End said “OURS” prior to Portsmouth’s first match in the bottom flight since 1979/80. It was to be their big day. They started as favourites to walk this league. But for some reason I had gone to this game feeling reasonably confident. After a quarter of an hour I was thinking this was rather misplaced.

Pompey had looked the better side. They had better movement and looked sharper than us. Patrick Agyemang was a (barely legal) handful and David Connolly nippy, despite his years. We had some trouble keeping possession and after we had given the ball away, not for the first time, Andy Barcham was able to break down the left. Andy Whing tracked back but was not able to stop the cross coming in. Agyemang out jumped / outfought Jake Wright rather easily and a routine header had put us one down.

Perhaps the two footballing centre halves, neither of whom quite measure six foot, is a weakness after all. Nah, not a bit of it, before much longer these two were bossing whatever forwards Pompey had on the pitch. And Whingy was hardly to put a foot wrong thereon in either.

I was just thinking that Deane Smalley wasn’t having much impact and our wide men were having no joy when it happened. On 34 minutes instead of being forced sideways Alfie Potter took on his marker on the touch line, did him on the outside and headed forwards. He couldn’t be caught and his low cut back cross was perfectly set up by Smalley with one touch before he produced a proper finish. (In fact I’d call all four of our goals proper finishes).

Four minutes later and our other wide man, Sean Rigg was causing them problems. Having been fed by Smalley he set up Alfie and the better team at that time had the lead. A very quick turn around, but that’s sport. Sweet.

At the start of the second half with the home side kicking towards significant numbers of home fans I feared we might be in for a torrid time. That we weren’t is possibly down to Johannes Ertl. From where I was stood (seats were never used) it looked one of the most obvious elbows and straight red cards I’ve seen. Why he did it only he will know. He’s bigger than Rose and would have been favourite to win the ball by fair means alone.

For a change we played perfectly against 10 men and were in total charge from then on in. Alfie continued to work some effective magic. I really like the way he now seems able to accelerate quickly from a standing start. It seems to confuse defenders. His second goal came after more good control and dribbling, a slight wrong footing of the keeper and a precision finish inside the near post.

Smalley was set up for his second by, it almost goes without saying, Potter and by then the Portsmouth back line had become a dispirited rabble.

What a marvellous win. Almost all positives so I won’t mention how awful Asa Hall looked in the short time he had.

But perspective is required as ever. We started last season well too. This was away from home. We only think Portsmouth are good because the bookies tell us so. Ten to fifteen games in and we will know more.

The Football League Show

I’ll just end with this post I made on Facebook.

Disgusted with the Football League Show last night. Apparently there were 18,000 cheering Pompey on. They bothered to mention a 2000 travelling support in the Championship – No mention of our 2,500 in Div 4. No praise whatsoever for our performance and win. Still this wasn’t a surprise because the depth of analysis from Manish and Leroy has always been paper thin. Pluck your average fan from any ground from any match and I suspect they’d provide more insight than these two.

Our support was superb. Given the disillusion that had settled in last season I really don’t know where it came from. Good to see what appeared to be whole hearted backing for Chris Wilder which can only be helpful. One down, forty five to go.