As I write I am looking at a huge Portsmouth poster on my office wall at home. It is a team picture. Not of the FA Cup winning side of 2008. Or of the Championship winning side of 2003. Not even of the FA Cup semi finalists of 1992. The poster shows my real heroes, the promotion winning team of 1987.
They represent what first got me hooked on Pompey and football in general at the age of seven. Yes they were a good team, but they were also essentially the same team that had come so close to promotion in each of the previous two seasons, only to miss out at the death. Yet they had the guts to go at it one more time and succeed. It wasn’t all plain sailing even the third time, but it was third time lucky. The whole City was immensely proud of their achievement of delivering top flight football for the first time in 28 years.
Alan Ball was under pressure from the off after narrow failure in the previous two campaigns, and apparently launched a verbal assault on the players after a League Cup WIN at Fourth Division Wrexham. He ended the outburst by informing the players he intended to resign. The next day, training carried on as usual and nothing more was said! Typical of the manager and this group of players at the time.
Obviously, these goings on weren’t common knowledge to the fans at the time, but there were also a number of memorable matches that season. Kevin Dillon scored a hat trick of penalties in a Full Members Cup (!) game at Fratton Park against Millwall. Pompey also had three players sent off before half time at Sheffield United in a league game at Bramall Lane, and only lost 1-0! There was also a memorable 3-2 Boxing Day win at Plymouth.
Strange things seemed to be happening that season. Leading scorer Mick Quinn was even sent to prison for three weks in January for driving without a licence, but stil returned to lay his part in our eventual promotion!
A famous match that season was at Wimbledon in the FA Cup Fourth Round. It was a rare televised game for Pompey in those days and inevitably a complete disaster. Wimbledon had pipped us to promotion in the previous season, and played uncompromising football. In truth, it was more than ‘uncompromising’ and Alan Ball hated losing to them. But after going 1-0 down, Alan Knight bent down to do up his shoelaces as the game kicked off again. The ball quickly reached Noel Blake in the centre of defence, who (this was in the days when the goalkeeper was allowed to pick up a backpass) rolled it back to Knight without looking. Knight was still doing up his laces! That was 2-0 and Pompey eventually lost 4-0.
Come the end of the season, Pompey were in contention as usual, and played Millwall at home with two further games to come. In a famous win, Paul Mariner scored before Kevin O’Callaghan added a memorable winner after an indirect free kick inside the penalty area was tapped to him. Some thought that was enough for promotion on the day, but we still needed another point. It semed to be on its way at Crystal Palace in the next game, but a late Ian Wright winner snatched it away. Typically, it was never going to be simple with that Pompey team, and we neede a favour from Shrewsbury Town the following night against Oldham. They duly delivered and promotion was finally ours.
Even though promotion wasn’t secured in front of our own fans, I ‘m sure everyone must remember where they were when it was confirmed. I was visiting family in Cambridge. I was only ten, but the memory was powerful enough for me to still remember it now. I was due to go to the final game against Sheffield United at Fratton Park with a friend and his uncle, but there was some kind of mix up with the tickets and I really regret not being there 28,000 others that day to celebrate.
But, that disappointment is not my overriding memory of that season. I went to the civic reception with the same friend and his uncle (no doubt felling slightly guilty). But despite all the off the pitch goings-on I alluded to before (some taken from Alan Knight’s autobiography, ‘Legend’) and the memorable matches, the reason that team means so much to me is very simple. I had spent the first two seasons of my Pompey supporting life watching us finish fourth and narrowly miss out on promotion, only to see the team come back for more and succeed at the third attempt. It said to me that if you keep trying and never give up, you can achieve your goal. It was that simple to me as a ten year old boy and that’s why they are still pinned up on my wall.
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