Memory Lane Portsmouth v Southend United

[AndyT]

Haven't done this for a while, but as Pompey are new opponents this season, I thought I'd give it a whirl.

Well, not a great record for me.

My first visit was a 4-1 defeat in the League Cup on 16th September 1981. We went down on the old Supreme supporters coach, but there were so few of us, we actually ended up standing down the side with the Pompey supporters. I think they must have thought no-one had turned up from Southend at all!

That same season we went back on 30th January 1982 and drew 0-0. This time we stood on the open terrace in the corner and received the usual Pompey welcome! .. Not a pleasant experience .. and it was freezing as well. We'd had a snowy couple of months and this was our first game for about 4 weeks, IIRC.

Next visit was our best performance I saw. A 1-1 draw under Webby on 14th December 1991. A few 'zoners might recall this, who went along. We had a minibus and stopped in Kingston on the way home at a pub that had a Saturday evening strip show!

Final visit was the 4-2 defeat on 12th August 1995, which I don't remember a huge amount about.

Of course, there's also this match, which I didn't go to :-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01aoftNrw1k

Great to see Alan Moody, there!

 

[RobM]

Fred Dineage with bad hair and astonishing glasses!

 

[Up the Shrimpers]

The 82/83 game at Portsmouth is one of the best atmospheres I have ever heard in this country and certainly the best in Div 3.
Not one of Cawston's best games was it!

 

[LBBlue]

My first Southend game at Fratton Park was the League Cup tie in August 1973. A 2-1 defeat Spud Taylor scored his last goal for us before he joined Palace in October. I think Ron Davies and Peter Marinello were playing for Portsmouth - but I got rid of my Rothmans last time I moved.

Don't think it is a great record for anyone.

I think I may have been at the League cup tie in 81 - letting in 4 rings a bell.

The 0-0 in the league in 1982 was the first of 6 successive draws at the end of a 12 match unbeaten run. 4 of those draws were 0-0. The game was only memorable for how dire it was. I haven't been back since - until Saturday.

 

[LBBlue]

Of course, there's also this match, which I didn't go to :-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01aoftNrw1k

Great to see Alan Moody, there!

Alan Rogers taking a corner for Portsmouth and Peter Ellis to join us later with a young Neil Webb and Alan Knight who only played 683 games in goal for them.

Pennyfather, May, Greaves, Nelson and Owers were all pretty young - 22 and under?.
Dave Smith's penultimate game in charge.

 

[Ex-Member1]

I recall a 2-2 draw with the legendary Jim Dickenson(?) playing for Pompey. Centuries ago. Hell of a match as I remember.

 

[LBBlue]

I recall a 2-2 draw with the legendary Jim Dickenson(?) playing for Pompey. Centuries ago. Hell of a match as I remember.

28 August 1961 - 764 games he played for them and 48 for England.

 

[Suffolk Shrimper In Dorset]

Ugh, just watched that video from '83, was there with the few other Shrimpers watching Pompey celebrate, painful. First visit was the 0-0 bore in '82, took one pic of that which i attach, taken on a cheap old camera so poor quality but thought might be of interest. Looking forward to next week, I have plenty of reasons to loathe Pompey and love it when we beat them

 

[Suffolk Shrimper In Dorset]

ok, another 'treat' for you (insert smiley face), pasted below id the bit in my Roots To The 92 book re Fratton Park.

12/92 - FRATTON PARK, Portsmouth 0 Southend United 0, Division Three, Saturday 30 January 1982

Funds had got a bit low towards the end of the previous term but I now had a part-time job in the Student Union bar and was feeling sufficiently flush to afford another away day, this time ‘just’ along the south coast at Portsmouth.

Have you ever tried the journey by train from Plymouth to Pompey? On the map it looks easy enough, by train it’s a different matter. Five hours if you are lucky, and the Hereford experience had scarred me sufficiently to be cautious, so it was another early start.

Fratton Park back in 1982 was a traditional looking ground and not too much has changed since. The locals were passionate yet unfriendly, and everything about the place seemed to say ‘get out quick’. Then add to the mix that it was a dark January day, a biting northerly wind blowing on another open terrace, a thoroughly forgettable 0-0 draw, the not unrealistic feeling that there were folk waiting outside to jump at you from the shadows, and the prospect of a long lonely train trip back. I looked on it as some kind of character building test and wondered whether the Duke of Edinburgh Award might take it up as an activity.

Pompey has never been a place I have warmed to. I can’t fault the loyalty and support they get from their fans, and love him or loathe him the fanaticism shown by John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood is quite remarkable. I once watched the man dance on top of the roofs of the executive boxes at Ipswich for virtually the whole game, the police unable to get him off due to fears that the roof would collapse. It was true entertainment Keystone Cops style. But the harshness of my first experience of Fratton Park has stayed with me and I was not overly enthusiastic when, on retiring to the Isle of Wight for an 18 year period, Dad became a Pompey regular. Ipswich aside, a Southend win against Pompey is now something I enjoy more than most when it happens.

My last visit to Fratton Park was indeed one of those occasions. We’ve all had times when getting to a game has been a bit fraught – well, 26 November 2013 fell in to that bracket. Things had started so smoothly too: drive to Shenfield, train in to London for a meeting which I made sure ended early, back to Shenfield, change clothes in the car trying to stay out of sight of any weirdo manning the security cameras, and I was on the M25 by 3.00 pm. Loads of time for a leisurely drive and a pint before the game, watch the match, then a short hop to Chichester to stay in a comfy hotel (as long as I could get Lenny Henry out of the bed) before a meeting there the next day.

It all started to go wrong on the A3 – the Hindhead Tunnel is a great improvement on the bottle neck that traditionally used to hold up traffic for hours in that location before, but when an accident occurs in it everything comes to a grinding halt for a very long time. One hour to kick-off and I was still north of the thing, but eventually I turned off and, along with many others, played Wacky Races along some one-track roads to eventually get through and arrive at the ground at 8.15 pm. Pompey were already one-up, and listening to the locally biased commentary had made the journey even more agonising.

Then there was nowhere to park, so ultimately I drove to the main gate and here it was where my luck changed as I found a reasonable steward who took pity on me and let me in to park next to the team bus. A second result was getting in the ground – the ticket office was in the process of closing but outside another late running Shrimper had just arrived and had missed meeting his mate to hand him a free ticket, so he gave it to me. Togetherness is within the clan.

Inside, the place was buzzing. Pompey fans, unused to winning at the time, were making plenty of noise, but Shrimpers had travelled in numbers and, with Fratton Park now affording the luxury of an away end roof, the din being made was terrific. But then another set-back – one of our subs gets sent off for knocking the head off a Pompey player after only just entering the pitch, and with 15 minutes to go the odds were firmly against us. Now, we all know that the predictable thing about football is that it can be unpredictable, and on 76 minutes the ten men equalised. Jubilation turns in to delirium a few minutes later as Big Bad Barry Corr stoops to head home the winner. Lovely stuff.

 

[AndyT]

.... First visit was the 0-0 bore in '82, took one pic of that which i attach, taken on a cheap old camera so poor quality but thought might be of interest.... View attachment 5005

I was there with you standing where that pic was taken.

The side terrace opposite was where we stood for the 4-1 League Cup tie defeat earlier that season.

 

[AndyT]

The 0-0 in the league in 1982 was the first of 6 successive draws at the end of a 12 match unbeaten run. 4 of those draws were 0-0. The game was only memorable for how dire it was. I haven't been back since - until Saturday.

Yep, remember those games well.

In the middle of that run of six draws, I remember going to Swindon and Plymouth away in the space of four days and they were both 0-0!

 

[Mick]

My first Southend game at Fratton Park was the League Cup tie in August 1973. A 2-1 defeat Spud Taylor scored his last goal for us before he joined Palace in October. I think Ron Davies and Peter Marinello were playing for Portsmouth - but I got rid of my Rothmans last time I moved.

Mine too.

Not sure (and not going into loft to check) but I think as well as those two "big names", one ex-Blue and one future Blue - Bobby Kellard and Ken Foggo - may well have played.

 

[fatgrandad]

...

My first visit was a 4-1 defeat in the League Cup on 16th September 1981. We went down on the old Supreme supporters coach, but there were so few of us, we actually ended up standing down the side with the Pompey supporters. I think they must have thought no-one had turned up from Southend at all!

...

Of course, there's also this match, which I didn't go to :-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01aoftNrw1k

Great to see Alan Moody, there!

Andy T - I was there as well in 1981, hiding down the side amongst the home fans. I would probably have driven down in my rickety old Morris 1000 Traveller, with mushrooms growing along the slightly rotting wooden bits. I don't remember seeing any other Southend fans at the game, but then again like you I wasn't exactly advertising my presence. Not one of the great away days, and I have not felt the need to venture back to Fratton Park since.

Great to see that Youtube video, not seen that one before. A friend of mine's girlfriend used to think that Mervyn Cawston looked like an angel, but he doesn't appear to have been familiar with any form of cross on that day.

 

[Chairman Trigg]

Just the memory of the evening cup game ,where the Pompey demolition crew tried to smash their way through the barriers which had been put up to stop the North and South bank swap behind the West.Early 80s?

 

[E for B and Billy Best]

Just the memory of the evening cup game ,where the Pompey demolition crew tried to smash their way through the barriers which had been put up to stop the North and South bank swap behind the West.Early 80s?

I had made arrangements to meet a pal in the Spread at opening time. I thought there were a lot waiting outside and as I got near nearly every one of them had 'PFC Kick to Kill' tee shirts on. Time for Plan B, a quick phone call and head to the Nelson.

 

[AndyT]

Just the memory of the evening cup game ,where the Pompey demolition crew tried to smash their way through the barriers which had been put up to stop the North and South bank swap behind the West.Early 80s?

I had made arrangements to meet a pal in the Spread at opening time. I thought there were a lot waiting outside and as I got near nearly every one of them had 'PFC Kick to Kill' tee shirts on. Time for Plan B, a quick phone call and head to the Nelson.

Think that was the 1st leg of the League Cup game in 81-82, but I might be wrong.

The 6.57 certainly had a pop at the North Bank that night, IIRC.

By the way, there's a good doc somewhere on youtube about the 6.57 crew. Think it's called 'fit boy' or something like that.

There was also trouble with them in the league game that season at RH. Might have been the season after, when we beat them 4-0. They didn't like that!

 

[AndyT]

By the way, there's a good doc somewhere on youtube about the 6.57 crew. Think it's called 'fit boy' or something like that.

'Fit Boy' was a drama. My error. This is the documentary :-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBRWroagiFI

 

[rigsby]

The 82/83 game at Portsmouth is one of the best atmospheres I have ever heard in this country and certainly the best in Div 3.
Not one of Cawston's best games was it!

I was at that game and I remember most of us were delighted that Cawston had real trouble catching the ball. None of us would have fancied the walk down that alley if we had actually somehow won.

 

[rigsby]

Fred Dineage with bad hair and astonishing glasses!

Fred still looks the same years later. Does anyone remember Gerald Sinstadt being arrested for a lewd act in a sleazy gay sex cinema in London

 

[Billy Bests boot laces]

Think that was the 1st leg of the League Cup game in 81-82, but I might be wrong.

The 6.57 certainly had a pop at the North Bank that night, IIRC.

By the way, there's a good doc somewhere on youtube about the 6.57 crew. Think it's called 'fit boy' or something like that.

There was also trouble with them in the league game that season at RH. Might have been the season after, when we beat them 4-0. They didn't like that!

We played them at home a week ( ? ) after they beat us 4-1 in League Cup. John Welham, Harry Roberts ( both RIP ) & me, seemed to be the only Blues fans in The Spread, which was heaving with Pompey. They had a firm of 'heavies' in the North Bank, who at half time decided to walk across the pitch to join their hordes in the South Bank.
Surprise, surprise, they were allowed to do this uninterrupted. Before the end they came through the West Stand & kicked down the big gates separating West to North Bank, and surged into the North Bank.
By this time most North Bankers at the time had long departed.
We won 2-0.:happy: