Portsmouth hero David Norris makes Southampton transfer admission
David Norris is still remembered very fondly by Portsmouth fans, but it could all have been different beforehand.
Despite spending just a solitary season at Fratton Park – enforced by the club due to severe financial repercussions if they did not clear their entire first-team squad in the summer of 2012 – Norris is still well regarded.
This is due in no small part to his famous injury-time volley to secure an unlikely draw at St. Mary’s against Southampton – a club he reveals he could have joined as a Plymouth Argyle player back in the summer of 2007.
Speaking exclusively to Pompey News, the 43-year-old revealed: “I had been at Plymouth for five years, I had given them everything, and players were leaving. There didn’t seem to be enough ambition.
“Ian Holloway convinced me to stay a little longer, but he shot off and I ended up leaving for Ipswich in the January – my last Plymouth game was actually at Fratton Park against Portsmouth in the FA Cup.
“The summer before was when Southampton were interested – I was open to leaving. Holloway was pushing the club to give me a better contract – my wage at Ipswich was going to be life-changing in comparison, and they were in and around the Championship top six at the time. So it was like sliding doors, I stayed at Plymouth and then by the time the window had opened again, it was just a case of going to Ipswich.”
David Norris becomes Portsmouth cult hero
David Norris can be filed alongside the likes of Niko Kranjcar, Kanu and Pedro Mendes in that they could go an entire lifetime spent in Portsmouth without having to buy another drink.
His association with the Blues came at a much more turbulent and difficult era, four or five years on from the highest of Pompey’s highs, lifting the FA Cup and welcoming AC Milan to Fratton Park in what would now be the Europa League.
The goal against Southampton engraves Lincolnshire local Norris’ name in the folklore of a city, a feat which the man himself sits back and finds remarkable given his short stint on the South Coast – though he later made it clear he did always want to stay back in 2012.
It signifies the power of football, but many also remember the impact he had on the pitch during the rest of that suffocated, administration-stricken 2011-12 campaign, in which he scored eight times from midfield in 42 league games.
Pompey are now only just back into the second tier alongside Norris’ longest former employers Plymouth – he backs Ipswich in the Premier League, and a survival battle against Southampton could well be on the cards.
In other Portsmouth news, this is why Jordan Williams could be a superb signing.
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