View: Portsmouth v Tottenham, 2003 – my first trip to Fratton Park
Portsmouth became a bug that reached me in 2003. Boxing Day, to be precise – now approaching 21 years ago.
I can’t publicly say it makes me feel old, or at least around certain people – my dad took me, just like he had done with my older brothers some time earlier – I can only imagine how ancient he feels.
He used to go home and away on the ‘Pompey Special’ [The News, 22 November 2016] – a chartered train (far less posh than it sounds), which used to trundle all over the country, swinging from side to side packed with Blues fans heading on jaunts to places like Newcastle, Manchester and Cardiff.
Seven-year-old me, adorned with temporary Pompey badge tattoos on my face in the protege ilk of John ‘Portsmouth Football Club’ Westwood, may not have had the pleasure of the flea-bitten Pompey Special service – just a 10-minute Cosham to Fratton slam-door train – but the Park was packed, and three points were en route.
We were still in our first-ever season in the Premier League under Harry Redknapp, facing a Tottenham side he would much later ditch us to manage. I was tucked away in the upper tier of the South Stand, towards the bustling Fratton End of which I would eventually become a part of many times over.
Portsmouth host free-kick frenzy in my first match
We are a proud city; an island city; a micro-nation with a microclimate. I’ve not lived in Portsmouth now for almost 10 years, but the identity never leaves you. The candy stick packet tattoos have turned into a city skyline across my back; the Spurs game that day became the 2008 FA Cup final win at Wembley.
James Ward-Prowse, a Pompey local who played a year or two up for my old Sunday side, is now Southampton through and through. He is, but he’s not. Regardless, he is the first player I’ve seen to make the art of the free-kick look so easy since – yes, David Beckham – but also Patrik Berger.
This Czech star, signed from Liverpool when we earned promotion, was this long-haired assassin who glided around the pitch, and his left foot is cast in bronze as one of the ‘Barclaysmen’ trailblazers.
That fateful first day against Tottenham, he netted two superb direct free-kicks at the Fratton End in the space of 16 second-half minutes to bring us a beautiful bit of festive cheer. A 2-0 win. Even the Portsmouth microclimate was bitterly cold that afternoon, but it was nothing a nice hot Berger couldn’t fix.
I remember asking my dad on the way home if Berger did that every game. He laughed to himself and said ‘yes’, as if he hadn’t sent one out of the stadium just five days earlier in a 3-0 derby defeat by Southampton.
As it happens, it was Teddy Sheringham’s name emblazoned on the back of the shirt I received a day earlier for Christmas. That’s what makes me feel old. Haaland this, Mbappe that. I watched – albeit in the twilight years – Sheringham, Tim Sherwood, Gus Poyet and Ledley King, all that afternoon.
I try in hindsight not to take those Premier League years for granted. It got better before it got worse, but the majority of my teenage years at Fratton would be spent watching the delights of an administration-battered, League Two Blues outfit losing to the Colchester Uniteds and Barnets of this world. Those who make the English game what it is.
These days, having worked in football for a number of years, I rarely get to the Park. Now I’m based in the North East – a popular ‘Pompey Special’ destination throughout the 1980s – and lived in Australia, it’s a rare occurrence. In fact, I’ve been there more times working for the opposition club (three) in the past three years than in the home end (one, v Wigan Athletic in April this year – we lifted the League One trophy that day, talk about a glory hunt).
It’s a good job when you leave Pompey, Pompey never leaves you. Cheers, Patrik.
In other Portsmouth news, David Norris discusses recent admissions from the club on two transfer targets.
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