A Lifetime of Pompey Part Tree | Vital Football

A Lifetime of Pompey Part Tree

khodgkins

Vital Youth Team
Sorry I have not supplied the next part to my adventure with Pompey I have been rather busy at work and went on holiday anyway I have a bit of a quiet time so here I go again

Division three first couple of seasons.
Memorable Players
Knightsy again
Bobby Doyle
Micky Tat
Rafferty
Alan Rogers
Chris Kamara

As I said previously I caught Pompey my blood had started to change and become a shade of blue. This season in Div 3 only went on to enhance what a special thing it is to support Pompey.
The only new player to start in Div 3 was Micky Tait who would become all-time Pompey great. Pompey had a great start to the season if not spectacular with four league wins and progress in the league cup; gates were on the up and even saw an 18k gate for the Oldham league cup match.
With my new found love of Pompey I decided to go to Plymouth away in the league cup, what a day I wanted to go, but none of my mates did so after asking around my sister tells me that a coach would be going from the Priory pub, I thought that would be great, So my sister got a ticket for me from one of her mates in the pub. I arrived on the morning all ready to go, right picture this me a heavy rock fan with long hair leather jacket and cut-off getting on a bus full of skinheads, remember I was only a seventeen year old short-arse, my first thought were I am going to die. I did receive some abuse, but soon finished when two good looking women boarded the coach whom I found out later were working girls. That day I polished off a half bottle of Pernod and was involved in a pitch invasion, on the way home someone lent on one of the windows and it fell out and to finish it all the coach stopped at scum pub into which 40 odd skinheads invaded.
The league cup provided Pompey’s greatest moment as a Pompey fan as they drew Liverpool away a game which I was not able to go to because I was skint as usual however around 15 thousand made the journey making up nearly half of the gate at Anfield unfortunately Pompey lost the game 4-1. The league was not going so well and Pompey were dumped unceremoniously out of the FA cup by Colchester, the defeat actually had a good side as Deacon dipped into his pocket to get in some players Billy Rafferty and Bobby Doyle joined the fray also a young upstart took over the goal keeping duties little did we realise he would become legend in football after playing some 686 matches for Pompey. This season also saw one of my favourite memories when Pompey entertained Exeter, a game where the referee was a complete Exeter fan in the first half and the became a Pompey fan in the second pretty much Pompey hardly had so much as a free kick in the first but then after the break all the decisions went for Pompey ending in a 5-0 thrashing of Exeter.
The following season was a bit of a dead loss the crowds were down and not really much happened with mid table obscurity, however there was one game I remember not for the game, but the journey to Fratton park from my house in Hayling Island, it was as I boarded the train at Havant to go to the Pompey vs Millwall match, back the first class carriages had a corridor alongside the compartments and I was making my way to the front of the train via one such corridor when to my shock a bunch of Millwall fans came through the door at the end of the corridor one of which was carrying a broom handle with a bloody great knife gaffer taped to the top of it, just as I was about to turn and leg it te door of one of the first class compartments opened and out poured a load police and arrested the Millwall fans, was I happy to see the Old bill or what.
 
The pigs saved your bacon then!

Glad to see this story continued, enjoyed reading this as I dare say others will too, look forward to the next instalment down thr line.