So the fixture list has come out this morning and there are certain dates and games that you look for as a football fan. Opening day, when you play your rivals, who you play on the last day and the Christmas period games.
Pompey open up with a trip to the Riverside to play Middlesbrough. We traditionally do well up there. We play the Scum as the last game before Christmas at home – I’m very confident PC Plod will be distinctly unhappy with that. Christmas Eve falls on a Saturday this year so no games are being played on that day so Saturday 17th December will be a very big shopping day. Not exactly the day when you want Pompey and the Scum to face up with 3,000 odd Scummers flooding into Pompey. The last time the sides played each other in the home of the Royal Navy there were riots. Fratton Park is not an easy ground to police certainly considering Fratton Station is a good 10-15 walk away down Goldsmith Avenue.
Still that might just be the warm-up act for the police as the Met will have to deal with Millwall v Portsmouth on Boxing Day. Millwall and Pompey have been rivals since the hooliganism heydays of the 70s and 80s. They were known as two of the worst crews about and boy they liked that reputation. Getting them to play on Boxing Day when a lot of the old guard may well be able to go is not smart. Also the fact there are no trains on Boxing Day mean there is no easy way to get the visiting fans out of the capital as most will now be arriving by car. It just seems a bit dumb. Pompey v Scum just before Christmas and then Millwall v Pompey on Boxing Day. The fixture computer was clearly trying to get the local bobbies some overtime.
Pompey open and finish away from home as we’ll be celebrating our promotion and Championship in front of Steve McClaren and Nottingham Forest on the final day of the season (which is in April) at the City Ground.
This is the day when football fans start to really get up for next season but as a Pompey fan it is kinda hard. We still know nothing about our new owners and have something like nine or ten players under contract. Being a Portsmouth fan is like being addicted to caffeine. You try and ween yourself off and all you get is a horrible headache. I weened myself off caffeine last year and I also became detached from Portsmouth Football Club. Both moves have been extremely beneficial for my health. I’ve always said once the crooks leave then I’ll be back so it looks like the crooks have gone but we’ll see what CSI are like before I start taking the PFC drug full-time again…
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