Gary Fitchet lashes the ball clear as saints’ goal comes under pressure from Portsmouth. Roy Bougourd is the referee and Alan Biley is the Portsmouth player with the periodical Bowie hairdo. (0579421)
IT’S cup final day at Wembley and win or lose for the fans of Cardiff City and Portsmouth it will be one to remember. Last week Rob Batiste revisited the time Guernsey had the better of the Welsh half of today’s finalists. Today it is the turn of Pompey, who have never fallen to the Sarnians.
WE MAY have turned over Cardiff, but Portsmouth never seemed to have trouble putting Guernsey in its place when it comes to football.
Today’s cup finalists have played twice against local opposition in the past 30-odd years and on both occasions enjoyed themselves in front of goal. Most recently Pompey played at Blanche Pierre Lane to christen the club’s new floodlights.
The date was Sunday 20 November 1983 and the visitors,. Managed by Bobby Campbell and including World Cup winner Alan Ball, hit five without reply past Saints’ rookie keeper and Southampton trialist Jamie Greening.
Portsmouth arrived lying seventh in the old second division which was a darn side better than when an island squad caught them on a rare good day in the 1970s.
Mad Pompey fan Geoff Le Lacheur remembers the game well, for it came in a period when there was about as much chance of Guernsey winning 10 straight Murattis than Portsmouth appearing in the FA Cup final, let alone winning the thing.
Pompey were pretty dire during this cash-strapped period when Ian St John was their manager.
‘It was the season that they went down to the old third division,’ recalls the Pompey fan nicknamed ‘Piper’ after his fanaticism for the then blues’ hero, Norman Piper.
‘I remember it being a Wednesday afternoon and the groundsman was annoyed they played the game because it poured down.’
Guernsey expected to play Pompey’s second side at Fratton Park, so were quite taken aback when their first team ran down the tunnel.
If the idea was to boost morale and giving their strikers some confidence, the plan worked.
The pros won 9-0 and big centre forward Richard Reynolds hit six.
‘They nearly postponed it because it was so wet,’ recalled then Centrals defender and Muratti hopeful Martin Vennard.
Jim Cooley, who was later to become the island boss, was in the Guernsey side, too, but recalls it as something of a farce.
‘We had about 15 subs and kept putting people on and pulling them off.’
Within a decade Portsmouth were at Blanche Pierre Lane with Ball in their midfield and scoring the opening goal.
Alan Rogers made it 2-0, Nicky Morgan got a third, Kevin Dillon the fourth and Neil Webb, who went on to make a real name for himself with Nottingham Forest, Manchester United and England, the fifth.
Article posted on 17th May, 2008 - 9.29am
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