Match Day Thread Pompey v Hartlepool

I'm back down south for Christmas, but there's no way I'm gonna waste a day of my holiday spending 3 hours to travel to Portsmouth and 3 hours back to watch another shocking result.

 

Nah, I work in a school in Birmingham so it's the Christmas hols. I was considering going to Fratton, but the time I'm down south (avec my family) is so limited and going to a Portsmouth game literally takes a day including travel (and none of my family are football fans) that I'm not prepared to waste a day I could spend with them to see a dull 0-0 draw and boring performance in which we wouldn't look like scoring in 900 minutes let alone 90.

 

I came on here and looked Wooperts, but decided not to bother posting on one of the dullest games where there seemed to be nothing to say. Sorry.

 

And I was in the land of nod Woops - as you will know 3pm at Fratton is 2am here and I had been out to lunch and retired somewhat earlier than usual - I even slept through a bat that had flown into my study window and smashed it to smithereens it must have been on the lash the same as me - a little holiday dosh going to the soon arriving glaziers - I shall interrogate the high command as to how she managed to sleep through it

 

What a way to treat over 17,000 fans. How do other teams manage to find a way to score against these teams but Pompey can't!! I think we are deluding oursleves if we think this team is capable of automatic promotion. Either that or PC is incapable of inspiring the team. I think he is basically an OK manager but as they say it is courses for horses and maybe this is the wrong course for him as he seems much more suited to clubs with a lower profile than Pompey. You know my thoughts, I would love the club to get Brian McDermott, the ex-Reading manager as I think he is very astute and would result in a double promotion. In the summer the likes of Doyle and Roberts are gone as they are in their mid 30s and their legs are not going to take PFC out of Division 1, assuming it is won. Even if it isn't they need replacing.

 

Sadly this league does this to folks. It is mediocre at best most of the time and even when your side wins a game well the football on show isn't exactly inspiring is it. I think there are a lot of people who think the way PompeyLapras expressed above. It takes a big chunk of your day up even if you live in the same City your team play in. It costs £22 to get into Argyle on the day which for league 4 essentially is bleddy expensive. Once you get into this league it is often quite difficult to get out again or to bounce. It becomes more and more frustrating and sometimes the interest falls away after a while whilst disappointment continues. To be fair there are a few clubs who are better supported than the others with your's being the biggest. The support has held up quite well considering and for you to get 17000+ is decent by anyones standards in this league. Our's averages about half that over a season and we are considered a well supported club. You know your club will get it right eventually but it's fecking hard waiting while it happens. I think it takes a certain kind of Manager and a certain kind of player to get out of this crap. Not superstars. Just the right attitude and mindset. Getting that blend is the hard part and the certain kind of Manager is the sort who knows who they are. The rest is just old fashioned luck.

 

'Lesser' teams score against them because they are in a game of football. Looking at the stats it suggests that they 'parked the bus' and got the 0-0 draw they came for.

 

Nay. I did consider going to Villa away in the FA Cup, but tbh, after my position being usurped, I don't have a great deal of love for the club.

But yes, Woopert, they have lost loads of players: Quinn, Imotong, etc. But I think a lot of teams in the WPL have as well. The problem is the FA, in all their infinite wisdom, have essentially created a two-tier league structure with the WSL and the WPL. The gulf between the two is immense, and way more than the gulf between the Championship and the PL but it's along those lines. Essentially WSL clubs receive so much more funding than WPL clubs, from next year it'll be over 60k for a WSL club while a WPL club gets I believe around 7k per year. In addition, WSL clubs recieve TV broadcast money and that is not the case for the WPL.

As a result, the WSL are light years ahead of the WPL in terms of the amount of money each club has, but that isn't to say there aren't any good players in the WPL. The problem is, any WPL player who does well, a WSL club can just come in and wave a wodge of cash or the bright lights of the WSL and accumulate any player they wish. The most galling thing is that there's no transfer fee paid nor is there any form of compensation like there is in men's football for players who are non-contracted. So you'll see the likes of Quinn or whoever, being hoovered up by WSL clubs and there's not a damn thing WPL clubs can do about it nor will they get anything in return, regardless of how long a player's been with the club.

Portsmouth, and West Brom have been a victim of their own success tbh. By winning the league, their players would have come to the attention of WSL clubs and so a lot of them have now left. That's why I was against the play-offs from the start. Anyone with any sense could see that the consequences for the losing club would be pretty dire: players would leave, the club would struggle and would never be close to be promoted again. Funnily enough, I have been proven right. I don't think it's coincidence that both West Brom and Pompey have struggled after losing into the play-offs. While Portsmouth Ladies were a bastion of stability for a long time, with the same players representing the side, it's now become the case where the line-up is anything but stable. There's only a few first team players from even a couple of years back: Hillier, Kempson and Sievwright while all the rest I've never heard of or were youth players. I suspect Sarah Kempson will be the next off to a WSL club soon and I'm surprised she hasn't gone already..

Tbh, I've begun to dislike women's football as much as men's football. The way it is going is just making it a pale imitation of the men's game, with all of the same mistakes being made. It's become greed and money driven, elitist, where success can be bought, where clubs have a selfish, self-centred attitude to others. Furthermore, loads and loads of foreign players are coming to the WSL (at least the top division) and while I don't mind a few foreign players, it'll probably end up just being the same as men's football in time, with English players being a rare sight. I would say there isn't the egos in women's football, but I think Kelly Smith has proven that I am sadly mistake in that regard. Manchester City winning the WSL last season pretty much encapsulates everything that's wrong with women's football. Frankly, I think it's probably worse than men's football nowadays even.

**** women's football.

(And with regards to the original topic, thanks for not calling me a fair-weather fan!)

 

It is a shame that the Portsmouth message-board is declining in popularity as I have always enjoyed my occasional forays in the arena and have found the opinions and views expressed to generally be well informed obviously with the exception of the "colourful" Singing Blue3 who is rather akin to that knight with no arms and legs in the Monty Python film.

It is strange how a brave experiment at Portsmouth with supporters have a say in the running of the club is working to some extent with 17,000 attendances but producing home performances which bely a squad lacking in confidence and already consigned to chasing a play-off place at best. By all accounts the quality of football is not good but it seems odd that the current incumbent seems incapable of getting a team who are favourites each season out of a league they should be dominating. My experience of following Saints in League Once was a salutary experience where you can witness some pretty hopeless teams like Dagenham and Redbridge even at that level. I sometimes wonder if the National League actually has a better quality of football than League Two and, also being a Winchester City supporter has demonstrated that football can be exciting at that tier.

I was speaking to a painter on my current site and he is a Pompey fan and not too happy with the football produced by Paul Cook. It is quite interesting to hear at first hand that the aspirations of the supporters still remain high and there is also a recognition that the club is spectacularly underachieving. Pompey seem to have been in the Second division for years now and the impression is that the period at this level is now exceeding the Premier League experience. Portsmouth feel like one of those clubs like Swindon or Barnsley where it is hard to believe they once regularly entertained the likes of Chelsea and Man Utd. As a Saints fan, it is amusing to see you predicament but the effect is rather like a pantomime joke that is well-worn and maybe it is time for Portsmouth to ditch Cook. It was funny to see Portsmouth hit rock bottom for most Saints fans but with football in the south coast at an all time high, isn't it about time that Portsmouth joined the party. I would like Pompey to rekindle the rivalry with Saints and miss the derby matches, It is all well beating Bournemouth but most Saints fans probably have them down as their second team. I would much rather Pompey climbed up the table so that we could enjoy a "real" derby.

I found it strange that Michael Apperton has not returned to football at a higher level and his tenure at Portsmouth certainly saw him being touted as one of the most talented of the younger generation of English managers. I wonder how Pompey fans would feel about his coming back? There is certainly a sense that he had unfinished business.