Appalling, and they aren't true Saints or football fans - just a bunch of attention seeking numpties.
on theother hand, it could have been done by some twisted Pompey guy to stir some ****. Either way done by a person with a warped ****ed up head
Sensible posts. This is where rivalry goes well over the top. It's between football clubs, not cities, not people. Even when they are clearly idiots. The rivalry between Portsmouth and Southampton has gone far too far overboard. I'm personally no longer having any part of it. If I stop recognising it that's one less. I suggest everyone decides to do the same. This has got to stop.
I don't want to take this away from the disgusting act, but who the hell are you TSS to suggest that everyone decides to stop having Pompey as their rivals? This act that is being discussed is hideous but is about the act of mindless stupidity that should be punished fully (I like the ways that Ides suggested for a start), but just because you have decided you want no further part in a club rivalry, it doesn't mean we all should. One mindless act by one or two dickheads shouldn't tarnish us all. A better suggestion would be that about half a dozen of us go down there in our saints shirts and clean the memorial up.
I dont think going down there in saints shirts to clean is is a wise idea. The sicko that did this need to be caught tho
Could someone explain to me when Pompey became the focus of all our football rivalry? As I said in my earlier post, this hatred didn't exist in my father's day, and when I started watching Saints in the 60's, we didn't sing songs about Portsmouth: our most bitter rivals were probably the London clubs, Chelsea particularly, and Leeds. This is a fairly recent development and I genuinely would like to know when and how it came about.
A police graphologist can probably narrow down the search quite considerably using the handwriting on display. I suspect that they'll be looking for involuntary droolers who were kicked out of school around about the age of 10.
Exactly Chilco. I wasn't aware of it when I was a kid, and I went a couple of times to Fratton Park, when Saints were playing away. A surprising number of Saints fans did regularly that in those days. The attitude that passes for rivalry between the cities these days is stupid, pathetic and childish. It influences the behaviour of responsible adults who should know better, and leads to idiots who think its fine to perform acts of violence on each other and property. On the question of when and how it developed, there's the tired excuse of strike breakers, but we're talking about action that occurred a decade or so back from even the 1960's. It's as if people decided to resurrect something back in the 1970s-80s, and these days look for reasons to perpetuate this idiotic stance that the two cities have between them. The utter stupidity is that it extends way beyond football into everyday life. Here's just one recent example I've come across. Only a couple of weeks ago a friend of mine was talking about requiring a front pipe for the exhaust on his fairly rare motorcycle. Later that day I checked through ebay for him and found an excellent example at a breakers in Portsmouth. His reaction to the news was that he was reluctant to go down there. When I innocently suggested that the 40 mile round trip was a bit of a dampener, he said... Oh no, that's fine. I don't like the idea of that pipe coming from there or being in that place. I mean, how pathetic can you get..? This is a normally intelligent bloke who is not even a sports fan, let alone football, and that attitude has filtered to him. That sort of thing goes way beyond healthy rivalry.
It certainly existed when I started going in the 1970s. When we got relegated in 74 I remember quite a few people saying "oh well, at least we'll get the derbies with pompey back." But actually, I remember a local historian telling me about frequent brawls taking place between young men of the two ports at local fairs, on high days and holidays, long before association football ever came into being. Maybe there was a hiatus following WWII, but I'm pretty sure a fairly intense rivalry did exist long before your father's day. I'm all for sustaining the current rivalry, because 90% of people know where to draw the line. I don't think we need to be singing about them at every home game though. As for defacing a war memorial, it's pathetic but I suspect it's just a case of a few kids doing something stupid. I doubt the people who did it are any older than 12.
Watched MOTD from yesterday and the Spurs and Arsenal fans only seemed to be seperated by about 4 seats width and line of stewards. Rivalry is one thing, mindless hatred another.
I find it difficult to understand the logic behind such hatred. As I have said many a time before as a boy it was not unusual to go to both Saints and Pompey matches. This continued with a group of both supporters from the late 40's to well into the early 2000's. Yes that long....and yes when we were in trouble they contributed into the " bucket" as I did for them. Sadly it seems supporters for both clubs went through a phase of.....we are harder than you etc, and decided this was the way forward. It seems some want to resurrect those days but fail oh so miserably!! Desecrating a war memorial in the name of rivalry.....something as simple and stupid as that is more likely to unit fans in a common cause. I feel ashamed to be even remotely associated with it as a Saints fan!!!!
The rivalry will never stop and why should it, but as with most things there are people that take it too far.
Since I was a young lad, so late 70s, early 80's. It may not have been for you Chilco but it was for me.
Exactly, rivalry is only in a football sense. I really struggle to understand how people claiming to be football supporters think that because another person supports a different football team, it's an excuse to be vile, disrespectful, and quite frankly inhumane. I don't hate Portsmouth supporters, people from Portsmouth, and certainly not War heroes. I hate the fact that they support a team I dislike but that is purely football based, and people need to know where to draw the line. This is beyond far.
I'm talking about a football rivalry that I was brought up with and with all due respect to people like you and Chilco who are older then me and weren't brought up with it, why should you decide it shouldn't be a rivalry? I'm not on about a bloke moaning where a pipe goes, I'm in about a local football rivalry that I see as a good part of the game. There are always idiots that take it too far, but don't you dare class me in that. There are always people that spoil things, for example, nearly every week one or two saints fans get ****ty with each other when some people moan at others for leaving early. I have seriously seen it come close to blows several times. That's stupid, but it doesn't make us all stupid. I was brought up at a time when Pompey were my footballing rivals and I enjoy that. Pleas leave me to enjoy it without insisting that its idiotic or I shouldn't have that rivalry.
I've read this again TSS and I find it a little pompous and arrogant. I disagree with you and I'm allowed to.
Of course you are. Nobody said you weren't. I would just like to end the rivalry because it has gone way, way too far. As CF says, it isn't rivalry, it's personal hatred. Anyway, you don't. There is absolutely no need for a who-are-you reaction though. You have to appreciate that 99% of the people who I have as personal friends find football, and football watching, as a thuggish pastime at best. The cities rivalry just affirms their opinion, I'm afraid.
