Play Up Pompey!
FA Cup Final 17th May 2008
CARDIFF CITY V PORTSMOUTH
Whooooh ! What can I say. Pompey in the FA Cup final and after 69 years of waiting. Not me personally, even I'm not that old. What it must mean to those that can remember ? What it means to any Pompey fan come to that.
Stand Up if you hate the Scum !
So there was once again me, Dan, Sproolzie (IOW), Pete (IOM), Darren (IOM), Lee (IOM) and this time Sam and Dave from across the road.
Pete had done the business with respect to tickets this time, managing to aquire five together which me Pete, Dan, Sam and Dave took. With Sproolzie, Lee and Darren taking another three elsewhere.
This time, as there were no 'planned' engineering works on SW Trains and with the need to reduce financial outlay, we that is us from the Portsmouth end decided to travel early on the saturday morning. The IOM group had decided to travel down to Gatwick Friday evening and stay in an Hotel at Gatwick as trying to get down Saturday was near impossible as well as overly expensive.
Once again Me and Dan met Sproolzie at Portsmouth Harbour station but this time for an early morning train to Waterloo. No problems this time, though as you would expect the train was pretty much full.
The plan was to meet Dave and Sam at Waterloo, coz they had gone somewhere else first and then procede to the Torch near Wembley where we were to meet up with the others.
Darren, Dan, Sproolzie & Lee outside the Torch.
We arrived at the Torch at about 11:30 with all having gone to plan and quickly found Pet and co who had firmly established themselves inside th pub with some Pompey fans from Gibralta that they had met up with at Gatwick.
And so, this being a somwhat special occasion, the party began in earnest, whoever he is, though I had been at it on the train, sort of limbering up if you like.
Pete & Darren with an abandoned flag.
All except me at the Torch.
Unhappy or just beginning to accept it
or just plain too much to drink ?.
I think we left the pub at around 14:0 all being pretty eager to get in there and party so to speak. Hang on was that not what we had been doing for the last 2 or 3 hours ?
So we staggerd down to the stadium, though sadly I did not take any pictures, probably forgot I had a camera at this point.
Me and Dan's tickets.
This time there were no splitting up, at least for five of us, that is Me, Pete, Dan Sam and Dave. It was good of the other three not to be fussed about where they sat, not that any of us would I suppose.
So Me, Dan, Pete Sam and Dave were in Block 120, Row 36, Seats 236 & 240. A lot closer to the action this time, towards the rear of the first tier. Pretty good seats, cheers Pete.
It's all pretty much photos from here with just a little at the end.
Yeeeeeeeeeeeh!
Both teams line up. Yeeeeeeeeeeeh!
Just to be fair, The Cardiff End. Well they did seem like nice people.
Yeeeeeeeeeeeh!
Oy! and Yeeeeeeeeeeeh!
Yeeeeeeeeeeeh!
Oh Yes! and finally for all them Pompey fans out there!
(and especially for those people from the other place just down the road and who we are always stnding up for)
17th May 2008
This was a better game than the semi I thought, maybe because of the atmosphere and almost certainly because Pompey WON. Now that last bit will take some time to sink in. Again it has to be said all credit to Cardiff and their supporters and again to Kanu.
The question is what now ? Europe ? Championship ? I think a lot of the so called fans will be dissapointed next season, because Pompey have done fantastically well this year and to do half as well next season would be just great.
And so we headed off to do the Olympic Way shuffle where we parted company with Dave and Sam. It took a while but we eventually found Darren, Lee and Sproolzie then we went off on the tube looking for somewhere to have a few more wets, finally ending up in a pub just off Oxford Street. I think it was called the Hog in The Pound in South Molton St, anyway whatever, as it turns out when faced with a drink I think my party mode switched off. Maybe it had just been all too much.
Pompey have won the FA Cup !!! I am so glad that I or rather we and especially Pete & Dan were all there to see it. That of course is not that I did not enjoy the company of Sprolzie, Darren and Lee, just that me & Pete go way back and well, Dan is my boy, a new generation of Pompey fan.
We're all going to Wembley . . . . . again !
Chris Walker
