Well guys, it is now several days since the cup final – you know me, I cannot spend enough time on this site but with so much travelling involved for the cup final, and time needed to be spent with various family members when I have been stationary I have not really had a chance to get online to do much really.
We all went into the game knowing that we WERE winners, whatever happened on the day, and lets face it we can came away from this with the mentality very much in place – ‘proud’ would be an understatement as to how I know I felt at the end of the game…
Congratulations to Chelski on winning the cup, and completing their first ever double success – all in all, I do not think we can really have too many arguments as the better team on the day did win…I have had a lot of people say to me ‘at least you did not get hammered’, which is true, although I do not think it would have mattered to me if we had. Really the fact that we did, in spite of the numerous escapes we had, come so close leaves me a little with the ‘if only’ thoughts.
I am not going to ‘slag off’ Kevin-Prince Boateng for his penalty miss, granted it was a shocker and it is something that I keep seeing over and over in my head – I still have not watched any highlights or anything since the game, but my recollection of it was Petr Cech had long since dived before he even struck it so all he had to do was literally roll it in the other corner? Which is, of course, easier said than done. My feeling is that he had ‘probably’ decided to go the way Cech went, yet having seen him dive so early he tried, or at least tried to change his mind and got it horrible wrong. They say, with a penalty, that you make up your mind and stick to it, but hey ho…
Like I say though the real winners on the day were us, the Pompey fans!
In all honesty the atmosphere was not the same as the semi final – that, for me, probably had something to do with the ticketing allocation, season ticket holders getting 2 each for the semi made a lot of difference methinks. Do not get me wrong, it was a fine atmosphere it just seemed to ‘fragment’ a lot quicker than you would have thought.
Yet we proved our love and passion for this club, right?
I bet there have not been many sets of fans in the past, and I suspect there will not be many – if any – in the future that will stay for as long after the final whistle as we did! Not many of us left before Chelski were presented with the trophy, and we sang our support for the club throughout this whole process, both when our players were in front of us, and John Terry was lifting aloft the trophy to the Pompey Chimes.
This made me immensely proud, and honoured, to be a Pompey fan – and the amount of people, from various clubs, that have commented on this to me, in person, and via other means has been incredible.
I was, no doubt about it, gutted that we lost – and even up to the dying seconds, after Frank Lampard’s missed penalty, I retained that ‘it was meant to be’ thought, as the bar, or post, saved us so many times, when it was not Jamo, that you could not help but think lady luck was on our side on the day but in the end it proved a bridge too far.
This gutted feeling aside I found myself really emotional, and welled up but controlled this emotion, during the mass huddle, which must have involved some 30 players and staff, and then the parade in front of us – this was the moment when it really sank in that that was a ‘goodbye salute’ from most of them. In fact I have been overcome with emotion again just thinking of this.
Pompey and proud, this is what I, and everyone of us were on the day and should be for each and every day that comes along in the future – we CAN continue to hold our heads high and fight on for this club that will NEVER die!
PLAY UP POMPEY!
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