The latest ‘story of the season’ account is of Pompey’s league cup humiliation at Fratton against Barnet on Tuesday 9th August 2011, written by PompeyJake – read on for more.
For me, Tuesday was the first game I’d seen at Pompey since 2nd May. As a first year as a season ticket holder, it would be fair to say I’d become addicted to the Fratton feeling and for 3 months, there was nothing to fuel that. I really missed going down to Fratton and whenever I drove past it, I always felt that feeling. That feeling which you really can’t describe. A mixture of happiness, excitement of the upcoming season and a feeling of belonging. Suffice to say I had been looking forward to the Barnet game for a long time. This was because I hadn’t seen our new team play together and also because, for the first time, there was a fair group of us going down when it’s normally just me and my Season Ticket Holder mate. One of the guys was a Tottenham fan at heart and for almost two years I’d kept on reminding him of a certain magical day out at Wembley. I have a feeling he’ll be reminding me about something for a long time now.
We met mid afternoon and had some beers whilst knocking a footy around in my garden. Jokingly we were saying we should save our energy as we might be needed tonight. The weather was good so we had a BBQ, some more beers, then hopped on the train down to Fratton. Whilst on the train we predicted the score. We all said a Pompey win by varying margins. I personally though it would 3-0 as I had heard the Barnet defence were short on numbers.
It became apparent on arrival at Fratton and walking down to the game that not many people were there at all. The stadium was just over a fifth full with about 200 Barnet fans there. The Barnet fans out sung us the entire game and rightly so. They had something to cheer about. The game reminded me of a string of 4 maybe 5 home games in about March and April last season, most notably against Boro, where we just did not appear interested. We didn’t take risks, we didn’t get the ball down, we showed no ambition. All we did was repeatedly hoof the ball long in the naïve hope that something would happen. It says a lot when Dave Kitson was our best player on the pitch!
The only positive for me was that Steve Cotterill has now got some transfer targets as the Barnet strikers played our full strength back four and absolutely dominated them. I think there were 4 one on ones which Henderson did well to stop. I’m not lying when I say it could easily have been 2 or 3 nil to Barnet. Pompey were rightly booed off.
A long wait on Fratton station and an all stopper train home meant we didn’t get back until about 11:15. Hours for the Tottenham fan to return all the abuse I given him for almost 2 years. Some Barnet fans on our train were understandably over the moon with the result and agreed that we had played well below par. According to them though it was the best they’d ever seen their team play though.
The feeling of excitement and hope the new season had carried was quickly lost. Our full strength team had been dominated by a League Two team. I am wondering what I’ve let myself in for by renewing now. We need players and a change of attitude. This is an early wake up call in my eyes.
Written by PompeyJake.
The views within this article are the views of the individual who wrote and submitted this piece, sometimes solely theirs. They are not necessarily shared by the Vital Pompey Site Journalists.
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