2010/11 season v Coventry in the league at Fratton, Friday 8th – Wednesday 13th April 2011.
With Sunday, Monday and most of Tuesday to fill before the Coventry game I must, to be honest, admit that I was wishing the time away – and not so much for the football to arrive…
Friday – Wednesday away is becoming too long to be away. I miss home, the missus and being able to work properly. The work aspect becomes increasingly taxing as it is far from ideal trying to work for most the day from a netbook as these are tiny! As much as I would prefer not to, as it means carrying less, I think I will have to start taking my laptop again for games spread over a longer period of time next season, although that is by the by!
On another cracking day, weather wise, Sunday saw me spent a large chunk of this painting my Aunties fence in the back garden – got to earn my keep somehow! Monday was spent working and then it was off for a BBQ at my cousin Louise’s in the Evening. Tuesday was again spent working before an early evening chilli, delicious it was, then it was off to the game, via the pub this time.
Darren picked me up at about 5.45pm and we would then meet, and pick up, Chixy and Rob (sea juicer) at Rob’s before setting off for the Rutland. Ken stayed with us for a while before heading off with a rare guest appearance from Pompeytim and his sister. Good times, and good laugh, were had especially at a slip of the tongue from Rob when he ended up saying he did a rather private, and intimate thing, when reading Tim’s posts! Meaning to say that he just wades in a calls people that certain thing in question and does not actually do it when reading post – God I hope not…
Come 7.30pm it was decided we needed to move on so on to the game we went, I wish I had not bothered!
No Gill with Tony (UKTony), I assume work prevent this, so another Tim, NinjaTim, took her seat and sat with us on the night. Rather optimistically he had a fiver on Hermann to score first in a 4-1 win, odds of 250/1 were those odds for a reason. A more ‘conservative’ 3-1 win with Halford scoring first was Tony’s bet, something like 125/1 I think? The 3-0 spanking was another typical end of season feeling type game to be honest and the sooner it ended the better – if the season is going to end in such a way the sooner this also ends the better too…
Like I say, the majority of the 1st half in particular, it was a typical end of season game and was like watching a training game with several – and to be fair not just our players – simply looking as though they were ‘going through the motions’ of what they would have considered a meaningless end of season game? I did not think that Coventry were that ‘special’ although I do think that defeat was, all in all, what we warranted in many ways.
I will say though that there were a few, despite my earlier thoughts, that you could visibly see were hurrying play along right until the death even at 3-0 down, so that was encouraging to see, although once again for the ones that were doing this throughout it was players at less than half pace throughout that would bring this down. Again though we saw some poor officiating, although for me even if this might have made life harder it would not have really altered the fact we would have lost.
Having got back to Cosham safe and sound, dropped literally to the door by Darren – after the usual football chat etc. on the way back – around 10:15pm a little time was spent with my cousin Matt before he turned in, I input the evenings results and did likewise in preparation for my journey back home the following morning.
A small amount of work was done on the Wednesday morning before I set off for my 10:39 Portsmouth – Cardiff Central train, which I of course picked up at Cosham. Changes at Westbury and Exeter St Davids ran as planned so I was back into Dawlish at 14:27 as scheduled, the weather was not so nice now though with the rain arriving just in time for me to get soaked when I got off the train, but I was back home and met by Trina on her day off so all was good really.
Next up would be Cardiff, I knew that if we played like we had in the previous couple of games we would get spanked as their hunger to secure 2nd place and a place in the premier league would see this. We are out of form, they are in it although our away record this season is good so a win would not really surprise me!
The one thing that I do know is, even though I would not make this game, I wanted to see much more hunger and desire from the whole team not just some of them – lets end the season like we mean it and with some pride and not just let it fizzle out, bring on The Blue Birds…
PLAY UP POMPEY!
