Toast returns for the new season, with a fresh loaf! Even fresher than last week.
Drugs test
On clearing up the mess Al Fresco left in the Toast office we found one little piece of information that he left out of his ‘What’s happening at Fratton Park’ article.
UEFA have insisted that a much larger facility is available for drug testing after games and the club have had to close one of the hospitality rooms to meet with this request. Not sure which room it is as we cannot decipher his writing.
Toast crept around the Park today and builders are everywhere. Roofs are going on the Milton End toilets; the Control Box has been demolished and is just beginning to be rebuilt. We suggest you all watch for wet paint at the first game. Mind you the pitch looks good after its overhaul.
Memo to FA
Toast has before had to criticise the Football Association and I’m afraid we are at it again. At the Community Shield game the announcer on the pitch read the history of the clubs verbatim from the FA’s website and it is wrong!
He rightly started by saying United won the first Shield in 1908 beating QPR after a replay but then he said that Portsmouth had won their only previous Charity Shield game in 1939 beating Wolves 4-1!!
The poor old FA really need to check the records of their own competitions. There was no Charity Shield in 1939 because of the war. Pompey did beat Wolves 4-1 but that was in the competition known as the FA Challenge Cup. Pompey have only played in one shield game prior to 2008 and that was in 1949 when they drew 1-1 with Wolves and shared the Trophy.
It is your competition so please get it right!!
Memo to French FA
The French Football Association has just decided to keep manager Raymond Domenech despite a pitiful showing at Euro 2008.
He decided not to use Lassana Diarra in the engine room of his team but to persevere with the ageing Claude Makelele as well as making numerous other baffling selection decisions.
Toast would suggest The French FA get a season ticket for Fratton Park this season for their manager and scouts. You have the prospect of seeing two great defenders playing in tandem in Sylvain Distin and Younes Kaboul, a position you desperately need to overhaul following the enforced retirement of Lilian Thuram.
In midfield you can also keep an eye on the above mentioned Diarra but Toast suggests the player who may be about to launch a major career is Arnold Mvuemba.
Memo to Ed
We all read your recent article about meeting at the Torch before the Community Shield game at Wembley. So dutifully we all set off from various parts of Southern England as instructed by our Editor to reach the Torch well before kick-off.
There was sneakay, sea-juicer, UKTony, Pompey4me, Dave.Jolley81, Chix, NinjaTim, eastneydave and if there were others I apologise. All the families and friends were there in support BUT no pompeyrug!!
Rug of course may have arrived after kick off to buy his round but the Toast team had long since departed. It was good to meet up with everybody and we must have more get-togethers over the season and someone can bring a cardboard cut of the Ed.
Chix and eastneydave were most impressed by the group of fans near us singing the David Kemp songs, great memories eh.
Farewell Wembley
As we bid farewell to Wembley for the time being Toast felt it had to congratulate the Metropolitan Police and Transport for London on the way the queues are handled after games and the good nature of the officers involved.
It all made the wait more ‘enjoyable’ and seem shorter than it really was. Not all about our Wembley trips went smoothly but we feel this one deserves a pat on the back
Where are they now?
A new Toast feature, where we try to track down former stars from the past with your help.
First up is local boy Peter Ellis. Born in Portsmouth and educated at Southern Grammar School, Peter joined the club as an apprentice in 1972. He will no doubt ever forget his league debut on the final day of the 1973/74 season, a season which started with so much hope and ended in abject failure.
The opponents that day were Nottingham Forest and Peter’s task was to mark the irrepressible Duncan McKenzie! Well Peter stuck at his task manfully but two late McKenzie goals left Pompey with nothing. Peter played 246 games for Pompey with just one goal. at home to Brentford in 1982. He also scored a league cup goal against Newport County at Somerton Park exactly 31 years ago.
Peter left Pompey for Southend United before playing for Havant locally. Well toast remembers seeing Peter around the Winter Road area around that time and Pompey4me has tracked him down. Over to Simon –
‘I know Peter Ellis is now in the fire service and is serving at Southsea fire station, Blue watch. I trained on the same recruit course as him before I left the Fire service to go self employed 3 years ago. A fitter man you will not find. Imagine me when on our first day we all had to stand and introduce ourselves and he said I’m Peter Ellis who used to play for Pompey! I apologised for all the expletives my Dad used to yell at him!’
Nice one Simon – anymore anybody?
Sheikh Lomana
Just in case you missed it Lomana LuaLua was on the move again recently. After an injury ravaged season at Greek giants Olympiakos he has moved to Qatar. Al Arabi have offered him a one year deal and the chance to resurrect his career.
Good luck Lomana and we will never forget 23rd April 2005!
Farewell Pedro
Toast echoes every other Pompey fan by wishing Pedro Mendes well at Glasgow Rangers but we know Harry did not want him to go.
In another Toast exclusive we caught up with him at the Roko Club in Hilsea where he and Peter Crouch were handing out trophies. Harry said ‘I knew nothing about it; (Peter) Storrie did the deal, the whole thing. I have four players sat on the bench who we have had offers for and they don’t want to go!’
We assume they are David Nugent, Sean Davis, Djimi Traore and either Patrick Duffy or Noe Paramount. Didn’t Duffy star in Dallas?
See you next week.
PUP
Written by eastneydave.
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.
