The games in question are Wigan, Burnley, Birmingham, Sunderland, Stoke, Hull, Blackburn and Wolves. Adult tickets have been cut to £20 in the Milton End, and £30 in the wings of the upper North Stand.

It’s just the kind of gesture the fans need to see at the moment, but more importantly it improves the chances of the ground being full for these important games, as people continue to struggle in the recession. To the season ticket holders who are already complaining, I can only say, STOP BEING SO SHORT SIGHTED! The whole club needs to pull together at the moment and this is a positive step towards that happening. Obviously the biggest step will be a great performance and win against Bolton, but back to the ticket prices. You can’t actually buy a season ticket in the Milton End, and the price you paid guarantees your usual seat. But also remember, when you by something, including a season ticket, there is no guarantee that a better deal won’t come along further down the line. Simple as that. The club should not be criticised for this positive move. Play up Pompey!

 There were few changes to the Championship winning team, Portsmouth’s books actually revealing a credit balance on transfers of £16,400! The Champions started the season well enough with a 3-1 win at Newcastle United, but were up and down after that. There was a defeat at home to Stanley Matthews’ Blackpool, interspersed with a 5-1 win at Middlesbrough and a 7-0 thrashing of Everton at Fratton Park. On 1st October league leaders Wolves visited Fratton Park, and for the first and only time. more than 50,000 spectators crammed into the ground for a league game. A 1-1 draw left Pompey in seventh, but only three points behind Wolves. The title race was to remain tight for the rest of the season.

Large scale merchandising was still a thing of the future in those days and in the 15th October Football Mail, Pompey Championship ties were advertised at Landports Drapery (which later became Allders). Portsmouth didn’t have a club shop until the late 1960s and the only items visible in club colours amongst the crowd tended to be scarves and rosettes. But one supporter of the time, Cyril Lucas, recalls that the absence of large scale commercialism aded to the sense of occasion on match day. ‘When I stood on the north terrace opposite the tunnel, I couldn’t wait until the players came up the tunnel. I was just so full of pride when I saw those royal blue shirts and that star and crescent badge. That shirt was only worn by the eleven players – no-one else wore it, unlike the replica shirts you see these days – and you wouldn’t see it again until the next match. It was Pompey’s pride and glory and a huge cheer went up when the players ran out.’

Even the players had to supplement their wages! Eleven of them commissioned photographers to take individual and team photos, which were then sold privately to supporters and through newspapers.

Pompey continued to be up and down, and a feature of the season was that the team was far more unsettled than in the previous campaign. More players were used, and more than one found themselves making their solitary Pompey appearance as they covered for injuries.

Portsmouth were drawn against Third Division (South) Norwich City in the FA Cup third round and underperformed in the Fratton Park tie, drawing 1-1. In another example of how similar football fans are both then and now, consider this letter to the Football mail in the aftermath of the game. ‘I think this was a disgusting show for a first division team. Almost 20 years at the Park and I have never seen anything like it…If Pompey want to make a show in the Cup or league they have to go out and buy a couple of forwards in my opinion. I reckon Pompey are the meanest club of all divisions for paying out, and may I finish up, If Pompey do not win on Thursday (the replay), my old woman will be having more of my company on Saturday afternoons in the future.’ As I said, nothing changes!

Going into March, four points separated the top seven with Pompey in fourth behind Manchester United, Liverpool, and Sunderland. Portsmouth continued to stutter, losing 2-1 at Derby with Jimmy Scoular sent off. This was a huge incident in the days when it was extremely difficult to even receive a booking, and the issue hung over Pompey for weeks before the relevant FA committee was due to meet to discuss punishment. But, it seemed to be the title that nobody wanted to win as other teams also dropped points.

Going into the crucial game against leaders Manchester United at Old Trafford on 15th April, four points separated the top six, with Pompey lying third, a point behind the leaders. Reid and Froggatt scored in the last six minutes for a priceless 2-0 win. Second placed Sunderland lost at home to Manchester City. Pompey were now in pole position with three games to go, and could become the first club to retain the Championship since Arsenal’s hat-trick of titles was completed in 1935.

Pompey won their next game against Liverpool, and results that day showed that one win from two was now required to retain the Championship. The next game was at Highbury, never a happy hunting ground. Pompey had never won there at the time, and slumped to a 2-0 defeat. But the maths still held and a win in the final match at home to Aston Villa would be enough, barring an improbable 20 goal haul by Wolves in their last match.

This was the era of goal average (goals scored divided by goals conceded), and Pompey’s was vastly superior. From the moment they scored after 20 seconds of the game at Fratton Park, the result was never in doubt and they ran out 5-1 winners. The Championship was retained. The next team to achieve the feat was Manchester United’s Busby Babes in 1957. Portsmouth had proved themselves the best team in the country.

Despite this, the press failed to recognise the achievement. Alex James of the Daily Express, a distinguished former Arsenal striker, reserved his choice of team of the year for Second Division Champions Tottenham Hotspur. ‘Don’t think I’m knocking Pompey,’ he said, ‘it takes a wonderful side to win the league championship two years running.’ He evidently considered it more wonderful to win the Second Division once than to win the First twice!

That reminds me, I must catch up on the latest installment of ‘Pompeygate’.

If I allow this dreaming to take the form of hope rather than expectation, then I can see a long term project allowing the club to be run in the right way for the first time in over half a century, the team gradually climbing the league and challenging for major honours, and continuously improving attendances and facilities. In reality, the future may lie somewhere between this and the current state of affairs, but it is dreams that make football what it is, even in the modern world.

How lucky we would be to witness a team rivalling the double Championship winning side of 1948-50. It seems appropriate to look back at this era and try and get a flavour of what it was like, starting with the 1948/49 campaign. Most of this information is taken from Colin Farmery’s excellent book, ‘Champions of England’.

Portsmouth’s FA Cup fifth round tie against Derby County at Fratton Park in February 1949 saw the club’s record attendance of 51,385. During this post war period, attendances at football matches had rocketed, and this was illustrated in January 1948 when 81,962 turned up at Maine Road to watch Manchester United v Arsenal, Old Tafford being closed for renovation after war time bomb damage. But attendances did also fluctuate, Pompey’s home league gates generally covering the 20, 30, and 40 thousand brackets in a single season. It was necessary at the time to arrive at Fratton Park by 1pm if you wanted to get a good vantage point for the game, but people were queueing soon after breakfast on this particular day, and at 2pm the gates were shut.

Cyril Lucas from Gosport was working as a builder at the time and went to the match, which Pompey won 2-1, Ike Clarke scoring the winner.  ’Afterwards it was pandemonium.’, he recalls. ‘All the crowd wanted to see Ike and I remember he couldn’t come out to see anyone because he was eating a sandwich! Eventually, because there were so many people milling around outside he had to leave the ground by a back entrance. When Pompey won you were elated and we would walk back to the ferry replaying the game in our minds. However, if Pompey lost I was depressed until Wednesday.’

Doesn’t sound much different to today, apart from the 50,000 plus-crowd and the league title at the end of the season! But in those days, it was the FA Cup that really fired up the fans. Pompey reached the semi finals, and were drawn against second division Leicester City, avoiding the ‘big boys’ of Wolves and Manchester United, who contested the other semi final. It was going to be a formality. Pompey were surely on the way to the double. They lost 3-1 at Highbury however, proving that cup upsets are nothing new. The defeat meant that supporterPeter Downton had to eat a bit of humble pie. ‘A friend of mine in London was an Arsenal supporter and he came down for the Jubilee match (the year before). To our delight he was devastated by the result: he spent most of the match with his mouth wide open. Unfortunately he managed get a ticket to the semi final and so had his revenge. My friend’s smile returned and I was forced to drown my sorrows at Yates’ Winebar in the Strand’, he recalled.

One of the best wins of the season was a sun-baked Easter Saturday mauling of Wolves at Fratton Park. Pompey won 5-0 and, coming so soon after their 5-0 win at Newcastle (five headed goals!) ten days earlier, were now Champions-elect. The title was sealed a week later at Bolton, and the promotion party at Fratton Park was against Huddersfield the following week. Apart from this, the game was noteable for the fact that due to a head injury, Jimmy Dickinson missed his first ever match. It may seem strange that the attendance was only 37,042 after the record figure against Derby in the cup, accompanied by other Cup attendances in the high 40 thousands, but the average Fratton Park attendance that season was 37,058. Perhaps it is not so unrealistic to suggest that the imminent new regime could restore the club to its former glories?

The players that claimed Championship medals that season was Ernie Butler, Phil Rookes, Albert Ferrier, Jimmy Dickinson, Reg Flewin, Jimmy Scoular, Peter Harris, Bert Barlow, Duggie Reid, Len Phillips, and Jack Froggatt. Ike Clarke also received special dispensation from the Football League to receive a medal, despite missing the qualifying mark of 25 games, by one match. Despite the differences between then and now (the global nature of the game, players’ wages, tactics and equipment), we are still playing the same game after all. It would be nice to think that Portsmouth could again build a Championship winning side, but I would settle for the club being set on solid foundations for now. If a rich foreign owner is currently the only way to achieve this, I am all for it.

A couple of weeks ago, I featured a classic match against Oxford United from 1984. This was part of the first season of three consecutive pushes for promotion to the first division by Alan Ball’s ‘dogs of war’ in the mid 1980s. Deservedly, we got there at the third time of asking. But, there was another notorious match against Oxford United wasn’t there?

Ironically, Jim Smith was our manager this time, having been the Oxford boss in ‘84. It was a midweek away fixure in November, and its significance didn’t become clear until the end of the season. But, even as the result came in, the game was instantly memorable; you would always remember where you were! That’s because it finished 5-5! And not only because it finished 5-5. Portsmouth were 5-3 up going into injury time. Talk about throwing it away! It is the game that must have flashed into every Pompey fan’s mind the moment end of season playoff heartbreak was confirmed. Those two dropped points would have done it for us. We would have been up. As it turned out, it was another ten years before we finally made it with only the slightest sniff, in one single season, in all that time. It is easy now to underestimate the frustration and injustice I felt. It was the same feeling brought about by the FA Cup semi final defeat to Liverpool the previous season. That was washed away when we finally won the FA Cup again last year. Similarly, our Premier League status is now firmly established, but that game haunted me. Granted, I was only young and attached too much significance to these things, but I am willing to bet more than one adult fan was haunted by it too, a victim of success starvation.

The team were playing well that season, the previous season’s FA Cup success acting as a catalyst. But I think I’m right in recalling that, in a way, it meandered along for a while with Pompey sitting in 9th place or so, always looking threatening, but nevertheless just sitting there. No it was the spectacular run in of twelve wins from the last fourteen that made that season so memorable, along with Guy Whittingham’s successful strike partnership with Paul Walsh, and record breaking 42 league goal haul. 42 league goals!

Every fan will have their favaourite memories of that season, and there were many. The point when I knew it might really be on was a fantastic 2-0 (Whittingham, 2) midweek away win at Tranmere, which I had the privilege to be at. West Ham lost the same night (at Oxford I think) and the sense that we could do it was palpable. We had to come from a hell of a long way behind though! But the wins kept coming. A draw at Millwall was a slight setback, but a good result nonetheless. It was the 4-1 defeat to Sunderland at Roker Park in the penultimate game that really did for us. we had actually gone top of the table the previous week with a win at home to Wolves (Newcastle had games in hand), but everything went wrong at Sunderland. Walsh was sent off early on, and it didn’t get any better. I even let off an air horn as Don Goodman stepped up to take a penalty, but he slotted it home anyway! That win kept them up. Even on the last day, when we needed a favour from Cambridge against West Ham, the Fratton End went delirious over a false Cambridge goal report, but it wasn’t to be. Leicester City did the rest in the play-offs.

My mind returned to Oxford, but I think I’m right in saying that this was the era when positions were decided on goals scored rather than goal difference. Two more over the course of the season would have done it for us. A 4-3 defeat at Sunderland for example. But so, of course, would an extra point. Two defeats against West Ham didn’t help, but I could never get that Oxford game out of my head. Here it is.