After a promising pre-season and re-built squad we begin the story with a home game against next weeks opponents; Tottenham Hotspur and duly get beat courtesy of an Andy Griffin own goal (though Mido celebrated it like mad) and then Defoe finishing us off in the second half. The quote of the day coming out of the south stand as "If we can't beat shit teams like Spurs at home then we're going down!"
Away at West Brom followed, ensuing a chant of "If it weren't for us then you'd be down." after we get beat 2-1 even though we probably deserved more as neither team played well. That was followed up with our first point of the season against ten man Aston Villa after Richard Hughes put through his own net (after initially crediting the goal to Kevin "Scummer" Phillips) although luckily for us Lua Lua came up with a beauty of an equaliser to salvage something from the game. After this game I proceeded to advertise:
"Are your team struggling to score goals? Come down to Fratton Park and we'll do the job for you!"
An away game at Manchester City followed and it was one of those really annoying games where you take the lead, only to blow it via stupid mistakes and that was one game I won't want to remember. Another away game at Everton followed which was widely percieved as "Home Win" by footballing "experts" Charlie Nicholas and John Gregory. So it seemed fitting for us to go to our Premiership bogey team and win via a Duncan Ferguson OG to give the blue scousers a taste of their own medicine.
A return to Fratton Park saw us draw against Birmingham City despite them going down to 10 men like their Brummie counterparts in the previous home game following a blatant lunge by Nicky Butt in the box. Five points at this stage was sending out some negative feelings around Pompey and those feelings got worse when we went to Bolton and despite not playing badly we were beat by an offside goal by Kevin Nolan despite how spectacular it looked.
Frustrations continued to grow as yet another home draw against Newcastle United kept us in the bottom section of the Premiership and if it wasn't for former Pompey hitman Yakubu outjumping 3 foot tall Giannis Skopeletis we would have taken three points from Boro too. And if those missed chances weren't bad enough then how about the 2-1 home defeat to Charlton? A game we dominated for 45 minutes only to be crushed in the second half.
I began dreading the eight hour trip to Sunderland realising that in such bad form the last thing I want is to lose to such a bad side and for 45 minutes it looked that way as Dean Whitehead gave the Wearsiders a 1-0 lead at half time. Fast forward another hour and Pompey fans come away from the Stadium of Light holding one finger up on one hand and four up on the other as a second half demolition of another red and white striped team gave us four goals, a total of ten points and renewed hope for the next game...
...That is subsequently awarded by some Pompey fans as "Worst Portsmouth Performance Ever" as a passionless, drab affair concludes with a 2-0 defeat to little Wigan Athletic. Fans had had enough, the majority wanted Alain Perrin out and in the subsequent away game at Anfield these chants were made even clearer as Liverpool win 3-0 at a canter despite a dubious penalty (That Crouch missed thank god) and a cross-come-shot that even Djibril Cisse admitted was pure fluke.
Despite Milan Mandaric saying that Monsieur Perrin would have more games to prove his worth he was dismissed later that week just as yours truly begins his new job as editor of Fratton Faithful.
Things didn't get any better either under Joe Jordan as a bad tempered match against Chelsea see a respectable, but predictable 2-0 defeat followed by a 3-0 defeat at Old Trafford and this is where this chapter of the tale ends. Fifteen games. Ten Points and currently sitting 18th in the Premier League.
Now a new chapter has begun in what could be a best selling novel if you were to include all of the off-field shenanigans in it (even if it was to be found in the "Fantasy" section in the Library). Let us hope there is a happy ending (or at least a home win!) by the time the last page of this book is turned.