The Monday Column... on Thursday

As I was driving up north last Saturday morning, I really didn’t know whether I was going to pay a visit to the Riverside or not. I’ve never been to Middlesbrough before and it would have been nice to see a new ground, but I also had the chance to have a few beers on the first evening of my holiday with a mate that evening, while preparing for a nice day’s salmon fishing on the River Tyne the following day.

I thought about it constantly. So much so that, on the M6 (strange way to go to the Riverside you might think, but I live in the Midlands and you can always cut across the A69 from Carlisle to the North East) I drove through a set of nasty roadworks that had speed cameras located every few hundred yards.

I was day-dreaming and not paying much attention to the road. Why? Because I was thinking about Azar Karadas.

No! Not in that way, you perverted bunch. I don’t defend with my backside pointing uphill! I’ll bet most of you have thought about him at some stage since the start of the season!! I was in fact thinking about when he’d get off the scoresheet for the first time (and I really don’t think he ever will).

Anyway, while these thoughts were going through my head, envisaging scenarios where he might just get a lucky ricochet off his big, fat arse from a Robert corner that bounces into the net, my mind vaguely registered that they were odd-looking speed cameras I was driving past.

They were not your usual speed camera jobbies with the bulbous great square heads and bright yellow casing that flash if you go past them 5mph or so faster than the limit. No, they were small and mounted on lamppost-like structures.

So I did the usual thing and slowed down to 40mph for each camera, just to be safe. Then I sped up, slowing down for the next camera, and so on. But it was odd – there were no lines on the road to denote how quickly I was travelling. My sixth sense was working overtime while my mind decided that if Karadas ever DOES get off the scoresheet, it would probably be from the penalty spot.

Then, about two miles into the roadworks, the bombshell hit. These were average speed cameras. They take your plate number and time how long it takes you to get from one point to another. If you average over 45 in a 40mph zone, which I had probably been doing, then they do you (I have to be careful here as I don’t want to incriminate myself in case there are any bacon-smelling boys-in-blue reading this).

Bollocks. Karadas, not only is your lack of goals possibly going to contribute to PFC’s possible relegation at the end of this season, but you could have cost me a £60 fine and three points on my licence.

“Not fair!” will come the cry from all level-headed Pompey fans who realise that if I do get done, it will be my fault, not Karasasasasas’s (sorry that’s the Songo’o’o’o’o’o’o’o stutter creeping in there). “You should have been paying attention to your driving!” they will cry.

And right they are, too. But that’s not going to stop me. Because if Karadas had knocked in a couple of goals this season, I wouldn’t have been wondering about why he’s failed to notch yet. And if I hadn’t been wondering that, I would have realised I’d been driving through some average speed cameras. And if I’d realised THAT, then I might not be getting another three points on my licence in a couple of weeks!

All this put me in such a foul mood that I decided I wouldn’t go to the match. No, I’d get pissed instead and try and watch it on the telly in a pub reminiscent of the Slaughtered Lamb in the film ‘American Werewolf In London’. Then I’d try and sort myself a salmon from the river.

So a big well done all 336 of you who were there, you did your club proud, even if you might now decide to call me a Judas for turning my back on Pompey in a hostile part of the world when they were playing just an hour or so down the road from the hotel I was staying in.

Yes yes yes. I should have been there. But it wasn’t just the prospect of watching Karad-arse strut his skilful stuff at the Riverside that made my mind up for me. It was the more serious fact that Reggie Perrin has gone on record twice this season as saying we are going for a draw and, along with this, our no.1 aim is to keep a clean sheet.

So, reading between the lines, he sets out for 0-0 boredraws in all our away games.

I have a real problem with this. There is nothing wrong with looking to get clean sheets, but when your objective is to get a 0-0, why on earth should fans travel 800-odd miles in a day, paying for petrol and expensive service station snacks along with the cost of a ticket (or more)? Isn’t football about a bit more than that? Entertainment, for instance? He might be the prime example of a Judas scummer but at least Harry’s teams went out there to entertain and give us our money’s worth. AND I WANT TO BE ENTERTAINED! For God’s sake, O’Neill’s goal last Saturday was our first for 312 minutes, or something.

One thing in the week that did make me laugh was an article on The News website, thepompeypages.co.uk. In this feature, our Norwegian hitman shared his concerns about not getting on the scoresheet yet this season.

I’m sure he is a very nice bloke. And I have nothing against him and will never boo a Pompey player, I will always support his efforts on the pitch. But it did make me laugh when I read in that article that Karadas does hold one record this season. In a recent reserve game he became the first player ever to shoot a ball clean OUT of St. Mary’s stadium. Oh how the local Scum must have been laughing. And didn’t he do the same thing at Fratton against Villa, where his first shot for 5,897,403,222 minutes (slight exaggeration) ballooned into someone’s back garden behind the Milton End? That’s a unique double!

So it’s the Addicks this weekend. Bring them on. They’re due a muck-up down the line somewhere. And, according to Gary O’Neill, we’re due to give someone a pasting sooner or later. Just don’t go betting on Karadas to get the first goal. Or any goal, come to that. I think I’d rather put money on him getting fewer goals in a season than Gianluca Fester did for us in the 2002/2003 season.