Crucial games that kept us on the title path
Seasons like Pompey’s 2023-24 come along very rarely and if you can’t savour them to the full th en what’s the point of being a fan? And I think we all have savoured it to the full, and will continue to do so until 24-25 explodes into action and gives us a new focus.
If I think back to its crucial moments of 23-24, the crossroads at which Pompey had to be careful to go straight on, I can pinpoint a few.
I remember us being
1-0 down at home to Peterborough on the first Saturday in September, this after two wins and three draws from our first five league games and a League Cup loss on pens, also versus Posh, and thinking ‘Hmmm, this could be another of those seasons.’
We trailed for 18 minutes but within five minutes scored twice to lead 2-1–and never really looked back.
Top spot was ours a couple of weeks later, just in time for the magnificent statue of Gentleman Jim to be unveiled. He of course has remained in the same spot since – and so have the team.
When we trailed 4-0 late on to Blackpool, a significant proportion of the fans still inside the ground started chanting about how they didn’t give an F about the score because Pompey were going up – and I maintain to this day that message must have lifted the players, players who proceeded to win their next four games, including one of the most vital of the season – that masterful beating of Bolton, inspired by Kusini Yengi, who deserved his late tap-in that night so richly.
I remember following from home as we eked out a scrappy 1-0 at Fleetwood in mid-january following a run of five points from six games – an unremarkable win but one of the most important.
I will never forget the elation of Callum Lang’s burst from his own half to set up Lane to lash home a third ten-man Pompey goal against Northampton, nor the similar feeling when Saydee brilliantly tucked away the winner v Oxford, nor Owen Moxon’s piledriver to dent Derby’s desire to catch us up. Was that really only a few weeks ago?
It feels like half a season ago.