Izale McLeod's early goal was enough to defeat League Two Aldershot tonight in a scrappy game of football at the Recreation Ground.
The former Barnet striker's goal came after seven minutes when he was put through on goal with a nice through ball from Luke Rodgers. He then calmly dinked the ball over Shots keeper Jamie Young.
There were more trialists on show as Glen Morris, Ago Sallaj, Keiron Djlali, Josh Thompson and Jack Compton were all given the chance to impress Michael Appleton. Ben Hardinge of The Pompey Pages has written a concise profile piece on each trialist here, if you wish to know more about these guys.
Mustapha Dumbuya was absent due to a back niggle but Liam Lawrence and Tal Ben-Haim surprisingly featured. Dave Kitson watched the match from the stands.
Ben-Haim took a hell of a lot of abuse from the fans in the terraces behind the goal. Many nasty songs were sung about him as he was asked in a not-so-kind way to leave our club and was booed every time he had the ball. The abuse got so loud that even the Aldershot fans joined in!
There wasn't much action in a dull first half apart from a few neat moves from Pompey after taking the lead. However, Glen Morris in the Pompey goal did fumble a couple of easy catches that had the defence rushing to clear their lines.
The second half didn't see much of an improvement to the match due to niggly fouls stopping the game, Rodgers constantly being caught offside and the inevitable substitutions later on.
The closest the game had to a second goal came when a poor back pass from Ben-Haim saw Craig Reid have a free shot on goal, only for Morris to make a good block.
Again, most of the entertainment came from the Pompey fans who directed their abuse at Southampton for the second half. I think there might have been a record for the amount of men (and a baseball bat) who "went to kill a Scummer" tonight!
Events on the pitch slowed and Pompey managed to see off the threat from Dean Holdsworth's side keep a clean sheet and record their first victory of pre-season.
It wasn't a great game and the new faces were all much of a muchness in the short time we had to judge them. Saying that, Glen Morris did not cover himself in glory as his mistakes could have been punished on another day. Then again, he did produce a couple of good saves to preserve his clean sheet.
This wasn't one for the purists but if this match is to be remembered it will be for the fantastic support from the Pompey fans who outnumbered their home counterparts (1,053 of ours compared to 1,041 of theirs) and sang through the entire game, including afterwards too.
It wouldn't surprise me if there were more fans at tonight's match than what there will be at Fratton Park on Saturday when Pompey take on Bolton.