Pompey’s plight is actually aiding the battle to save the club on and off the field , writes journalist Neville Dalton, a Pompey fan of 45 years
One of the best things about adversity is that it heightens appreciation of the good times.
Remember how Pompey’s attendances started to tail off after half a dozen years as an established Premier League side, when the novelty of hosting the likes of Sunderland, Fulham and even Manchester City began to wear off?
Or how some people opted out of watching Pompey at Wembley in the Community Shield because they had already seen them there twice in the previous few months?
You could argue Pompey and their fans are now getting a cold dose of reality, witnessing two relegations in three seasons, and more significantly, the inexorable decline of our once-great club.
A few days ago the excellent sports journalist Ian Darke commented on Pompey’s exceptional 17,000+ crowd for their first home game back in the third tier of English football.
Given the relegations, the administrations, the points deductions and the ripping up of successive Pompey teams, they could be forgiven for giving up and staying away, he implied.
And of course in many parts of the country that would have happened long ago.
Ironically, as I replied to him on Twitter, it may well have happened at Fratton Park, too, if it was not for that very adversity outlined above.
If there’s one thing sure to trigger many fans’ boredom threshold it’s mediocrity or lack of change.
Yes, in those Premier League days, we continued to hit 20,000 for home games against the likes of Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea.
But for the visits of the lesser sides, crowd levels had started to fall into the 18,000s and even 17,000s – the same as turned up for the Bournemouth game on Saturday.
Dire football
Likewise, even back in the 1970s, Pompey’s long run in Division Two coincided with ever-diminishing average attendances.
Relegation followed in our days of dire football – and again, into Division Four.
And yet suddenly, the attendances grew.
Of course, Pompey’s relatively impressive performances in their two years in the basement had a lot to do with it, but those relegations had galvanised the fanbase, and brought back the crowds, almost as though they were trying to support the club back into the now-heady days of Division Two.
Famously, more than 23,000 packed into the Park for bottom-tier league matches against Aldershot and Bradford, 21,000 for Walsall and almost 20,000 for the game against Huddersfield Town in the same 1979/80 season.
And even last term, when the club struggled yet again on and off the pitch, crowds that had dropped to 12,000 and 14,000 in the initial months of the season suddenly leapt to 17,000 and 18,000 as the implications of another administration, another points loss and another relegation dawned.
So again now, as Pompey’s day-to-day struggle for their very survival is played out so publicly.
The defiance in the singing and atmosphere created at Fratton for the opening game – and evidently, even at pre-season away games – is redolent of the Pompey spirit that thrives in adversity.
Give us unchanging averageness and the interest will wane. Give us even a modicum of success – or a desperate struggle – and we’re galvanised into action.
The spirit of the club – if not the club itself – will never die.
And on the pitch, too, there are blessings to be counted among the waves of disillusionment.
Only Avram Grant’s defiant, everyone’s-against-us approach a couple of years back has come close to matching the spirit generated by current Pompey manager Michael Appleton.
Appy’s radar quickly honed in on the fans’ spirit at the club and the forgiving nature of a crowd thrilled more by endeavour than pure skill.
Dignity
Through impressive contacts, a forensic knowledge of squad players around the UK and man-management skills that persuaded every player in his charge to give his all and often surpass expectations, he created a squad that played and fought its way through the most unforgiving of seasons, achieving results that would have kept them in the division if it had not been for the points deduction.
Persuading the likes of Chris Maguire, Scott Allan and George Thorne, who will surely enjoy careers at a level beyond the Championship, to give their all for their short-term employers at Fratton was among Appleton’s many impressive achievements last season.
Staying with the club during this farce of a close-season, when “selling” the club to potential recruits must have been akin to flogging dodgy freezers to Eskimos, was beyond what any fan could have expected of a man whose talents must already be in great demand at such an early stage of his coaching career.
Maintaining his dignity in public as the would-be owners moved the goalposts, the Football League did its worst with the points deduction and the prospect of anybody being able to afford a new Pompey, shorn of every one of its senior players, diminished, was equally impressive.
And then, to call in those promises and put together a mini-squad in little more than 24 hours on the eve of Pompey’s crucial opening game of the league season spoke volumes for the respect he clearly already enjoys within the game.
Not to mention somehow persuading a bunch of kids to play their hearts out to limit Plymouth to a single-goal advantage for 80 minutes of their League Cup game a few days earlier.
Virtually every time Michael Appleton has been called upon to lead by example from his managerial position, he has delivered.
And Pompey fans, who may not have his football know-how, but are surely cut from the same chunk of granite, have responded.
For all the Portsmouth Supporters Trust’s valiant endeavours to raise the money and expertise to run the club, it looks a real possibility that Pompey might not see out the season.
Which would be a great pity. No, a terrible, terrible agony for the people of Portsmouth to endure.
But until and unless that situation arises, expect our fans to continue to bask in the positives that Appy and his crew have given us, and to use them to propel the club forwards in the teeth of uncompromising adversity.