Small Mercies

Last updated : 17 May 2010 By Jim Bonner

Neville Dalton is a journalist and a Portsmouth fan of more than 40 years.

If you had asked me before the season began whether I thought Pompey would be relegated, get to the FA Cup final and be close to extinction, I would have answered: yes, no and maybe (and if you don't believe me, take a look at what I wrote before the first ball was kicked on August 11).

Many would argue that season 2009/10 was for many reasons the worst in Pompey's history.

Had they gone out of business, the claim would have been unarguable. And yes, I fear there is still a danger of that as the administrators try to find someone willing to bear the chronic debt and spare a few coppers to invest in the club.

But so far they haven't - and that alone makes it a season of relief.

Add to that the little matter of the bonus FA Cup adventure, against so many odds, and the season just past doesn't look quite so grim after all.

What's that? Relegation?

Oh yes. There is no doubt about it, to give up Pompey's Premier League status after working so hard to attain it - and even harder to retain it for seven seasons - is extremely disappointing.

Yet, judging by the attendances at many home matches this season, long before we were actually relegated, a lot of people aren't going to miss the visits of Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea. OK, Wigan, Birmingham and Wolves.

They certainly aren't going to miss a lot of the cynical commercialism that goes with it.

And of course, now we are relegated, it's easy to say we never liked that nasty old elite league anyway.

The fact is, we had begun to make ourselves at home in the top echelons of the English league structure and - up until this season - had begun to command respect among many, becoming a lot of fans' "second team".

Unfortunately, the club's dishonesty and financial incompetence has put paid to a lot of that goodwill. But even allowing for these embarrassing and worrying times, Portsmouth Football Club, its players, management and particularly its fans, have made their mark on one of Europe's top - and richest - leagues.

Relegation is intrinsically a bad thing, although - not least for the reasons alluded to above, and several more that will hopefully become clear over time - not all of it is bad.

The saving grace for me (apart from the fact that at the time of writing there is still a club to talk about) is that I've had a whole season to get used to the idea.

I was certain before we kicked off the new season that we would be going down, and I knew we would be struggling for players.

What I did not know is that our ragtag bunch of free-transfers, loanees, survivors from the good times and mix of bizarre signings would pull together so impressively, perform on occasion admirably and give me - and hopefully many of you - a season of surprises, including a decent helping of that element I had been banging on about for so long: entertainment.

That's not to say our team did not deserve to finish where it did.

I certainly saw worse teams visit Fratton Park - quite a few, as it happens.

But I can also recall time and again saying to some of my fellow North Stand season-ticketholders: "They'd be found out if they defended like that against good teams."

And they were: Arsenal 4 Portsmouth 1; Portsmouth 1 Manchester United 4; Portsmouth 1 Arsenal 4; Manchester United 5 Portsmouth 0; Liverpool 4 Portsmouth 1 (now, that was an embarrassment); Portsmouth 0 Chelsea 5.

Not achievements to be proud of, although given that most of Pompey's defeats against lesser Premier League teams were generally by the odd goal, it at least serves to illustrate the growing gulf between the best half-dozen and the rest.

For, admirably as Pompey played for much of the season, the fact was that most sympathetic observers would add the corollary: "for such a poor team".

Given the awesome task facing first Paul Hart and then Avram Grant in trying to squeeze a vintage claret out of a bunch of largely tasteless grapes, it was perhaps surprising we didn't finish further behind the rest than we did - even allowing for the nine-point deduction.

But whichever way you look at it, that was not an adequate squad - in quality or quantity - for the Premier League. Few of those players, particularly the non-loanees would have got into Pompey's first team in any of our first half-dozen years in the top flight.

And while it was not surprising that performances should waver during such a season of turmoil, it was that inconsistency - often during the same match - that ultimately cost them.

Cult figure

Take David James. By his own high Pompey standards, his performances during the first six months of the season were nothing special, enjoying little cohesion with his defence and prone to the sort of aberration that made so many Pompey fans doubt the wisdom of his signing before seeing the real Jamo perform week in, week out.

As it happens, his last two months were outstanding, coinciding with our great cup run and building up to a nice crescendo in time for the World Cup, where on current form he thoroughly deserves to be England's first-choice 'keeper.

Take Aaron Mokoena. The man who will arguably have more chance of performing at next month's World Cup than James did nothing to allay the fears of Pompey fans from August to February, only to turn into a hero and cult figure in those final few weeks.

His two Wembley performances were surely his best for the club and have certainly made me reassess my own view of him.

But would he have got into a team containing Campbell, Distin, De Zeuuw, Primus or Stefanovic?

Steve Finnan, too, I thought, got by on reputation during his injury-hit early days at the club. And while his lack of pace now make him a target for speedy wingers, he, too, gave me food for thought in the latter stages of the season.

Conversely, Kevin-Prince Boateng impressed me from day one, only to fade miserably around Christmas time, when he suddenly appeared as if he considered himself bigger than the team.

His return from a rather lengthy spell in Germany (not sure he'll be spending quite so much time there in the future!) coincided with a resurgence in form and an improvement in attitude… just in time for the FA Cup final and a late entry into Ghana's World Cup squad, not to mention an inevitable transfer, most probably to a middling Premier League team.

Similar cases can be made for most of the other 30 or so players who have worn a Pompey shirt this season: good at times; unable to maintain that level for much of the rest.

And while I know only the very best tend to perform well throughout the entire season, that inconsistency throughout the team meant Hart and Grant were faced with phenomenal challenges just second-guessing who might be in form by Saturday - on those occasions when they had the luxury of more than a dozen or so first-teamers to choose from.

The roller-coaster season helped me appreciate what it was that made 2006/7 and 2007/8 so good: it wasn't just the quality of personnel that we had, but the fact that so many of them could be relied on to perform well in the same game.

When only two or three are off form, quality players can often carry them through.

When only two or three are in form - and most of the rest are hardly top of the class - weaknesses are going to be ruthlessly exploited. And that, in my opinion, is why mediocre teams like Stoke and Birmingham grabbed wins at Fratton Park, and why Pompey came away winless from places like Hull, Blackburn, Stoke (again), Sunderland, West Ham, Fulham, Wigan and Bolton.

Unfortunately, we won't even have the chance to play the bulk of these teams next season, let alone Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea.

At the moment, I'd just settle for the chance to watch Pompey fulfil a season in the Championship - preferably with Grant at the helm and a team containing a core of those battling players who made this past season of turmoil so palatable.