The Lost Generations

Last updated : 02 September 2010 By Jim Bonner

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

I've been catching up with a few of my Pompey-supporting friends and relatives over the past week or so, and the usual topics of conversation have cropped up.

Been over the Park lately? What do you think of the squad? Prospects for this season?

They must have been some of the briefest conversations I've ever had about our home city's professional football club: answers generally along the lines of no, not much and pretty gloomy respectively.

And they caught me a bit by surprise.

I'm used to bemoaning our prospects in recent years - but I don't do it indiscriminately. I always justify my views with my thoughts on the team, the club's finances and the personnel in charge.

But for all my pessimism, I'm still devoted to the club for some reason, and I adjust my expectation according to the prevailing circumstances at the time.

That's why I actually enjoyed most of last season, despite the outcomes on and off the field while one of my nearest and dearest described it as the worst of his life.

That's why I forked out for a season ticket again, this time for Championship football, despite the growing hardship of no longer working full-time, while an ageing uncle and most of my cousins have long given up on a 100-plus-mile round-trek to watch them live.

Yet while my answer to the second and third questions above is pretty similar to those of most of my mates, I'm finding myself increasingly isolated - literally - on question one.

I've been to both home league games and the Carling Cup match against Crystal Palace this season. And at times it's been a real endurance test. I was tempted to walk out at half-time on that Tuesday night (though I'm glad I didn't).

The season-ticket holders on either side of me and in front have disappeared (although I suspect a couple have moved to another part of the ground), and the lovely family behind me are picking and choosing their games.

Against Palace, I sat in a row that contained only two other people; there was no one in the row directly in front of me and hardly anyone in the one right behind me.

I had to run the length of the North Stand to create an atmosphere!

Journeymen

I suppose this doesn't come as too much of a surprise when you consider the current economic climate, the cost of watching live football, and the Premier League alternatives available in television packages.

But it has served to remind me just how far Pompey have fallen in the past few years.

I first occupied my current seat in the North Stand when Pompey were in the same division as they are now. They had just finished a couple of spots off the relegation places and had the odd cracking player and a squad of largely journeymen.

Yet I never felt as isolated up in that stand. I don't remember crowds so sparse - particularly not for a first home game of the season.

Maybe attendances will pick up as the season unfolds, or maybe if Pompey start winning. Or maybe if they start playing decent football.

Or maybe they won't.

For it is true that there is little to lure those stay-away fans - even those claiming they're glad we're no longer in that nasty Premier League - or to offer them hope for the future.

I'm sure my friends and cousins love Pompey as much as I do, but we've all got competing interests in our lives.

It appears to be none of the current crop of management's fault, but Pompey have no realistic prospects at the moment.

The squad is painfully inadequate, in terms of quality and quantity, and a couple of injuries or suspensions will leave us finding it hard even to field a team, let alone compete effectively.

It seems my friends and family have decided those are reasons enough to give other aspects of their lives higher priority - and who can blame them?

It's been a torrid couple of years at Fratton, and as I write, we're still technically in administration and without a new owner.

I sincerely hope these situations are sorted out soon, although both will be too late to have a positive impact on our playing prospects for the next few months at least.

But at least we still have a club to moan about.

Ironically, most of my mates are not really moaning. Like me, they are largely resigned to the club's situation (though maybe a little more surprised by the extent of it than I have been).

But it's going to take an awful lot of hard work by those lucky enough still to be at the club to lure them back again.