Accrington Web - 2018/19 Prediction League; Game 16 v Portsmouth (home)

Accrington Stanley

Portsmouth FC

2018/19 Prediction League; Game 13 v Portsmouth (home)

Ok people; get real ............... we got stuffed, we dust ourselves down, we move on; we’re still fourth, and we’re the Stanley! And I’d sooner be us than be Bratfud (P15 W3 D1 L11, including the last four) in 24th, or the Wombles (P15 W3 D2 L10, including the last five), or the Iron, who’ve plummeted from W4 D5 L2 to W4 D5 L6 ............... Current FormDogs are Luton (won 4 of 5) and Coventry (ditto); the only three sides with but one defeat each are still Pompeii, BlackMoggies Inc and Oyston DisUnited FC; and only three of 24 teams in the Division have won more than half their games – Portsmouth, the PoshBrickies and Blunderland ........

Why “Pompey”, you may ask? Multifarious explanations, mostly tosh; named after HMS Pompee, surrendered by the French (“cheese-eating surrend... – oh no, I did that joke a couple of weeks back) in the very late 18th Century; a grammatical contraction of the old location Portsmouth Point to “Po’m.P.”; most likely is the one that suggests that they inherited it (plus some players, fans, and the “Town Hall Chimes” (later on, the “Pompey Chimes”) when the Portsmouth-based British Army team “Royal Artillery (Portsmouth) FC” folded around the turn of the 19th/20th Century, having been disqualified from an FA Amateur Cup match for ‘professionalism’; Portsmouth FC had formed just before, played then in the Southern League, and wore salmon-pink shirts with maroon collars and cuffs, white shorts and black socks (nice! :D), giving rise to their being known, briefly, as “The Shrimps” .................. Well you did ask ...................

Pompey and Wolves are the only two sides to have been champions in five divisions of English Football – Division One/Premiership (1949 & 1950); tier two – 2003; tier three (1962 and 1983), Tier Four (2017), and the Third Division (South) (1924); this week’s starter for ten, then; five teams have won all four tiers of current (English) professional football .......... Wolves, Pompey, the Blades ............ and who else?

They won the FA Cup in 2008, and lost the final in 2010; they were in the Premiership between 2003 and 2010; then the wheels came off – well, the wheels, the doors, the bonnet and the roof, rather like a ClownCar – and they were relegated three times between 2010 and 2013 ............. they have the finances to be leagues higher than they are, as do Sunderland, Bradford and several others; they won League Two in 2017 under Paul Cook, who then mysteriously morphed into Kenny Jackett, nicking it on GD on the final day; last season they finished 8th in League One (P46 W20 D6 L20 GF57 GA56) on 66 points, sandwiched between Plymouth and Peterborough (remember, the “p” is silent, as in ......?) ......... Over the summer they released four, most notably Kal Naismith, who followed Paul Cook (again) to Wigan, and striker Nicke Kabamba (now with Havant and Waterlooville), gave Christian Oxlade-Chamberlain a free bus-pass to Notts County (from Lord Nelson to the Sheriff of Nottingham), and sold Conor Chaplin to Coventry City for a fee of £mindyourownbusiness, plus a bowler hat and a cane .......... eight signed up, including GK Craig McGillivray from the Shrews, RB Anthony Walkes from Spurs, DMF Tom Naylor from Burton, LB Lee Brown from BrizzleRov, LW Ronan Curtis from Derry City and CF Louis Dennis from Bromley ............ four loans – MFs David Wheeler from QPR and Ben Thompson from Millwall, winger Andre Green from Villa, and Irish CF Joe Mason from Wolves .....................

Currently they’re sitting on a record of P15 W10 D4 L1 GF26 GA13 for 34 points, and top place in the League; the top seven have all scored between 24 (Donnie) and 31 (Posh) except for us; we’ve only managed 19, which – long term – is potentially problematic, especially for those of us who week-on--week predict wins by three or four-nil ............ they’ve beaten Luton, Plymouth, Posh, Coventry, Blackpool, Oxford, Brizzle, Rochdale, Wimbledon and Fleetwood, drawn with Donnie, Shrewsbury, Wycombe and Burton (the last three at home) and lost to Gillingham 2-0, also at home ....... home record is W4 D3 L1 GF14 GA8, and away – a tad like Luton – it’s W6 D1 L0 GF12 GA5 .............. they’ve kept five clean sheets, and failed to trouble the scorers twice .............. only three sides – Wycombe, Gillingham and Burton – have put two past them (if you manage that, you get at least a point!) ................ Top scorers are Ronan Curtis (see “Derry” above) and Jamal Lowe, with 6 each, and Oliver Hawkins with 4

Their record victory in the League was 9-1 against Notts County in 1927, and the record loss is 10-0 to Leicester 18 months later ......... they won 7-4 against Reading in 2007 (shades of us v Gillingham); Jimmy Dickinson played 834 games at Fratton Park (well, some of them were probably away games) in a career from 1946 to 1965; Guy Whittingham (remember him?) hit 42 goals in season 1992/93; and they received £18 million from Real Madrid – whose manager’s head must surely be about to roll – for Lassana Diarra ...... Second starter for ten; name the striker who Pompey bought from QPR in 2001 for £1.5 million, and then bought again from Liverpool for a reported £11 million in 2008 (making a loss of £1 million when the sold him to Spurs 12 months later), making him their record signing for the second time?

Deadline for entries is, as always, scheduled kick-off time, which is 3.00pm on Saturday 26th October .......... Famous managers there include Ron Tindall, Ian St John, Alan Ball (twice), Steve Claridge (currently with Salisbury Novochok FC) – who lasted 4 months, Harry Knapsack (think ‘dog with its own bank account’) – twice – Graham Rix and Tony Adams .......... They’re definitely in a good place at the moment (although the Wombles beat them in the 1st Round of the EFL Cup and they’ve drawn Chipenham or Maidenhead (away) in the FA Cup); head-to-head is three wins to them (1-0 at home in 2013/14, 2-0 last time out, and 3-1 at ours in March 16), two to us (3-2 at theirs in December 2014 and 1-0 at home in September 16) and three draws – a Desmond, a half-Desmond and a goal-less Desmond, which clearly shows that if you score three, you’re going to win ........... Aren’t we? And the other two sides to have won every League are Burnley and PNE ............. and Pompey’s Twice-signed record signing is one Peter James Crouch..................

Good luck to everyone! .......... Keep the Faith! ....... Don’t be a Lidl, be a Waitrose! ......... And thanks for playing!

:hothothot:hothothot:hothothot:hothothot:hothothot