Headed down to Portsmouth for the annual trip to Fratton Park and a reunion with some old friends.Met up with Matt, Alan and Chris in the Weatherspoons on Fratton High Street and learnt that our old post match drinking haunt has been closed for a few months now. Since my last visit to Fratton Park in 2008, the club has gone from FA Cup winners to near bankruptcy and relegation was realistically confirmed as the club were docked 9 points midweek for going into administration.
We sat in the old Milton end, sharing the stand with the Hull fans who had travelled down to Portsmouth hoping to see their team's first away win of the season. Looking around the ground with ten minutes to kick off and it looked halfempty but I had forgotten about the 2.55 rush as people head out of the pubs at the last moment. By kick off the ground looked fairly full and most of the support were interested to see new Hull manager Ian Dowie in the dugout - always a figure of derision at Fratton Park for his connections with the team up the road!
Pompey have had some selection problems this season but it was good to see David James back in goal after injury and a strong line up. I was hoping to see Altidore line up for the Tigers but it turned out that he was injured.
The first clear opportunity fell to Hull in the 4th minute. A cross by Kilbane into the area saw Vennegoor of Hesselink (not a name you'd see in the Wessex League!) head the ball across James. It looked to be going in and Folan started to celebrate, only to see the ball come back from the post. If he hadn't started to celebrate he would have been ideally placed to dink the ball into the net - an early let off for Portsmouth.
Pompey were restricted to a few long shots but didn't create much in the final third. In the 27th minute Hull won a corner when a Bullard shot was deflected wide. Bullard's corner was poor and easily headed out of the area, only for Fagan to hit a strong low show into the area for Folan to get the slightest of touches with a backheel and put the ball past James. Portmouth pulled back an equaliser ten minutes later from a corner just in front of us. The ball was played high into the area and Piquionne leapt high above the defence only to miss the ball with his head. The ball bounced off a Hull defender and straight into the path of Smith who tapped it in.
A draw seemed a fair reflection of the first half and the second half continued in the same vein. Portsmouth had a lot of play in the midfield but weren't able to convert the possession into chances. Hull made a substitution and brought on Garcia for Vennegoor of Hesselink which paid dividends three minutes later. Garcia played a throughball that deflected off the referee and so prevented the Pompey defence from clearing the ball. Folan ran through and brought James out of his goal before slipping the ball past him for his second goal.
The Hull fans were celebrating wildly and were soon pointing out that Pompey must be bad if they were losing at home to Hull with their away record. Their luck ran out in the 88th minute. O'Hara lined up a freekick on the edge of the area and Alan turned to me to say he felt confident of a goal and a draw after a couple of earlier attempts had been close. I disagreed as I thought he would score and Pompey would go onto win the game. We were both right on the first point. O'Hara bent the ball around the wall and put the ball into the top corner to make it 2.2
This goal lifted Pompey and they pressed for an equaliser into injury time. Belhadj went storming down the left wing to try and get onto a through pass. The defender beat him to the ball and tried to play a shortpass to a team mate, only to see Belhadj continue his run and intercept the pass. Both players were caught out by this and Belhadj took the ball to the line before playing a low cross between two other defenders who were sliding into try and win the ball. It fell perfectly for Kanu who was unmarked on the 6 yard line and he carefully sidefooted the ball through a crowd of players on the line and in. Alan grabbed me and leapt around - he couldn't believe my prediction was right and to be honest, neither could I! The late winner was a great way to end the game and we headed off to join up with some friends in the bars of Southsea.
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