My favourite season of the year has arrived: the football season.
Firstly, to those of you who know me personally, I’m sorry to bring it up again. To those of you who despise football, I’m sorry to mention it. To those who love football, enjoy this post.
My love of football began as a young child when my Dad encouraged me to follow it. My Dad is a Geordie and therefore I was made into a Newcastle United supporter. Of course this was in the good days of Alan Shearer!
Then as I went through school, I got interested in Portsmouth FC. Being in a school in the Portsmouth area, a majority of my classmates and their families were Portsmouth fans. As I begun to follow them, I loved their passion, loyalty and the fans atmosphere.
Now 15+ years on, I’m a Pompey fan til’ I die and Blue Army through and through. Yes we have had hardship through relegations, administrations and even nearly liquidation. However we pulled through and making our way back up and beyond.
Ironically in all my time of being a loyal football fan, my Dad has stopped following it and is now religious about rugby…egghh! None of my other friends and family like it and I’ve only attended 4 games – Alan Knight’s testimonial, a friendly with Inter Milan at Fratton Park, FA Cup Final 2010 at Wembley and a Bournemouth friendly at Dean Court.
So you’re probably thinking how can I call myself a loyal Pompey fan if I don’t attend games or have friends and family to support the team with me?
Well the biggest issue I have is accessibility. Fratton Park is over 100 years old and there are not enough wheelchair access seating to fit capacity. In addition, my eye sight is so poor, I could only see about a quarter of the pitch. To resolve this, they need to expand the number of disabled seats in the stadium. Plus could they have an audio commentary system so blind people can follow the game in full. Even if they could sync the commentary from the online ifollow service that would be perfect. (Micheal Eisner, if you’re reading this, please add this to your expansion plans).
Another issue I have is I require someone to accompany me and where I don’t know any carers that are football fans, it would be difficult to have them attend a football match. If I could make a friend or find a carer who is a Pompey fan that would be fantastic.
At present, I purely rely on the radio commentary on ifollow and video highlights on the Portsmouth FC app.
This does not mean I’m a true Pompey fan. My pet hate is when someone says they like football but don’t listen or watch a game, don’t know who the manager or players are and don’t know their fixtures or results.
I make sure to listen to every game, watch the highlights, listen to pre & post match news and read club news online. I may not attend games at the moment but I’m definitely a Pompey fan!
My thoughts for this season is a realistic target of reaching the play offs but a dream target of automatic promotion. PLAY UP POMPEY!!!
