Appeal to Pompey fans

Saturday, 04/02/2012

Calling all Pompey fans: Pack the Park.

With the club facing its darkest hour, among many over the years, Portsmouth Supporters Trust is calling on fans to Pack the Park for the home game against Hull City on Saturday.

Yes, the snow may fall (it would sum up the curse that hangs over the club if the match is called off), the club's accounts may be as frozen as a Serbian's bumbag, the squad may be down to the bare bones, and the future seem hopeless, but all these factors are out of our hands.

The only thing we can affect is the team's performance by packing Fratton Park and cheering on those players who wanted to stay at the club and try to inspire them to another three points.

After a fantastic result at Peterborough last week, Pompey face injury and illness worries over Jason Pearce, Tal Ben Haim, Aaron Mokoena and Joel Ward among others. Varney has been told to rest his troublesome knee for another week and Ryan Williams went to Fulham in a thankfully quiet transfer window, leaving the smallest squad in all four divisions cut to the quick.

The subs bench is bound to be manned by a number of the youth-team squad, players who the club's future will depend on if yet another new owner can't be found before February 20 winding-up order is heard in court. The Football League will stick the boot in as usual with yet another points deduction, so all in all, doom and gloom pervades.

The PST is working unbelievably hard on Plan B if the worst-case scenario comes to pass. It's not what anyone wants, but perhaps we should finally cast off the procession of owners and others who have brought this proud club to its knees, and start again.

PST thinks only 14,000 tickets have been sold for the Hull game. We could do with 20,000 - all money to the club but, more importantly, to show prospective new owners what a great, loyal group of fans the club has, the potential that exists at Fratton and, even more, to stick two fingers up to all those who have cast stones and kicked us when we were down.

All we can do is sing: "You are my Portsmouth, my only Portsmouth. You make me happy, when skies are grey. You never know just, how much I love you, until you take my Portsmouth away."

Pack the Park! To sign up for Pompey's 12th Man initiative, visit http://www.pompeys12thman.co.uk/

* Martin Cooper is a member of the Portsmouth Football Supporters Club London. To join, visit http://www.pompeylondon.co.uk or email londonpompeymembership@hotmail.co.uk The views expressed in this blog are purely the author’s and not those of the Supporters Club.

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