Stevedore is back with another look at what is fact and what is fiction with regard to the increasingly desperate claims of the fans of the World's best supporterd Club.
One of the proudest boasts of the Blue Few is that they are the club with all the tradition and all the history, true they have won a couple of league Titles which we havent, but then again so have the likes of Burnley, Preston & Huddersfield and no one calls them sleeping giants, in order to put this all in context i think first we need a history lesson.
The Football League was formed in 1888, three years after Saints were formed and eleven before Portsmouth were formed, back then the FL was very much a northern competition, the most southerly clubs were in Birmingham at this stage Association Football or Soccer as it was widely called back then, was second to Rugby Union in the South.
The response from the major clubs starting to emerge in the South was the Southern League in 1894, although obviosly not as big and strong as its northern counterpart it was the league for the teams south of Birmingham and in effect as the decade wore on its teams became stronger and stronger, the only exceptions to the north south divide were Arsenal and Chelsea who were formed out of nowere to join the Football league with express exploiting the FL opportunities which due to the popularity of the game in the north was the stronger league, up until 1920 when the Football league expanded to take in Southern Clubs , these two and Bristol City were the only teams south of Birmingham in the FL
So the Southern Leaguie was a very strong league given that it contained just about every professional team south of the midlands, Saints won it first in 1896/97 and then for the next two seasons after, meaning that before Portsmouth Football Club had kicked a ball in competitive football, Saints had three Southern League titles to their name plus an FA Cup Semi final appearance to emphasise how strong both Saints and indeed the league was when compared to its northern counterparts,
As they formed the Club the Pompey directors visited the Newly opened Dell, quite literally it was the blueprint of what they wanted to achieve, it was the best stadium south of Birmingham, so it was no surprise that when the first game was played at Fratton Park in September 1899, it was Saints that Pompey invited to come down and open the stadium, but this was not only done for local reasons, no, apart from Aston Villa the team of the moment or Sheffield United the FA Cup holders, there werent that many more attractive opponents in the country than Saints.
In 1899/00 the newly formed Pompey joined the league, ironically replacing Portsmouth Royal Artillery who seeing the formation of a professional club in the town decided to drop out of the Southern League rather than relinquish their amateur status, the newly formed Pompey were seen as a fabricated club, a johnny come lately to the football scene, formed only to make money out of the newly legalised professionalism, splashing out for the ex Spurs manager and gettiing in the best players, taking a financial risk at this point as they had no supporters, that crowds would flock to their new purpose built ground at Fratton they were not a traditional club who had paid their dues and built up their support, in modern terms they would be Milton Keynes Dons or Wigan.
In 1899/00 Spurs won the Southern League, but Saints got to the FA Cup final although they lost 4-0 to Bury, Pompey were learning that it wasnt as easy as buying your way to the top.
But if Pompey had thought they could buy their way to being the top club in Hampshire they were wrong, Saints won the league title again in 00/01, their fourth title success out of the seven years the league had been in operation, in 01/02 Pompey did win it but that was overshadowed by Saints second FA Cup final appearance in which sadly they lost again, this time in a replay to Sheffield United, but 02/03 & 03/04 saw the title back at the Dell, this perhaps saw the end of the first golden age for Saints, but by 1904 Saints had won the title six times out of the first ten seasons of the Southern League compared to Pompey's solitary effort, at this time Saints were considered the top club South of Birmingham, although Arsenal were in the Football League they were still playing in Woolwich and struggling for money and crowds, Spurs would stay in the Southern League but could not match Saints acheivments and although the period between 1904 and the first world war would not be prolific for Saints, especially as the Southern League grew stronger as clubs like West Ham joined, Pompey would do no better.
So those Portsmouth fans that tell you that Pompey are the club with all the history and Saints are jumped up upstarts, clearly dont understand the demographics of the formation and early years of both the Football and Southern Leagues, yes Pompey would enjoy all their success in a thirty five year period between 1925 - 1960 when they would mostly be in a division higher than Saints, they do not have the rich heritage that Saints have from those Victorian days of when the Southern League was the title to win for any club in the South and Saints were the Old Invincibles equivalent of Preston North End in the Northern Counterpart
Pompey have only 114 years of history compared to Saints 127 and in those 114 years in which the two clubs have been rivals, Pompey have only finished above Saints on 43 occasions, yes Pompey do have those modern day League Championships to their name, but when they claim to be this great club with rich history and a sleeping giant etc, they would do well to look at Burnley Preston & Huddersfield , all clubs with a far richer history than Portsmouth and with a similar level of support as Pompey, would any right minded football supporter consider anyone of these clubs to be massive and a sleeping gian just waiting to be awakened ? I think even Pompey fans know the answer to that one, the only difference between those clubs and Pompey, apart from the fact they have all won more, is that their fans dont go around telling anyone and everyone that they are the greatest fans in the world anf hope that if they shout it loud enough to enough people then people will start to believe it.
Fair play to Pompey for winning a couple of titles in the 50's, the nature of football is probably that we will never get a chance to equal that, but Pompey fans should not confuse winning a couple of things sixty years ago with having a rich history, for most of their existence Pompey have been second fiddle to Saints, a club that was at the time Pompey were formed considered one of the top clubs in the country whilst Pompey and its directors were considered as opportunists jumping on the football bandwagon